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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13307-0.txt b/13307-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36db5e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/13307-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11510 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13307 *** + +SCATTERGOOD BAINES + +By +CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND + +Author of +"_The High Flyers_," "_The Little Moment of Happiness_," +"_Sudden Jim_," "_Youth Challenges_," etc. + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. +I. HE INVADES COLDRIVER +II. SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST +III. THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD +IV. HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING +V. HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS +VI. INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE +VII. HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER +VIII. HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON +IX. HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP +X. HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK +XI. HE INVESTS IN SALVATION +XII. THE SON THAT WAS DEAD +XIII. HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT +XIV. HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE + + + +CHAPTER I + +HE INVADES COLDRIVER + + +The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner +of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear +past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the +grocery--he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat. + +It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the +railroad, subsisting on the country, as it were, and sagged down on the +porch of Locker's grocery just before sundown. It is not implied that he +walked all of the twenty-four miles in that single day. Huge bodies move +deliberately. + +He sagged down on Locker's porch, and it is reported the corner of the +porch sagged with him. George Peddie has it from his grandfather, who +was an eyewitness, that Scattergood did not so much as turn his head to +look at the assembled manhood of the vicinity, but with infinite pains +and audible grunts, succeeded in bringing first one foot, then the +other, within reach of his hands, and removed his shoes. Following this +he sighed with a great contentment and twiddled his bare toes openly and +flagrantly in the eyes of all Coldriver. He is said now to have uttered +the first words to fall from his mouth in the town where were to lie his +life's unfoldings and fulfillments. They were significant--in the light +of subsequent activities. + +"One of them railroads runnin' up here," said he to the mountain just +across the road from him, "would have spared me close to a dozen +blisters." + +Conversation had expired on Scattergood's arrival, and the group on the +porch converted itself into an audience. It was an audience that got its +money's worth. Not for an instant did the attention of a single member +of it stray away from this Godsend come to furnish them with their first +real topic of conversation since Crazy French stole a box of Paris +green, mistaking it for a new sort of pancake flour. + +Scattergood arose ponderously and limped out into the middle of the +dusty road. From this vantage point he slowly and conscientiously +studied the village. + +"Uh-huh!" he said. "'Twouldn't pay to do all that walkin' just for a +visit. Calc'late I'll have to settle." + +He walked directly back to the absorbed group of leading citizens, his +shoes dangling, one in each hand, and addressed them genially. + +"Your town," said he, "is growin'. Its population jest increased by me." + +"Sizable growth," said Old Man Penny, dryly, letting his eye rove over +Scattergood's bulk. + +"My line," said Scattergood, "is anythin' needful. Outside of a +railroad, what you figger you need most?" + +Nobody answered. + +"Is it a grocery store?" asked Scattergood. + +Locker stiffened in his chair. "Me and Sam Kittleman calc'lates to sell +all the groceries this town needs," he said. + +"How about dry goods?" said Scattergood. + +Old Man Penny and Wade Lumley stirred to life at this. + +"Lumley and me takes care of the dry goods," said the old man. + +"Uh-huh! How about a clothin' store?" + +"We got all the clothin' stores there's room for," said Lafe Atwell. "I +run it." + +"Kind of got the business of this town sewed up, hain't you?" +Scattergood asked, admiringly. "Wouldn't look with favor on any more +stores?" + +"We calculate to keep what business we got," said Old Man Penny. "A +outsider would have a hard time makin' a go of it here." + +"Quite likely," said Scattergood. "Still, you never can tell. Let some +feller come in here with a gen'ral store, sellin' for cash--and cuttin' +prices, eh? How would an outsider git along if he done that? Up-to-date +store. Fresh goods. Low prices. Eh? Calc'late some of you fellers would +have to discharge a clerk." + +"You hain't got money enough to start a store," Old Man Penny squawked. +"Why, you hain't even got a satchel! You come walkin' in like a tramp." + +"There's tramps--and tramps," said Scattergood, placidly. He reached far +down into a trousers pocket and tugged to the light of day a roll that +his fingers could not encircle. He looked at it fondly, tossed it up in +the air a couple of times and caught it, and then held it between thumb +and forefinger until the eyes of his audience had assured themselves +that the outside bill was yellow and its denomination twenty dollars.... +The audience gulped. + +"Meals to the tavern perty good?" Coldriver's new citizen asked. + +"Say," demanded Locker, "be you really thinkin' about startin' a cash +store here?" + +"Neighbor," said Scattergood, "never give up valuable information +without gittin' somethin' for it. How much money would a complete and +careful account of my intentions be worth to you?" + +Locker snorted. "Bet that wad of bills is a dummy with a counterfeit +twenty outside of it," he said. + +Scattergood smiled tantalizingly. Locker had not, fortunately for +Scattergood, the least idea how close to the truth he had been. On one +point only had he been mistaken. The twenty outside was _not_ +counterfeit. However, except for three fives, four twos, and ninety +cents in silver, it represented Scattergood's total cash capital. + +"I'm goin'," said Scattergood, "to order me _two_ suppers. Two! From +bean soup to apple pie. It's my birthday. Twenty-six to-day, and I +always eat two suppers on my birthdays.... Glad you leadin' citizens see +fit to give me such a hearty welcome to your town. Right kind and +generous of you." + +He turned and ambled down the road toward the tavern, planting his bare +feet with evident pleasure in the deepest of the warm sand, and flirting +up little clouds of it behind him. The audience saw him seat himself on +the tavern steps and pull on his shoes. They were too far to hear him +say speculatively to himself: "I never heard tell of a man gittin' a +start in life jest that way--but _that_ hain't any reason it can't be +done. I'm goin' to do this town good, and this valley. Hain't no more 'n +fair them leadin' citizens should give me what help they feel they kin." + +Scattergood ate with ease and pleasure two complete suppers--to the +openly expressed admiration of Emma, the waitress. Very shortly +afterward he retired to his room, where, not trusting to the sturdiness +of the bed-slats provided, he dragged mattress and bedding to the floor +and was soon emitting snores that Landlord Coombs assured his wife was +the beat of anybody ever slept in the house not countin' that travelin' +man from Boston. Next morning Scattergood was about early, padding +slowly up and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was +studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had +been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for +purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in +Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a +permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really +was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and after reflection. + +True, he had but a moment's glimpse of Coldriver before he decided he +had moved there, but the glimpse showed him the location was the one he +had been searching for.... Scattergood's specialty, his hobby, was +valleys. Valleys down which splashed and roared sizable streams, whose +mountain sides were covered with timber, and whose flats were +comfortable farms--such valleys interested him with an especial +interest. But the valley he had been looking for was one with but a +single possible _outlet_. He wanted a valley whose timber and produce +and products could not go climbing off across the hills, over a number +of easy roads, to market. His valley must be hemmed in. The only way to +market must lie _down_ the valley, with the river. And the river that +flowed down his valley must be swift, with sufficient volume all twelve +months of the year to turn possible mill wheels.... As yet he thought +only of the direct application of power. He had not dreamed yet of great +turbine generators which should transport thousands of horse power, +written in terms of electricity, hundreds of miles across country, there +to light cities and turn the wheels of huge manufactories.... + +Coldriver Valley was that valley! He felt it as soon as he turned into +it; certainty increased as he progressed between those gigantic walls +black with tall, straight, beautiful spruce. So, when he sat shoeless, +resting his blistered feet on Locker's porch, he was ready to make his +decision. The mere making of it was a negligible detail. + +So Scattergood Baines found his valley. He entered it consciously as an +invader, determined to conquer. Pitiful as were the resources of Cortez +as he adventured against the power of Montezuma, or of Pizarro as he +clambered over the Peruvian Andes, they were gigantic compared with +Scattergood's. He was starting to make _his_ conquest backed by one +twenty, three fives, four twos, and ninety cents in silver. It was +obvious to him the country to be conquered must supply the sinews of war +for its own conquest. + +Every village has its ramshackle, disused store building. Coldriver had +one, especially well located, and not so ramshackle as it might have +been. It was big; its front was crossed by a broad porch; its show +windows were not show windows at all, but were put there solely to give +light. Coldriver did not know there was such a thing as inviting +patronage by skillful display. + +"Sonny," said Scattergood to a boy digging worms in the shade of the +building, "who owns this here ruin?" + +"Old Tom Plummer," said the boy, and was even able to disclose where old +Tom was to be found. Scattergood found him feeding a dozen White +Orpingtons. + +"Best layers a man can keep," said Scattergood, sincerely. "Man's got to +have brains to even raise chickens." + +"I git more eggs to the hen than anybody else in town," said old Tom, +"but nobody listens to me." + +"Own a store buildin' downtown, don't you?" + +"Calc'late to." + +"If you was to git a chance to rent it, how much would it be a month?" + +"Repairs or no repairs?" + +"No repairs." + +"Twenty dollars." + +"G'mornin'," said Scattergood, and turned toward the gate. + +"What's your hurry, mister?" + +"Can't bear to stay near a man that mentions so much money in a breath," +said Scattergood, with his most ingratiating grin. + +"How much could you stay and hear?" + +"Not over ten." + +"Huh!... Seein' the buildin's in poor shape, I'll call it fifteen." + +"Twelve-fifty's as far's I'll go--on a five-year lease," said +Scattergood. It will be seen he fully intended to become permanent. + +"What you figger on usin' it fur?" + +"Maybe a opry house, maybe a dime museum, maybe a carpenter shop, and +maybe somethin' else. I hain't mentionin' jest what, but it's +law-abidin' and respectable." + +"Five-year lease, eh? Twelve-fifty." + +"Two months' rent in advance," said Scattergood. + +"Squire Hastings'll draw the papers," said old Tom, heading for the +gate. Scattergood followed, and in half an hour was the lessee of a +store building, bound to pay rent for five years, with more than half +his capital vanished--with no stock of goods or wherewith to procure +one, with not even a day's experience in any sort of merchandising to +his credit. + +His next step was to buy ten yards of white cloth, a small paint brush, +and a can of paint. Ostentatiously he borrowed a stepladder and +stretched the cloth across the front of his store, from post to post. +Then, equally ostentatiously, he mounted the stepladder and began to +paint a sign. He was not unskilled in the business of lettering. The +sign, when completed, read: + + CASH AND CUT PRICES IS MY MOTTO + +Having completed this, he bought a pail, a mop, and a broom, and +proceeded to a thorough housecleaning of his premises. + +Old Man Penny and Locker and the rest of the merchants were far from +oblivious to Scattergood's movements. No sooner had his sign appeared +than every merchant in town--excepting Junkin, the druggist, who sold +wall paper and farm machinery as side lines--went into executive session +in the back room of Locker's store. + +"He means business," said Locker. + +"Leased that store for five year," said Old Man Penny. + +"Cash, and Cut Prices," quoted Atwell, "and you fellers know our folks +would pass by their own brothers to save a penny. He'll force us to cut, +too." + +"Me--I won't do it," asserted Kettleman. + +"Then you'll eat your stock," growled Locker. + +"Fellers," said Atwell, "if this man gits started it's goin' to cost all +of us money. He'll draw some trade, even if he don't cut prices. Safe to +figger he'll git a sixth of it. And a sixth of the business in this +region is a pretty fair livin'. If he goes slashin' right and left, +nobody kin tell how much trade he'll draw." + +"We should 'a' leased that store between us. Then nobody could 'a' come +in." + +"But we didn't. And it's goin' to cost us money. If he puts in clothing +it'll cost me five hundred dollars a year in profits, anyhow. Maybe +more. And you other fellers clost to as much." + +"But we can't do nothin'." + +"We can buy him off," said Atwell. + +The meeting at that moment became noisy. Epithets were applied with +freedom to Scattergood, and even to Atwell, for these were not men who +loved to part with their money. However, Atwell showed them the economy +of it. It was either for them to suffer one sharp pang now, or to endure +a greater dragging misery. They went in a body to call upon Scattergood. + +"Howdy, neighbors!" Scattergood said, genially. + +"We're the merchants of this town," said Old Man Penny, shortly. + +"So I judged," said Scattergood. + +"There's merchants enough here," the old man roared on. "Too many. We +don't want any more. We don't want you should start up any business +here." + +"You're too late. It's started. I've leased these premises." + +"But you hain't no stock in." + +"I calc'late on havin' one shortly," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in +his eye, whose meaning was kindly concealed from the five. + +"What'll you take not to order any stock?" asked Atwell, abruptly. + +"Figger on buyin' me off, eh? Now, neighbors, I've been lookin' for a +place like this, and I calc'late on stayin'. I'm goin' to become +all-fired permanent here." + +"Give you a hundred dollars," said Old Man Penny. + +"Apiece?" asked Scattergood, and laughed jovially. "It's my busy day, +neighbors. Better call in again." + +"What's your figger to pull out now--'fore you're started?" + +"Hain't got no figger, but if I had I calc'late it would be about a +thousand dollars." + +"Give you two hundred," said Old Man Penny. + +Scattergood picked up his mop. "If you fellers really mean business, +talk business. I've figgered my profits in this store, countin' in low +prices, wouldn't be a cent under a couple of thousand the first +year.... And you know it. That's what you're fussin' around here for. +Now fish or git to bait cuttin'." + +"Five hundred dollars," said Atwell, and Old Man Penny moaned. + +"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "You men git back here inside +of an hour with seven hundred and fifty _cash_, and lay it in my hand, +and I'll agree not to sell groceries, dry goods, notions, millinery, or +men or women's clothes in this town for a term of twenty year." + +They drew off and scolded one another, and glowered at Scattergood, but +came to scratch. "It's jest like robbery," said Old Man Penny, +tremulously. + +"Keep your money," retorted Scattergood. "I'm satisfied the way things +is at present." + +Within the hour they were back with seven hundred and fifty dollars in +bills, a lawyer, and an agreement, which Scattergood read with minute +attention. It bound him not to sell, barter, trade, exchange, deal, or +in any way to derive a profit from the handling of groceries, dry goods, +notions, millinery, clothing, and gent's furnishings. It contained no +hidden pitfalls, and Scattergood was satisfied. He signed his name and +thrust the roll of bills into his pocket.... Then he picked up his mop +and went to work as hard as ever. + +"Say," Old Man Penny said, "what you goin' ahead for? You jest agreed +not to." + +"There wasn't nothin' said about moppin'," grinned Scattergood, "and +there wasn't nothin' said about hardware and harness and farm +implements, neither. If you don't b'lieve me, jest read the agreement. +What I'm doin', neighbors, is git this place cleaned out to put in the +finest cash, cut-price, up-to-date hardware store in the state. And +thank you, neighbors. You've done right kindly by a stranger...." + +To this point the history of Scattergood Baines has been for the most +part legendary; now we begin to encounter him in the public records, for +deeds, mortgages, and the like begin to appear with his name upon them. +His history becomes authentic. + +Seven hundred and fifty dollars is not much when put into hardware, but +Scattergood had no intention of putting even that into a stock of goods. +He had a notion that the right kind of man, with five hundred dollars, +could get credit to twice that amount, and as for farm machinery, he +could sell by catalogue or on commission. His suspicion was proven to be +fact. + +But it was not in Scattergood to sit idle while he waited for his stock +to arrive. Coldriver doubtless thought him idle, but he was studying the +locality and the river with the eye of a commander who knew this was to +be his battlefield. What Scattergood wanted now was to place himself +astride Coldriver Valley, somewhere below the village, so that he could +control the upper reaches of the stream. It was not difficult to find +such a location. It lay three miles below town, at the junction of the +north and south branches of Coldriver. The juncture was in a big, +marshy, untillable flat, from which hills rose abruptly. From the +easterly end of the flat the augmented river squeezed in a roaring +rapids through a sort of bottle neck. + +Scattergood stood on the hillside and looked upon this with satisfied +eye. + +"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that +flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy, +maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build. +And," he scratched his head as a sort of congratulation to it for its +efficiency, "I can't study out how anybody's agoin' to git logs past +here without dickerin' with the man who owns the dam...." Plenty of +water twelve months a year to give free power; a flat made to order for +reservoir or log pond; a complete and effective blockade of both +branches of the river which came down from a country richly timbered! It +was one of the spots Scattergood had dreamed of. + +Scattergood knew perfectly well he could not stop a log from passing his +dam. Nor could he shut off the stream. Any dam he built must have a +sluice which could be opened for the passage of timber, and all timber +was entitled to "natural water." But, as he well knew, "natural water" +was not always enough. A dam at this point would raise the level on the +bars of the flat so that logs would not jam, and a log which used the +high water caused by the dam must pay for it. What Scattergood had in +mind was a dam and boom company. It was his project to improve the +river, to boom backwaters, to dynamite ledges, to make the river +passable to logs in spring and fall. It was his idea that such a +company, in addition to demanding pay for the use of "improvements," +could contract with lumbermen up the river to drive their logs.... And a +mill at this point! Scattergood fairly licked his lips as he thought of +the millions upon millions of feet of spruce to be sawed into lumber. + +The firm foundation that Scattergood's strategy rested upon was that +lumbering had not really started in the valley. The valley had not +opened up, but lay undeveloped, waiting to be stirred to life. +Scattergood's strength lay in that he could see ahead of to-day, and was +patient to wait for the developments that to-morrow must bring. To-day +his foresight could get for him what would be impossible to-morrow. If +he stepped softly he could obtain a charter from the state to develop +that river, which, when lumbering interests became actually engaged, +would be fought by them to the last penny.... And he felt in his bones +that day would not long be delayed. + +The land Scattergood required was owned by three individuals. All of it +was worthless--except to a man of vision--so, treading lightly, +Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not +direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to +sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the +river, he tried to sell the newest development in mowing machines, and +his manner of doing so was to hitch to the newly arrived machine, haul +it to Landers's meadow--where the owner was haying--drag it through +the gate, and unhitch. + +"Here," he said, "try this here machine. Won't cost you nothin' to try +it, and I'm curious to see if it works as good as they say." + +Landers was willing. It worked better. Landers regarded the machine +longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it. + +"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers. + +"Might afford a swap?" + +"Might. What you got in mind?" + +"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that +marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good +medder." + +Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to +you for this here mowin' machine." + +"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by +accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers. +Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something +like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the +hardware merchant of a machine. + +One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen +stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a +keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve +dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the +deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with +pitying scorn. + +Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to +the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was +often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of +this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the +legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a +state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard +of that charter they held their sides and roared. + +Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he +would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied +he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would +hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty +thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly +lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and +operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had +acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come +when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley. + +Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them +took train to Coldriver. + +Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling +hardware in his own way--and selling a good deal of it. His store had a +new front, his stock was augmented. It was his business to sell goods, +and he sold them. + +For instance, Lem Jones stopped and hitched his team before the store, +one chilly day. His horses he covered with old burlap, lacking blankets. +While Lem was buying groceries, Scattergood selected two excellent +blankets, carried them out, and put them on the horses. Then he went +back into the store to attend to other matters. Presently Lem came in. + +"Where'd them blankets come from?" he asked. + +"Hosses looked a mite chilly," said Scattergood, without interest, "so I +covered 'em." + +"Bleeged," said Lem. Then, awkwardly, "I calc'late I need a pair of +blankets, but I can't afford 'em this year. Wife's been sick--" + +"Sure," said Scattergood, "I know. If you want them blankets take 'em +along. Pay me when you kin.... Jest give me a sort of note for a +memorandum. Glad to accommodate you." + +So Scattergood marketed his blankets, taking in exchange a perfectly +good, interest-bearing note. Also, he made a friend, for Lem could not +be convinced but Scattergood had done him a notable favor. + +Scattergood now had money in the bank. No longer did he have to stretch +his credit for stock. He was established--and all in less than a year. +Hardware, it seemed, had been a commodity much needed in that locality, +yet no one had handled it in sufficient stock because of the +twenty-four-mile haul. That had been too costly. It cost Scattergood +just as much, but his customers paid for it.... The difference between +him and the other merchants was that he sold goods while they allowed +folks to buy. + +So, wisely, he kept on building up in a small way, while waiting for +bigger things to develop. And as he waited he studied the valley until +he could recite every inch of it, and he studied the future until he +knew what the future would require of that valley. He knew it before the +future knew it and before the valley knew it, and was laying his plans +to be ready with pails to catch the sap when others, taken by surprise, +would be running wildly about seeking for buckets. + +Then Crane and Keith arrived in Coldriver.... That day marked +Scattergood's emergence from the ranks of country merchants, though he +retained his hardware store to the last. That day marked distinctly +Scattergood's launching on a greater body of water. For forty years he +sailed it with varying success, meeting failures sometimes, scoring +victories; but interesting, characteristic in every phase--a genius in +his way and a man who never took the commonplace course when the unusual +was open to him. + +"I suppose you've looked this man Baines up," said Crane to Keith when +they met in the Coldriver tavern. + +"I know how much he weighs and how many teeth he's had filled," Keith +replied. + +"He ought not to be so difficult to handle. He hasn't capital enough to +put this company of his through and his business experience don't amount +to much." + +"For monkeying with our buzz saw," said Keith, "we ought to let him lose +a couple of fingers." + +"How's this for an idea, then?" Crane said, and for fifteen minutes he +outlined his theory of how best to eliminate Scattergood Baines from +being an obstruction to the free flowage of their schemes for Coldriver +Valley. + +"It's got others by the hundred, in one form or another," agreed Keith. +"This jayhawker'll welcome it with tears of joy." + +Whereupon they went gladly on their way to Scattergood's store, not as +enemies, but as business men who recognized his abilities and preferred +to have him with them from the start, that they might profit by his +canniness and energy, rather than to array themselves against him in an +effort to take away from him what he had obtained. + +Only by the exercise of notable will power could Crane keep his face +straight as he shook hands with ungainly Scattergood and saw with his +own eyes what a perfect bumpkin he had to deal with. + +"I suppose you thought we fellows would be sore," he said, genially. + +"Dunno's I thought about you at all," said Scattergood. "I was thinkin' +mainly about me." + +"Well, we're not. You caught us napping, of course. We should have +grabbed off that dam location long ago--but we weren't expecting +anybody to stray in with his eyes open--like yourself.... Of course your +property and charter aren't worth a great deal till we start lumbering." + +"Not to anybody but me," said Scattergood. + +"Well, we expect to begin operations in a year or so. We'll build a mill +on the railroad, and drive our logs down the river." + +"Givin' my company the drivin' contracts?" + +"Looks like we'd _have_ to--if you get in your dam and improvements. +But that'll take money. We've looked you up, of course, and we know you +haven't it--nor any backing.... That's why we've come to see you." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Goin' to drive 'way to the railroad, +eh? How if there was a mill right at my dam? Shorten your drive twenty +mile, wouldn't it, eh?" + +"Yes," said Keith, laughing at Scattergood's ignorance; "but how about +transportation from your mill to the railroad? We can't drive cut +lumber." + +"Course not," said Scattergood, "but this valley's goin' to open up. +It's startin'. There's only one way to open a valley, and that's to run +a railroad up it.... Narrow-gauge 'u'd do here. Carry mostly lumber, but +passengers, too." + +"Thinking of building one?" asked Crane, almost laughing in +Scattergood's face. + +"Thinkin' don't cost nobody anythin'," said Scattergood. "Ever take a +look at that charter of mine?" + +"No." + +"I'll let you read it over a bit. Maybe you'll git a idea from it." + +He extracted the parchment from his safe, and spread it before them. +"Kind of look careful along toward the end--in the tail feathers of it, +so to speak," he advised. + +They did so, and Crane looked up at the fat hardware man with eyes that +were not quite so contemptuous. "By George!" he said, "this thing's a +charter for a railroad down the valley, too." + +"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Dunno's the boys quite see what it was all +about, but they calculated to please me, so they put it through jest as +it stood. Mighty nice fellers up to the legislature." + +"Pretty far in the future," said Keith, "and mighty expensive." + +"Maybe not so far," said Scattergood, "and I could make a darn good +start narrow-gaugin' it with a hunderd thousand." + +"Which you've got handy for use," said Crane. + +"There _is_ that much money," said Scattergood, "and if there is, why, +it kin be got." + +"Let's get back to the river, now," said Keith. "If we're going to start +lumbering in a year, say, we've got to have the river in shape. Take +quite some time to get it cleared and dammed and boomed." + +"Six months," said Scattergood. + +"Cost a right smart pile." + +"The work I'm figgerin' on would come to about thirty-odd thousand." + +"Which you haven't got." + +"Somebody has," said Scattergood. + +"_We_ have," said Crane. "That's why we came to you--and with a +proposition. You've grabbed this thing off, but you can't hog it, +because you haven't the money to put it through. Our offer is this: You +put in your locations and your charter against our money. We'll finance +it. Your enterprise entitles you to control. We won't dispute that. You +can have fifty-one per cent of the stock for what you've contributed. We +take the rest for financing. We're known, and can get money." + +"How you figger to work it?" + +"We'll bond for forty thousand dollars. Keith and I can place the bonds. +That'll give us money to go ahead." + +Scattergood reached down and took off a huge shoe. Usually he thought +more accurately when his feet were unconfined. "That means we'd sort of +mortgage the whole thing, eh?" + +"That's the idea." + +"And if we didn't pay interest on the bonds, why, the fellers that had +'em could foreclose?" + +"But we needn't worry about that." + +"Not," said Scattergood, "if you fellers sign a contract with the dam +and boom company to give them the exclusive job of drivin' all your +timber at, say, sixty cents a thousand feet of logs. And if you'd stick +a clause in that contract that you'd begin cuttin' within twelve months +from date." + +"Sure we'd do that," said Keith. "To our advantage as much as to yours." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood. + +"It's a deal, then?" + +"Far's I'm concerned," said Scattergood, slipping his foot inside his +shoe, "it is." + +That afternoon, the papers having been signed and the deal consummated, +Scattergood sat cogitating. + +"I've been done," he said to himself, solemnly, "accordin' to them +fellers' notion. They come and seen me, and done me. They planned out +how they'd do it, and I didn't never suspect a thing. Uh-huh! Seems like +I was unfortunate, just gettin' a start in life like I be.... Bonds, +says they. Uh-huh! They'll place 'em, and place 'em handy. First +int'rest day there won't be no int'rest, and them bonds'll be +foreclosed--and where'll I be? Mighty ingenious fellers, Crane and +Keith.... And I up and walked right into it like a fly into a molasses +barrel. Them fellers," he said, even more somberly, "come here +calc'latin' to cheat me out of my river.... Me bein' jest a fat man +without no brains...." + +Crane and Keith had left Scattergood the executive head of the new dam +and boom company, and had confided to him the task of building the dam +and improving the river. He approached it sadly. + +"Might as well save what I kin out of the wreck," he said to himself, +and quietly manufactured a dummy contracting company to whom he let the +entire job for a lump sum of thirty-eight thousand seven hundred +dollars. The dummy contractor was Scattergood Baines. + +The dam was completed, booms and cribbing placed, ledges blasted out +well within the six months' period set for those operations. Every +thirty days Scattergood, in the name of the dummy contractor, was paid +eighty per cent of his estimates, and at the completion of the work he +received the remainder of the whole sum. + +"I wouldn't 'a' done it to them boys," he said, as he surveyed a deposit +of upward of seven thousand dollars, his profit on the transaction, "if +it hadn't 'a' been they organized to cheat me out of my river. I +calc'late in the circumstances, though, I'm most entitled to what I kin +salvage out of the wreck." + +Now the Coldriver Dam and Boom Company, Scattergood Baines president and +manager, was ready for business, which was to take the logs of Messrs. +Crane and Keith and drive them down the river at the rate of sixty cents +per thousand feet. It was ready and eager, and so expressed itself in +quaintly worded communications from Baines to those gentlemen. But no +logs appeared to be driven. + +"Jest like I said," Scattergood told himself, and, the day being hot and +the road dusty, he removed his shoes and rested his sweltering bulk in +the shade to consider it. + +"It's a nice river," he said, audibly. "I hate to git done out of it." + +After long delays Crane and Keith made pretense of building camps and +starting to log. But one difficulty after another descended on their +operations. In the spring, when each of them should have had several +millions of feet of spruce ready to roll into the water, not a log was +on rollways. Not a man was in the camps, for, owing to reasons not to be +comprehended by the public, the woodsmen of both operators had struck +simultaneously and left the woods. + +Presently the first interest day arrived, with not even a hope of being +able to meet the required payment at a future date. Bondholders--dummies, +just as Scattergood's contractor was a dummy--met. Their deliberations +were brief. Foreclose with all promptitude was their word, and foreclose +they did. With the result that legal notices were published to the effect +that on the sixteenth day of June the dam, booms, cribbing, improvements, +charter, contracts, and property of whatsoever nature belonging to the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company were to be sold at public auction on the +steps of the county courthouse. Scattergood had lost his river.... + +"Terms of the sale are cash with the bid," said Crane to Keith. "I saw +to that." + +"Good. Wasn't necessary, I guess. There hasn't been even a wriggle out +of Baines." + +"Won't be. We'll have to send somebody up to bid it in. It's just taking +money out of one pocket to put it into the other, but we've got to go +through the motions." + +"Anyhow, let's get credit for grabbing a bargain," said Keith. "Bid her +in cheap. No use taking a big wad of money out of circulation even for a +few days." + +"Ten thousand'll be enough. Say ten thousand six hundred, just to make +it sound better. Have to have two bidders there." + +"Sure," agreed Keith. "I guess this'll teach our fat dreamer of dreams +not to get in the way of the cars." + +Scattergood's stock had gone down in Coldriver. True, his hardware store +was thriving. In the two years his stock had increased from what his +seven hundred and fifty dollars, with credit added, would buy, to an +inventory of better than five thousand dollars, free of debt. It is true +also that with the last winter coming on he had looked about for a +chance to keep his small surplus at work for him, and his eyes had +fallen upon the item of firewood. In Coldriver were a matter of sixty +houses and a hotel, all of which derived their heat from hardwood +chunks, and cooked their meals on range fires with sixteen-inch split +wood. The houses were mostly of that large, comfortable, country variety +which could not be kept warm with one fire. Scattergood figured they +would burn on an average of fifteen cords of wood. + +Now stove wood, to be really useful, must have seasoned a year. It is +not pleasant to build fires with green wood. Appreciating this, +Scattergood ambled about the countryside and bought up every available +stick of wood at prices of the day--and under, for he was a good buyer. +He secured a matter of a thousand cords--and then waited hopefully. + +It was a small transaction, promising no great profits, but Scattergood +Baines was never, even when a rich man, one to scorn a small deal.... +Within sixty days he turned over his corner in wood, realizing a profit +of something over four hundred dollars.... This is merely to illustrate +how Scattergood's capital grew. + +On June 16th Scattergood drove to the county seat. He now owned a horse, +and a buggy whose seat he more than comfortably filled. In the county +seat Scattergood was not unknown, for various county officers had been +helped to their place by his growing influence in his town--notably the +sheriff. + +There was little interest in the sale, and what interest there was +Scattergood caused by his unexpected appearance. Nobody had imagined he +would be present. Now that he was there, nobody could imagine why. He +did not enlighten them, though he was delighted to sit in the sun on the +courthouse steps, waiting for the hour of the sale, and to chat. He +loved to chat, especially if he could get off his shoes and wriggle his +toes in the sunshine. And so he sat, bare of foot, when the sheriff +appeared and made his announcement of the approaching sale. Scattergood +chatted on, apparently not interested. + +"All the dams, booms, cribbings, improvements, and property of the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company ..." the sheriff read. + +"Including contracts and charter," amended Scattergood. + +"Including contracts and charter," agreed the sheriff, and Scattergood +continued his chat. + +Bidding began. It was not brisk or exciting. Five thousand was the first +offer, from a young man appertaining to Crane. Keith's young man raised +him five hundred. Back and forth they tossed it, carrying on the +pretense, until Keith's young man reached the sum of ten thousand six +hundred dollars.... A silence followed. + +"Ten thousand six hundred I'm offered," said the sheriff, loudly, and +repeated it. He had been a licensed auctioneer in his day. "Do I hear +seven hundred? Seven hundred ... Six fifty ..." A portentous pause. +"Going at ten thousand six hundred, once. Going at ten thousand six +hundred, twice ..." + +"Ten thousand seven hunderd," said Scattergood, casually. + +Crane's young man looked at Keith's young man in a panic. They had only +the sum they had bid upon them.... Cash with bid were the terms of +sale. Scattergood, out of the corner of his eye, saw them rush together +and confer frenziedly. His eye glinted. + +"Ten thousand eight hundred," Crane's youth bid, desperately. + +"Cash with bid is terms of sale," said Scattergood. "I object to +listenin' to that bid without the young man perduces." He smiled at the +sheriff. + +"Mr. Baines is right," said the sheriff. "Protect your bid with the cash +or I cannot receive it." + +"Make _him_ protect his bid!" shouted Crane's young man. + +"Certain," said Scattergood, approaching the sheriff and drawing a huge +roll of bills from his sagging trousers pocket. "Calc'late you'll find +her there, Mr. Sheriff, and some besides. Make your change and gimme +back the rest." + +"I'm waitin' on you, young feller," said the sheriff, eying the young +men.... "Ten thousand seven hundred I hear. Going at ten thousand seven +hundred--once.... Twice.... Three times!... Sold to Mr. Baines for +ten thousand seven hundred dollars...." + +So ends the first epoch of Scattergood Baines's career in Coldriver +Valley. Here he emerges as a personage. From this point his fame began +to spread, and legend grew. Had he not, in two brief years, after +arriving with less than fifty dollars as a total capital, acquired a +profitable hardware store--donated in the beginning by competitors? Had +he not now, for the most part with money wrenched from Crane and Keith +by his dummy contracting, been enabled to bid in for ten thousand seven +hundred dollars a new property worth nearly four times that much? He was +a man into whose band wagon all were eager to clamber. + +But Scattergood did not change. He went back to his hardware store and +waited--waited for Crane and Keith to start their inevitable logging +operations. For in his safe reposed ironclad contracts with those +gentlemen, covering the future for a decade, compelling them to pay him +sixty cents for every thousand feet of timber that floated down his +river. It was a good two years' work. He could well afford to wait.... + +Scattergood sat on the porch of his store, in the sunniest spot, +twiddling his bare toes. + +"The way to make money," he said to the mountain opposite, "is to let +smarter folks 'n you be make it for you ... like I done." + + + +CHAPTER II + +SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST + + +Scattergood Baines sat on the porch of his hardware store and looked +down Coldriver Valley. It was very beautiful, even under the hot summer +sun of the second anniversary of Scattergood's arrival in that part of +the world, but he was not seeing it as it was--mountainous, green, +with untouched forests, quickened to life and sound by the swift, +rushing, splashing downrush of a tireless mountain river. Scattergood +saw the valley as he was going to make it, for he was a specialist in +valleys. + +For years he had searched for an undeveloped valley--for the sort of +valley it would be worth his while to take in hand, and two years ago he +had found it and invaded it. His equipment for its conquest had been +meager--some fifty dollars in money and a head filled from ear to ear +and from eyebrows to scalp lock with shrewdness. His progress in +twenty-four months had been notable, for he was sole proprietor of a +profitable hardware store in Coldriver village, and controlled the upper +stretches of Coldriver by virtue of a certain dam and boom company built +with other men's capital for Scattergood's benefit and behoof. + +Now, in the eye of his mind, he could see the whole twenty-odd miles of +his valley. Along the left bank, hanging perilously to the slope of the +mountain, he saw the rails of a narrow-gauge railroad reaching from +Coldriver Valley to the main line that passed the valley's mouth. He saw +sturdy, snorting little engines drawing logs to sawmills of a magnitude +not dreamed of by any other man in the locality, and he saw other +engines hauling out lumber to the southward. He saw villages where no +villages existed that day, and villages meaning more traffic for his +railroad, more trade for the stores he had it in his thought to +establish. Something else he saw, but more dimly. This vision took the +shape of a gigantic dam far back in the mountains, behind which should +be stored the waters from the melting snows and from the spring rains, +so that they might be released at will to insure a uniform flow +throughout the year, wet months and dry months, as he desired. He saw +this water pouring over other dams, turning water wheels, giving power +to mills and factories. More than that, in the remotest and dimmest +recess of his brain he saw not sharply, not with full comprehension, +this tremendous water power converted into electricity and transported +mile upon mile over far-reaching wires, to give light and energy to +distant communities. + +But all that was remote; it lay in the years to come. For the present +smaller affairs must content him. Even the matter of the narrow-gauge +railroad was beyond his grasp. + +Scattergood reached down mechanically and removed his huge shoes; then, +stretching out his fat legs gratefully, he twiddled his toes in the +sunlight and gave himself up to practical thought. He controlled the +tail of the valley with his dam and boom company; he must control its +mouth. He must have command over the exit from the valley so that every +individual, every log, every article of merchandise that entered or left +the valley, should pass through his hands. That was to be the next step. +He must straddle the mouth of the valley like the fat colossus he was. + +Scattergood was placid and patient. He knew what he wanted to do with +his valley, and had perfect confidence he should accomplish it. But he +had no disposition to hasten matters unwisely. It was better, as he told +Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "to let an apple fall in your lap instead of +skinnin' your shins goin' up the tree after it--and then findin' it was +green." + +So, though he wanted the mouth of his river, and wanted it badly, he did +not rush off, advertising his need, and try brashly to grab the forty or +fifty acres of granite and scrub and steep mountain wall that his heart +desired. Instead, he basked in the sunshine, twiddling his bare toes +ecstatically, and let the huge bulk of him sink more contentedly into +the well-reinforced armchair which creaked under his slightest motion. + +Scattergood glanced across the dusty square to the post office. The mail +was in, and possibly there were letters there for him. He thought it +very likely, and he wanted to see them--but movement was repulsive to +his bulging body. He sighed and closed his eyes. A shrill whistle +attempting the national anthem, with certain liberties of variation, +caused him to open them again, and he saw, passing him, a small boy, +apparently without an object in life. + +"A-hum!" said Scattergood. + +The boy stopped and looked inquiringly. + +"If I knew," said Scattergood to his bare feet, "where there was a boy +that could find his way across to the post office and back without +gittin' sunstroke or stone bruise, I dunno but I'd give him a penny to +fetch my mail." + +"It's worth a nickel," said the boy. + +"Give you two cents," said Scattergood. + +"Nickel or nothin'," said the boy. + +Scattergood scrutinized the boy a moment, then surrendered. + +"Bargain," said he, but as the boy hustled across the square +Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. +He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from +a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned +to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight +suddenly might have resulted in disaster. + +The boy was returning. Scattergood placed the tin object to his lips and +puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of +Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it +rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in +front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his +hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm +that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's +existence, he applied himself again to the whistle. + +"Say," said the boy, "what's that?" + +"Patent whistle," said Scattergood, without interest. + +"Is it your'n, or is it for sale?" + +"Calculate I might sell." + +"How much?" + +"Nickel." + +"Gimme it," said the boy, and Scattergood gravely received back his +coin. + +"Might tell the kids I got more," said Scattergood, and watched the boy +trot down the street, entranced by the horrid sound he was fathering. + +This transaction from beginning to end was eloquent of Scattergood +Baines's character. He had been obliged to pay more than he regarded a +service as worth, but had not protested vainly. Instead he had set about +recouping himself as best he could. The whistle cost him two cents and a +half. Therefore the boy had come closer to working for Scattergood's +figure than for his own demanded price. In addition, Scattergood's wares +were to receive free and valuable advertising, as was proven by the +fact that before night he had sold ten more whistles at a profit of +twenty-five cents! No deal was too small to receive Scattergood's best +and most skillful attention. + +Now he opened his letters, one of which was worthy of attention, for it +was from a friend in the office of the Secretary of State for that +commonwealth--a friend who owed his position there in great measure to +Scattergood's influence. The letter gave the information that two +gentlemen named Crane and Keith had pooled their timber holdings on the +east and west branches of Coldriver, and had filed papers for the +incorporation of the Coldriver Lumber Company. + +This was important. First, the gentlemen named were no friends of +Scattergood's by reason of having underestimated that fleshy individual +to their financial detriment in the matter of a certain dam and boom +company, of which Scattergood was now sole owner. Second, because it +presaged active lumbering operations. Third, because, in Scattergood's +safe were ironclad contracts with both of them whereby the said dam and +boom company should receive sixty cents a thousand feet for driving +their logs down the improved river. + +And fourth--the fourth brought Scattergood's active toes to a rest. +Fourth, it meant that Crane and Keith would be building the largest +sawmill--the only sawmill of consequence--that the valley had seen. + +It was an attribute of Scattergood's peculiar genius that even after you +had encountered him once, and come out the worse for it, you still rated +him as a fatuous, guileless mound of flesh. You did not credit his +successes to astuteness, but to blundering luck. Another point also +should be noted: If Scattergood were hunting bear he gave it out that +his game was partridge. He would hunt partridge industriously and +conspicuously until men's minds were turned quite away from the subject +of bear. Then suddenly he would shift shotgun for rifle and come home +with a bearskin in the wagon. Probably he would bring partridge, too, +for he never neglected by-products. + +"Them fellows," said he to himself, referring to Messrs. Crane and +Keith, "hain't aimin' nor wishin' to pay me no sixty cents a thousand +for drivin' their logs.... I figger they calculate to cut about ten +million feet. That'll be six thousand dollars. Profit maybe two +thousand. Don't see as I kin afford to lose it, seems as though." + +On the river below Coldriver village were three hamlets each consisting +of a general store, a church, and a few scattered dwellings. These +villages were the supply centers for the mountain farms that lay behind +them. Necessity had located them, for nowhere else along the valley was +there flat land upon which even the tiniest village could find a resting +place. These were Bailey, Tupper Falls, and Higgins's Bridge. In common +with Coldriver village their communication with the world was by means +of a stage line consisting of two so-called stages, one of which left +Coldriver in the morning on the downward trip, the other of which left +the mouth of the valley on the upward trip. There was also one freight +wagon. + +The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he +boarded the stage, occupying so much space therein that a single fare +failed utterly to show a profit to the stage line, and alighted at +Bailey. He went directly to the store, where no one was to be found save +sharp-featured Mrs. Bailey, wife of the proprietor. + +"Mornin', ma'am," said Scattergood, politely. "Husband hain't in?" + +"Up the brook, catchin' a mess of trout," she responded, shortly. "He's +always catchin' a mess of trout, or huntin' a deer or a partridge or +somethin'. If you're ever aimin' to see Jim Bailey here, you want to +git around afore daylight or after dark." + +"Hain't it lucky," said Scattergood, "that some men manages to marry +wimmin that kin look after their business?" + +"Not for the wimmin," said Mrs. Bailey, shortly. + +"My name's Baines," said Scattergood. + +"I calculate to know _that_." + +"Like livin' here, ma'am?" + +"Not so but what I could bear a change." + +"Um!... Mis' Bailey, I calc'late you'd hate to see Jim make a little +money so's to be able to git away from here if he wanted to." + +"Him? Only way hell ever make money is to ketch a solid-gold trout." + +"Maybe I'm the solid-gold trout you're speakin' about," said +Scattergood. + +She regarded him sharply a moment. "Set," she said. "Looks like you got +somethin' on your mind." + +There were times when Scattergood could be direct and succinct. He +perceived it was best to be so with this woman. + +"I might want to buy this here store--under certain conditions." + +"How much?" + +"Inventory, and a share in the profits of a deal I got in mind." + +"What's them conditions you mentioned?" + +"That you and Jim don't mention the sale to anybody, and keep on runnin' +the place--for wages--until I'm ready for you to quit." + +"What's the deal them profits is comin' from, and how much you figger +they'll be?" + +"The deal's feedin' about five hunderd men, and the profits'll be +plenty. I furnish the capital and show you how it's to be done. All +Jim'll have to do is foller directions." + +Then, lowering his voice, Scattergood went farther into particulars. +Suddenly Mrs. Bailey arose, and screamed shrilly to an urchin playing in +the road, "You, Jimmy, go up the brook and fetch your pa." Scattergood +knew his deal was as good as closed. Before the up-bound stage arrived +it was closed. The Baileys had cash in hand for their store and +Scattergood carried away a duly executed bill of sale. + +The following day, for fifteen hundred dollars cash, he acquired all the +property of the stage line--and when the news became public it was +believed that Scattergood had departed from his wits, for the line was +notoriously unprofitable and an aching worry to its owners. But the +commotion the transfer of the stage line created was as nothing to the +news that Scattergood had bought a strip of land along the railroad at +the mouth of the river, and was erecting a large wooden building upon +it. When asked concerning this and its purpose, Scattergood replied that +he wasn't made up in his mind what he would use it for, but likely it +would be an "opry" house. + +Following this, Scattergood went to the city, where he spent much +valuable time interviewing gentlemen in wholesale grocery and provision +houses.... + +Jim Bailey liked to fish--which is not an attribute to create scandal. +He was not ambitious, nor was he endowed with a full reservoir of +initiative, but he was a shrewd customer and seldom got the worst of it. +One virtue he possessed, and that was an ability to follow +directions--and to keep his mouth shut. + +Not many days after Scattergood became the owner of the store at Bailey, +Jim was a caller at the new offices of the lumber company, formed when +Crane and Keith pooled their interests. + +"I come to see you," he told Crane, "because it seemed like you got to +feed your lumberjacks, and I want to git the contract for furnishin' and +deliverin' the provisions." + +"We've sure got to feed 'em," said Crane. "But five hundred men eat a +lot of grub. Can you swing it if we give you a chance at it?" + +Bailey produced a letter from the Coldriver bank which stated the bank +was willing to stand behind any contract made by the Bailey Provision +Company, up to a certain substantial amount. + +"Who's the Bailey Provision Company?" + +"Me 'n' my wife mostly holds the stock." + +"Huh!... You'll handle the stuff, deliver it, and all that? What's your +proposition?" + +"Well, havin' been in business twenty-odd year, I kin buy mighty +favorable. More so 'n you fellers. All I want's a livin' profit. Tell +you what I'll do. I'll take this here contract like this: Goods to be +delivered in your camps at actual cost of the stuff and freighting plus +ten per cent. We'll keep stock on hand in depots, and deliver as needed. +It'll save you all the trouble of handlin'. We'll carry the stock, and +you pay once a month for what's delivered." + +Crane called in Keith, and they discussed the proposition. It presented +distinct advantages; might, indeed, save them money in addition to +trouble. Bailey clinched the thing by showing an agreement with the +stage line to transport the provisions at a price per hundred pounds +notably lower than Crane and Keith imagined could be obtained, and went +home carrying the contract Scattergood had sent him to get. + +Scattergood put the paper away in his safe and sat back in his +reinforced armchair, with placid satisfaction making benignant his face. +"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that this here dicker'll keep Crane +and Keith gropin' and wonderin' and scrutinizin' more or less--when it +gits to their ears. Shouldn't be s'prised if it come to worry 'em a +mite." + +So, having created a diversion to conceal the movements of his main +attack, Scattergood got out his maps and began scientifically to plan +his fall and winter campaign. + +Timber was his objective. Not a hundred acres of it, nor a thousand, but +tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand acres of spruce-covered hills +was the goal he had set. To control his valley he must have money; to +get money for his developments he must have timber. Also, ownership of +vast limits of growing spruce was necessary to the control of the +valley. He must own more timber thereabouts than anybody else. He must +dominate the timber situation. To a man whose total resources totaled a +matter of fifty thousand dollars--the bulk of which was tied up in a dam +and boom company as yet unproductive--this looked like a mouthful beyond +his capacity to bite off. Even with timber in the back reaches selling +at sixty-six cents an acre, a hundred thousand acres meant an investment +of sixty-six thousand dollars. True, Scattergood could look forward to +the day when that same timberland would be worth ten dollars an acre--a +million dollars--but looking ahead would not produce a cent to-day. + +Of timberlands, whose cut logs must go down Coldriver Valley to reach a +market, Scattergood's maps showed him there were probably a quarter of a +million acres--mostly spruce. Estimating with rigid conservatism, this +would run eight thousand feet to the acre, or twenty billion feet of +timber--and this did not take into consideration hardwood. In +Scattergood's secret heart he wanted it _all_. All he might not be able +to get, but he must have more than half--and that half distributed +strategically. + +It will be seen that Scattergood was content to wait. His motto was, +"Grab a dollar to-day--but don't meddle with it if it interferes with a +thousand dollars in ten years." + +Scattergood's maps had been the work of two years. That they were +accurate he knew, because he had set down on them most of the facts they +showed. They were valuable, for, in Scattergood's rude printing, one +could read upon them the owner of every piece of timber, every farm, the +acreage in each piece of timber, with a careful estimate of the amount +of timber to the acre--also its proportions of spruce, beech, birch, +maple, ash. + +Toward the head of the valley, where good timber was thickest, +Scattergood's map showed how it spread out like a fan, with the two main +branches of Coldriver and numerous brooks as the ribs. Then, down the +length of the stream, were parallel bands of it. On the map one could +see what this timber could be bought for; prices ranging from two +dollars and a half an acre down the main river to sixty-six cents at the +extremity of the fan. + +As Scattergood studied his maps he saw, far in the future, perhaps, but +clearly and distinctly and certainly, two parallel lines running up the +river to his village; he saw, branching off from a spot below the +village, where East and West Branches joined to pour over a certain dam +owned by him, other narrower parallel lines following river and brooks +back and back into the mountains, the spruce-clad mountains. These +parallel lines were rails. The ones which ran close together were +narrow-gauge--logging roads to bring logs to the big mill which +Scattergood planned to build beside his dam. The broader lines were a +standard-gauge road to carry the cut lumber to the outside world, and +not only the cut lumber, but all the traffic of the valley, all the +freight, the manufactured products of other mills and factories which +were to come along the banks of his river. Here, in black and white, was +set down Scattergood's life plan. When it was accomplished he would be +through. He would be willing to have his maps rolled up and himself to +be laid on the shelf, for he would have done the thing he set out to +do.... For, strange as it may seem, Scattergood was not pursuing money +for money itself--his objective was achievement. + +Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and +Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale. + +"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch--thirty +thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch--close to thirty +thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere." + +"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up +here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of +mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as +ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out +our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead +with it. Pretty sweet for us--with sixty thousand acres in the palm of +our hand and not a cent invested in it." + +"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?" + +"Who'll grab?" + +"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we +could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or +else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole +thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled--and leave +the rest till things develop." + +"It's safe. And we can make it mighty unpleasant for anybody who comes +ramming into this region in a small way. Which reminds me of that +Baines--our friend Scattergood. Are we going to let him get away with +that dam and boom company we made him a present of?" + +"I can't see ourselves digging down for sixty cents a thousand for +driving our logs--contracts or no contracts." + +"Maybe we can buy him off." + +"Hanged if I'll do that--we'll chase him off. Look here--he's got to +handle our logs. If he can't handle them we've got a right to put on our +own crew and drive them down--and charge back to him what it costs us. +Get the idea?" + +"Not exactly." + +"We deliver the logs as specified in the spring. Let him start his +drive. Then, I figure, he'll have some trouble with his men, and most +likely men he don't have trouble with will get into a row with +lumberjacks going out of camp. See? Men of his that we can't handle +we'll pitch into the river. Then we'll take charge with our men and make +the drive. On top of that we'll sue Scattergood for thirty or forty +cents a thousand--extra cost we've been put to by his inability to +handle the drive. That'll put a crimp in him--and if we keep after him +hot and heavy it won't take long to drive him out of the valley." + +"Don't believe he's dangerous, anyhow. That last deal was bullhead +luck." + +"Yes, but he's stirring around. We don't want anybody poking in. There's +a heap of money in this valley for us, if we can keep it to ourselves, +and the sooner the idea gets abroad that it isn't healthful to butt in, +the better." + +"Guess you're right." + +If Scattergood could have heard this conversation perhaps he would not +have been so gayly partaking of the softer joys of life. For that is +what Scattergood was doing. He had polished up his buggy, put his new +harness on his horse, and was driving out to make a social call. Not +only that, but it was a social call upon a lady! + +Scattergood was lonely sometimes. In one of his moments of loneliness +it had occurred to him that a great many men had wives, and that wives +were, undoubtedly, a remarkably effective insurance against that +ailment. + +"I gather," he said, in the course of a casual conversation with Sam +Kettleman, the grocer, "that wives is sometimes inconvenient and +sometimes tryin' on the temper, but on the whole they're returnin' +income on the investment." + +"Some does and some doesn't," said Kettleman, lugubriously. + +"Hotel grub," said Scattergood, "gets mighty similar. Roast beef and +roast pork! Roast pork and roast beef! Then cold roast pork and beef for +supper.... And me obliged, by the way I'm built, to pay extry board. +Sundays I always order me two dinners. Seems like a wife 'u'd act as a +benefit there." + +"But there's drawbacks," said Sam, "and there's mother-in-laws, and +there's lendin' a dollar to your brother-in-law." + +"The thing to do," said Scattergood, "is to pick one without them +impediments. I also figger," he added, wriggling his bare toes, "that a +feller ought to pick one that could lend a dollar to _your_ brother in +case he needed one." + +"Hain't none sich to be found," said Sam. + +"I calc'late to look," Scattergood replied. + +He had already done his looking. The lady of his choice, tradition says, +was older than he, but this is a base libel. She was not older. She had +not yet reached thirty. Scattergood had first encountered her when she +came to his hardware store to buy a plow. On that occasion her excellent +business judgment and her powers of barter had attracted him strongly. +As a matter of fact, he was a bit in doubt if she hadn't the best of him +on the deal.... Her name was Amanda Randle. + +Scattergood gave the matter his best thought, then polished the buggy +as aforesaid, and called. + +"Howdy, Miss Randle?" said he, tying to her hitching post. + +"Howdy, Mr. Baines?" + +"I calculated," said he, "that, bein' as it's a hot night, a buggy ride +might sort of cool you off, after a way of speakin'." + +Amanda blushed, for the proffer of a buggy ride was not without definite +significance in that region. + +"I'll git my shawl and bonnet," she said. + +To the casual eye it would have appeared that Scattergood's summer was +devoted wholly to running his hardware store and to paying court to +Mandy Randle.... But this would not have been so. He was making ready +for the winter--and for the spring that came after it. For in the spring +came the drive, and with the coming of the drive Scattergood foresaw the +coming of trouble. He was not a man to dodge trouble that might bring +profit dangling to the fringe of her skirt. + +Coldriver watched with deep interest the progress of Scattergood's suit. +It had figured Mandy as an old maid--for, as has been mentioned, she was +close upon her thirtieth year, which, in a village where eighteen is the +general age for taking a husband, is well along in spinsterhood. It was +late in October when Scattergood "came to scratch," as the local saying +is. + +"Mandy," said he, "I calc'late you noticed I been comin' around here +consid'able." + +"You have--seems as though," she said, and blushed. It was coming. She +recognized the signs. + +"I been a-comin' on purpose," said Scattergood. + +"Do tell," said Mandy. + +"Yes, ma'am. It's like this: I own a hardware store and some other +prop'ty; not a heap, ma'am, but _some_. It's gittin' to be more. I +calculate, some day, to be wuth consid'able. When a man gits to this +p'int, he ought to have him a wife, eh?" + +Mandy made no reply. + +"So," said Scattergood, "I took to lookin' around a bit, and of all the +girls there was, Mandy, it looked to me like you would be the only one +to make the kind of a wife I want. That's honest. Yes, sir. Says I to +myself, 'Mandy Randle's the one for me.' So I washed up the buggy and +hitched up the horse and come right out. I been comin' ever since, +because that there first impression of mine has been bore out by +facts.... I'm askin' you, Mandy, will you be Missis Baines?" + +"You're stiddy and savin'--and makin'," said Mandy. "Add what _you_ got +to what I got, and we'll be pretty well off. And I aim to help take care +of it." + +"I aim to have you help," said Scattergood. "But, Mandy, I don't want +you scrimpin' and savin' too much. I want my wife should have as good as +the best, and be looked up to by the best. The day'll come, Mandy, when +we'll keep a hired girl!" + +"No extravagances, Scattergood, till I say we kin afford it.... And, +Scattergood, you got to promise not to make no important move without +consultin' me. I got a head for business." + +"Mandy," said Scattergood, "you and me is equal partners." + +Which, say both tradition and history, is how the arrangement worked +out. Mandy and Scattergood _were_ equal partners. Scattergood was to +learn through the years that Mandy's _was_ a good head for business, +and, though business men who came to deal with Scattergood in the future +sometimes laughed when they found Mandy present at their conferences, +they never laughed but once.... And, though Scattergood's proffer of +marriage had not been couched in fervent terms of love, nor had Mandy +fallen on his overbroad bosom with rapture, theirs was a married life to +be envied by most, for there was between them perfect trust, sincere +affection, and wisest forbearance. For forty years Scattergood and Mandy +lived together as man and wife, and at the end both could look back +through the intimate years and say of the other that he had chosen well +his mate. + +It may be thought that this bit of romance is dropped in here by legend +and history merely to amuse, or as a side light on the character of +Scattergood Baines. This is not so. We are forced by the facts to regard +the matter as an integral part of the business transaction related in +this narrative. Not a minor part, not an important part, but perhaps the +deciding factor.... + +John Bones, lawyer, age twenty-six, was a recent acquisition to +Coldriver village. Scattergood had watched the young man's comings and +goings, and had listened to his conversation. Early in November he went +to his bank and drew from deposit two hundred and fifty dollars.... Then +he went to call on Bones. + +"Mr. Bones," he said, "folks says old Clayt Mosier's a client of +your'n." + +"He's given me some business, Mr. Baines." + +"Uh-huh!... Somethin' to do with title to a piece of timber over +Higgins's Bridge way, wa'n't it?" + +"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, but I guess you'll have to ask Mr. Mosier about +that." + +"Huh!... Mosier hain't apt to tell _me_. Seems like I was sort of +int'rested in that thing. I can't manage nohow to git the facts, so I +thought I'd talk to you." + +"I can't help you. I have no right to talk about a client's confidential +matters." + +"To be sure.... How's business?" + +"Not very good." + +"Not gittin' rich, eh?" + +Young Bones looked unhappy, for making both ends meet was a problem he +had not mastered as yet. + +Scattergood got up, closed the door, and walked softly back to the desk. +He drew from his pocket the roll of bills, and spread them out in +alluring pattern. + +"Them's your'n," said he. + +"Mine? How? What for?" + +"I'm swappin' with you." + +"For what, Mr. Baines?" A slight perspiration was noticeable on young +Lawyer Bones's brow. + +"Information," said Scattergood, looking him in the eye. As the young +man did not speak, Scattergood continued, "about Mosier's title matter." + +For an instant the young man stood irresolute; then he reached slowly +over, gathered up the money into a neat roll--while Scattergood watched +him intently--and then, with suddenly set teeth, hurled the roll into +Scattergood's face, and leaped around the desk. + +"You _git_!" he said, between his teeth. "Git, and take your filthy +money with you...." + +Scattergood, who did not in the least look it, could move swiftly. The +young lawyer was abruptly interrupted in his pastime of ejecting +Scattergood forcibly. He found himself seized by his wrists and held as +if he had shoved his arms into steel clamps. + +"Set," said Scattergood, "and be sociable.... And keep the money. It's +your'n. You're hired. I guess you're the feller I'm aimin' to use." + +He forced the struggling young man back into his chair, and released +him--grinning broadly, and not at all as a tempter should grin. "If +it'll relieve your conscience," he said, "I hain't got no more int'rest +in Mosier's affairs than I have in the emperor of the heathen Chinee.... +But I _have_ got a heap of int'rest in a young feller that kin refuse a +wad of money when he can't pay his board bill. Maybe 'twan't jest a nice +way, but I had to find out. The man I'm needin' has to have a clost +mouth--and somethin' a mite better 'n that--gumption not to sell out.... +Git the idee?" + +"I--yes, I guess I do--but--" + +"Any objections to workin' for me?" + +"None." + +"All right. Keep the money. When you've worked it up come for more. And, +young feller, if things turns out for me like I think they will, you're +goin' to quit bein' a lawyer one of these days. I'm a-goin' to need you +in my business. Come over to my store." + +At the store Scattergood spread his maps before the young man, and +pointed to a certain spot. "There's about fifty different passels of +timber in that crotch. I don't aim to need 'em all to-day, but I +calc'late on gittin' a sort of fringe around the edge." He drew his +finger down the East Branch and up the West Branch in a sort of +horseshoe. "Your job's to git options on the fringe--in your own name. +Git the idee?" + +"Yes." + +"Git 'em cheap." + +"Yes, sir." + +"There's five thousand dollars on deposit in the bank in your name. Use +it." When Scattergood trusted a man he trusted him. "And now," he said, +"I calc'late to raise a little dust, so's you won't be noticed." + +Scattergood's little dust consisted of allowing to be inserted in the +local paper an item announcing that Scattergood Baines had bought all +the stock and contracts of the Bailey Provision Company, which concern +was purveying food supplies to all the camps of Messrs. Crane and +Keith.... Then Scattergood settled back to watch the dust rise. + +The dust arose, and filled the eyes and noses of Messrs. Crane and +Keith, as Scattergood expected, with the result that Mr. Crane was a +passenger on Scattergood's stage to Coldriver village. + +"Howdy, Mr. Crane?" said Scattergood, as that gentleman belligerently +entered the hardware store. "I was sort of lookin' forward to seein' +some of you folks." + +"Look here, Baines," said Crane, "what are you butting into our game +for? We let you get away with that other thing, but this last deal of +yours makes it look as if you were hunting trouble. You bought that +provision company to get a lever on us." + +"Maybe so.... Maybe so, but I wouldn't get het up about it.... You see, +it's like this: you folks kind of did what I expected you'd do on that +dam and boom deal, and come pretty close to doin' me out of some +valuable property. I didn't get het up, though, I jest sort of sat +around and waited.... And it come out all right. Now, didn't it?" + +"Bullhead luck." + +"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Now, here's how I figger things to-day. You and +Keith hain't amiable about that deal, and you don't aim to let my dam +and boom company make any money out of you. I expect you can manage it. +If I was in your shoes, and was the kind of a man I judge you folks be, +I'd fix it so's the dam and boom company couldn't handle the drive. Buy +up the men, maybe, and start fights, and be sort of forced to take +charge so's to get my drive through. And then I'd sue for damages.... +That's how I'd do. I calc'late that's about what you and Keith has in +mind, hain't it?" + +Crane was purple with rage, but underneath his rage was a clammy layer +of unpleasant surprise that this mound of flabby fat should have had +such uncanny vision into his hardly creditable plans. + +"You're crazy, man," he blustered. + +"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Anyhow, I took out a mite of insurance ag'in' +sich a happenin'. I got me this here provision company to feed your +men.... Ever happen to think what would happen in the woods if your +lumberjacks run short of grub? Eh?... And suppose it happened, and your +men come bilin' out of camp, sore as bears with bee stings. What then, +eh? Couldn't git another crew this winter, maybe. Eh?" + +Crane blustered. He threatened legal measures, but Scattergood pointed +out no legal measures could be taken until he failed to deliver +supplies. Also, he directed Crane's attention to the fact that the +provision company was a corporation, and liable only to the extent of +its assets. "So, even if you got a judgment, you wouldn't collect enough +to make no profit. And your winter's cut would be off, and what logs you +got cut would rot in the woods. I calc'late you'd stand to git damaged +consid'able." + +"What's your proposition?" spluttered Crane. + +"Hain't got none.... You jest run back to Keith and repeat as much of +this here talk as you can remember. I'm goin' to be busy now. +Afternoon." + +For two weeks Scattergood disappeared, and though Crane and Keith sought +him with fever in their blood, he was not to be found. He filled their +minds; he dominated their conversation; he gave them sleepless nights +and unpleasant days.... Their attention was effectively focused on the +emergency he had presented to them. Scattergood had kicked up an +effective dust. + +At the end of two weeks Scattergood appeared again in town, and went +directly to Johnnie Bones's office. Scattergood now called his lawyer +Johnnie. + +"Got 'em?" he asked. + +"Not all. There's a fifteen-thousand-acre strip cutting right across +your horseshoe, from East to West Branch, and I couldn't touch it. I got +all the rest. That one belongs to a woman, and a more unreasonable +woman to try to do business with I never saw." + +"Um!" said Scattergood. "Know where I been, Johnnie?" + +"No, sir." + +"Gittin' married." + +"What?" + +"Yes. Me 'n' the lady, we met by arrangement in Boston and got us a +preacher and done the job. Marriage, Johnnie, is a doggone solemn +matter." + +"I've heard so," said the young man. + +"Some day," said Scattergood, "I'm a-goin' to marry you off. Calculate I +got the girl in my eye now." + +"I hope," Johnnie said, "that you'll be--er--very happy." + +"Guess we'll manage so-so.... Now about them options, Johnnie. You make +tracks for the city and sort of edge up to Crane and Keith. Might start +by showin' 'em a deed for a mill site down across from theirs at the +railroad. Then you might start askin' questions like you was lookin' for +information. Guess that'll git up their curiosity some. Then you kin +spring your options on 'em.... When you've done that, come off and leave +'em sweatin'. And don't mention me. I hain't in this deal a-tall." + +But before Johnnie could get to Crane and Keith, Crane and Keith came to +Scattergood. + +"You've got some kind of a proposition in mind," said Keith, who did the +talking because he could keep his temper better than Crane. "What do you +want?" + +"Make me an offer," said Scattergood. + +"We'll buy your provision company--and give you a decent profit." + +"Don't sound enticin'," said Scattergood, reaching down and loosening +his shoe. It was too cold to omit the wearing of heavy woolen socks, so +he could not twiddle his toes with perfect freedom, but he could +twiddle them some, and that helped his mental processes. + +"Well, what do you want?" + +"I'll sell the provision company's stock of provisions--and nothin' +more.... At a profit. You got to buy, 'cause you can't make arrangements +to git in grub before I bring on a famine for you.... And I got the grub +stored in warehouses. That's part of it. Second, I'll _lease_ you my +river for three years. You wasn't calc'latin' to pay for the use of it. +So you be obleeged to pay in advance. I figgered my profits on drivin' +at about two thousand this year. Give you a three-year lease for five +thousand. I hain't no hog.... Yes or no." + +There was a brief conference. "Yes," was the answer. + +"Cash," said Scattergood. + +"You'll have to come to the city for it," Keith said, which Scattergood +was not unwilling to do. He returned with a certified check for +twenty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-four dollars and nineteen +cents, of which five thousand was rental of his river, and four thousand +and odd dollars were his profits on his provisions. Not a bad profit +from a dust-throwing project! + +Meantime Johnnie paid his visit to Crane and Keith, and came home to +report. + +"It hit them between wind and water," he said. + +"Uh-huh!... What did you judge they had in mind?" + +"They wanted to buy me out.... Of course I wouldn't sell. My clients +wanted that timber, and were going to work to build their mill.... The +last they said was that they were coming up to see me." + +"Uh-huh! When they come, you mention about that strip of fifteen +thousand acres you couldn't buy, eh? Let on you couldn't get it." + +Johnnie held Scattergood as he was going out. "I want to account for +that five thousand dollars you placed in my name." + +"Go ahead. I hain't perventin' you." + +"I got options on eighteen thousand six hundred acres of timber. The +options cost me twenty-one hundred and seventy dollars, and my expenses +were sixty-one dollars and a half." + +"Um!... Cheap enough. What did the land cost an acre?" + +"Averaged a dollar and seventy-five cents." + +"Huh!... Not so bad. Now tend to Crane and his quiet friend." + +They arrived in due time, accompanied by their lawyer. + +"Mr. Bones," said the lawyer, "you have certain options that my clients +wish to purchase. Undoubtedly they were taken in good faith, but we +would like, before going farther, to know whom you are acting for." + +"You can deal with me. I have full powers." + +"You decline to disclose your principal?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Do I understand the project is to build a mill at once and start to cut +this timber?" + +"That is my information." + +"Aha!... May I ask how much land you have?" + +Johnnie exhibited a map, on which was blocked off the timber in +question. "You see," he said, "there's one fifteen-thousand-acre strip I +couldn't get hold of. It cuts right across the triangle from river to +river." + +Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane. + +"It belongs to a woman who wouldn't do business," Johnnie added. + +"What figure did you pay for the land?" + +"That is hardly a fair question." + +"What do you ask for your options? That's a fair question, isn't it?" +"They're not for sale." + +"But we may make an offer. It might be profitable for your principals to +sell. My clients feel they need this property, lying as it does between +their holdings." + +"I'll listen." + +There followed whispered arguments among the three, resulting in an +offer of a dollar and seventy-five cents an acre for the whole +tract--exactly what Johnnie had agreed to pay. + +"I said I'd listen," said Johnnie, "but I don't seem to hear anything." + +Another conference and a bid of two dollars. Johnnie shrugged his +shoulders. Two dollars and a half an acre was finally offered, and then +Johnnie leaned forward and tapped with his finger on his desk. "If you +gentlemen mean business, let's talk business. I've got what you want. +You can't get it unless I want to sell, and I don't want to sell. I and +my clients know what that timber is worth to us, but any business man +will consider a quick profit if it is _enough_ profit. In five years +that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years +it will be worth fifteen to twenty.... But if you want to buy to-day you +can have it for three dollars through and through." + +"We've got to have it," said Crane, and Keith nodded. + +"Cash," said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood's. + +"Our bank has made arrangements with your local bank to give us what +money we need," said Keith. + +And then, clattering upstairs, came a small boy. Without ceremony he +burst into the room. "Mr. Bones," he shouted, "I was sent to tell you +that strip of timber you tried to buy from the lady is for sale." Then +he whisked out of sight. + +Johnnie shrugged his shoulders. "Costs me some profit," he said. +"Confound that woman!... Well, we can go to the bank and close this up. +Then you fellows can finish up by buying that last fifteen thousand +acres." + +"You bet we will," said Crane, savagely. + +At the bank fifty-five thousand eight hundred dollars in the form of a +certified check was deposited in the hands of the cashier to be paid to +Johnnie when he should deliver proper deeds to the property sold.... It +represented a profit of twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty +dollars. + +"Now for the other parcel," said Crane, and getting the information as +to ownership, he and his companions took buggy to the spot. It was a +comfortable farmhouse, white painted and agreeable to look upon, but the +pleasure of the view was ruined for Crane and Keith by reason of a bulky +figure standing on the porch in conversation with a woman. + +"Baines!" ejaculated Crane. It sounded like a swear word as he said it. + +The three rushed the piazza. + +"Madam," said Crane, not deigning to recognize Scattergood's presence, +"you own a tract of timber--fifteen thousand acres. We hear it is for +sale. We want to buy it." + +"This gentleman was just making me an offer for it," she said, pointing +to Scattergood. + +"We raise his offer twenty-five cents an acre," said Crane, and drew +from his-pocket a huge roll of bills--it being his idea of the +psychology of women that the sight of actual money would have a +favorable effect. + +"That makes two dollars an acre," said she, and looked at Scattergood. + +"Two and a quarter," said he. + +"Two and a half," roared Crane. + +"Two seventy-five," said Scattergood. "Three dollars." + +"Three ten," said Scattergood. + +"Three and a quarter" said Crane. He glared at Scattergood. "If you want +it worse than that," he shouted, "why, confound you, you can have it!" + +"I don't," said Scattergood, placidly. + +The woman figured a moment. "That makes forty-eight thousand seven +hundred and fifty dollars," she said. "I kind of like even money. You +can have it for an even fifty thousand." + +Scattergood looked at her and grinned. One might have detected +admiration in his eyes. + +"Done," said Crane. "We'll get into town and close the deal, ma'am, if +you don't mind." + +"Your buggy seems to be crowded," said Scattergood. "I'll drive the lady +in, if you want I should." + +"We want nothing from you at all, Baines." + +"All right," said Scattergood, placidly, and, getting into his buggy, he +drove away. He drove rapidly, and alighted at Johnnie Bones's office. +Presently he emerged, carrying a legal-appearing document in his hand, +and went across to the bank, where he handed the document to the +cashier. + +Presently the parties appeared, entered the bank, and the cashier, upon +being directed, executed a certified check to the lady for fifty +thousand dollars. Then he handed it to her, and the deed to Mr. Crane. +"You see," said he, "we have the deed all ready for you." + +"Yes," said Scattergood, stepping through the door. "I had it fixed up +for you. I aim to be prompt when I'm tendin' to my wife's business +matters. Gentlemen, I guess you hain't met Mrs. Baines real proper +yet...." + +It was not a happy moment for Messrs. Crane and Keith, but they +weathered it, not suavely, not with complete dignity, but after a +fashion.... Their departure might, perhaps, have been termed brusque. + +"Well, Scattergood," said Mandy, "it was a real good deal." + +"The way you h'isted 'em to fifty thousand was what got my eye," he +said, proudly. "I wouldn't 'a' had the nerve." + +"I knew they'd pay it," she said. "Seems like a reasonable profit, +though the land's been a-layin' there unproductive for thirty year. +Father, he give a thousand dollars for it, and the taxes must 'a' been a +couple of thousand more. Say forty-seven thousand dollars profit...." + +"And I come out of the other deals perty fair. Made twenty-three +thousand off of the options, and nine or ten off of the other things. +Guess the Baines family's a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars +richer by a good day's work." + +"But it can't lay idle," she said. + +"Not a minnit. We'll buy that sixty thousand acres 'way back up the +river for sixty-six cents, like we planned, and have some workin' +capital.... And, Mandy, Crane and Keith hain't got that timber for +keeps. It's comin' back to us some of these days. I feel it in my +bones...." + +"Kind of a nice wind-up for our honeymoon," said Mrs. Baines, +practically. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD + + +Scattergood Baines was on his way to the city! An exclamation point +deserves to be placed after this because it rightly belongs in a class +with the statement that the mountain was coming to Mohammed. Scattergood +had fully as much in common with cities as eels with the Desert of +Sahara. + +He had not started the journey brashly, on impulse, but after debate and +discussion with Mandy, his wife. Mandy's conclusion was that if +Scattergood _had_ to go to the city he might as well get at it and have +it over, exercising the care of an exceedingly prudent man in the +circumstances, and following minutely advice that would be forthcoming +from _her_. Undoubtedly, she thought, he could manage the matter and +return to Coldriver unscathed. + +So Scattergood was clambering into the stage--his stage that plied +between Coldriver village and the railroad, twenty-four miles distant. +When he settled in his seat the stage sagged noticeably on that side, +for Scattergood added to his weight yearly as he added to his other +possessions. Mandy stood by, watching anxiously. + +"Remember," said she, "I pinned your money in the right leg of your +pants, clost to the knee." + +"Mandy," said he, confidentially, "I feel the lump of it. I hope I don't +have to git after it sudden. Dunno but I should have fetched along a +ferret to send up after it." + +"Don't git friendly with no strangers--dressed-up ones, especial. And +never set down your valise. There's a white shirt and a collar and two +pairs of sox, and what not, in there. Make quite an object for some +sharper." + +He nodded solemnly. + +"If you git invited out to _his house_," she said, "it'll save you a +dollar hotel bill, anyhow, and be a heap sight safer." + +"You're right, Mandy, as usual," he agreed. "G'by, Mandy. I calculate +you won't have no trouble mindin' the store." + +"G'by, Scattergood," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "I'll be relieved to +see you gittin' back." + +There seemed to be little sentiment in these, their words of parting, +but in reality it was an exceedingly sentimental passage for them. +Between Scattergood and his wife there was a deep, true, abiding +affection. Folks who regarded it as a business partnership--and there +were many of them--lacked the seeing eye. + +The stage rattled off down the valley--Scattergood's valley. He had +invaded it some years before because valleys were his hobby and because +_this_ valley offered him the opportunity he had been searching for. +Scattergood knew what could be done with a valley, and he was busy doing +it, but he was only at the beginning. As he bumped along he could see +busy villages where only hamlets rested; he could see mills turning +timber into finished products; he could see business and life and +activity where there were only silence and rocks and trees. And where +ran the rutted mountain road, over which his stage was carrying him +uncomfortably, he could see the railroad that was to make his dream a +reality. He could see a railroad stretching all the way from Coldriver +village to the main line, and by virtue of this railroad Scattergood +would rule the valley. + +He had arrived with forty-odd dollars in his pocket. His few years of +labor there, assisted by a wise and business-like marriage, had +increased that forty dollars to what some folks would call wealth. +First, he owned a prosperous hardware store. This was his business. It +netted him a couple of thousand dollars a year. The valley was his +avocation. It had netted him well over a hundred thousand dollars, most +of which was growing on the mountain sides in straight, clear spruce, in +birch, beech, and maple. It had netted him certain strategic holdings of +land along Coldriver itself, sites for future dams, for mills yet to be +built--for railroad yards, depots, and terminals. Quietly, almost +stealthily, he had gotten a hold on the valley. Now he was ready to grip +it with both hands and to make it his own.... That is why he journeyed +to the city. + +He put his canvas telescope between his feet so that he could feel it. +It was as well, he determined, to practice caution where none was +needed, so he would be letter perfect in the art when he reached the +dangers of the city. Between Scattergood's shoes and the feet they +inclosed, were sox. Before his union with Mandy he had been a stranger +to such effeteness. Even now he was prone to discard them as soon as he +was out of range of her vision. To-day he had not escaped, for, warm as +the day was, heavy white woolen sox folded and festooned themselves +modishly over the tops of his shoes. He could not wriggle a toe, which +made his mental processes difficult, for his toes were first aids to his +brain. + +However, he was going to visit a railroad president, and railroad +presidents were said by Mandy to go in for style. Scattergood mournfully +arose to the necessities of the situation. + +The twenty-four-mile ride was not long to Scattergood, for he occupied +it by studying again every inch of his valley. He never tired of +studying it. As the law book to the lawyer so the valley was to +Scattergood--something never to be laid aside, something to be kept +fresh in mind and never neglected. He never passed the length of it +without seeing a new possibility. + +Scattergood flagged the train. The four-hour ride to the city he +occupied in talking to the conductor or brake-man or any member of the +train's crew he could engage in conversation. He was asking them about +their jobs, what they did, and why. He was asking question after +question about railroads and railroading, in his quaint, characteristic +manner. It was his intention to own a railroad, and he was at work +finding out how the thing was done. + +Next morning at seven he was on hand at the terminal offices of the G. +and B. An hour later minor employees began to arrive. + +"Young feller," he said, accosting a pleasant-faced boy, "where d'you +calc'late I'll find Mr. Castle?" + +"President Castle?" asked the boy. + +"That's the feller," said Scattergood. + +"About now he'll be eating grapefruit and poached egg," said the boy. + +"Don't he work none durin' the day?" + +The boy laughed good-humoredly. "He gets down about nine thirty, and +when he don't go off somewheres he's mostly here till four--except +between one and two, when he's at lunch." + +"Gosh!" said Scattergood. "Must be wearin' him to the bone. 'Most five +hours a day he sticks to it. Bear up under it perty well, young feller, +does he? Keep his health and strength?" + +"He works enough to get paid fifty thousand a year for it," said the +boy. + +"That settles it," said Scattergood. "I've picked my job. I'm a-goin' to +be a railroad president." He put his canvas telescope down, and placed a +heavy foot on it for safety. "Calc'late I kin sit here and wait, can't +I?" + +The boy nodded and went on. During the next hour more than one dozen +young men and women passed that spot to eye with appreciation the caller +who waited for Mr. Castle. Scattergood was unaware of their scrutiny, +for he was building a railroad down his valley--a railroad of which he +was the president. + +Scattergood looked frequently at a big, open-faced, silver watch which +was connected to his vest in pickpocket-proof fashion with a braided +leather thong. When it told him nine thirty had arrived, he got up, his +telescope in his hand, and ambled heavily down the corridor. He poked +his head in at an open door, and called, amiably, "Kin anybody tell me +where to find Mr. Castle?" + +He was directed, and presently opened a door marked "President's +Office." The room within did not contain the president. It was crossed +by a railing, behind which sat an office boy. Behind him was a +stenographer. + +"President in?" asked Scattergood. + +The boy looked at him severely, and replied, shortly, that the president +was busy. + +"Havin' only five hours to do all his work," said Scattergood, "I +calc'lated he _would_ be some took up. Tell him Scattergood Baines wants +to have a talk to him, sonny." + +"Have an appointment?" + +"No, sonny," said Scattergood, "but if you don't scamper into his room +fairly _spry_, the seat of your pants is goin' to have an appointment +with my hand." He leaned over the railing as he said it, and the boy, +regarding Scattergood's face a moment, arose and whisked into the next +room. + +Shortly there appeared a youngish man, constructed by nature to adorn +wearing apparel. + +"Be you Mr. Castle?" asked Scattergood. + +"I'm his secretary. What do you want?" + +"Young man, I'm disapp'inted. When I see you I figgered you must be +president of the railroad or the Queen of Sheeby. I want to see Mr. +Castle." + +"What is your business with him?" + +"'Tain't fit for young ears to listen to," said Scattergood. + +"If you have any business with Mr. Castle, state it to me." + +"Um!... I come quite consid'able of a distance to see _him_--which I +calc'late to _do_." He reached over, with astonishing suddenness in one +so bulky, and twirled the secretary about with his ham of a hand. At the +same time he leaned against the gate, which was not fastened to restrain +such a weight. "Now, forrard march, young feller. Lead the way. I'm +follerin' you." And thus Scattergood entered the presence. + +He saw behind a huge, flat desk a very thin man, who leaned forward, +clutching his temples as though to restrain within bounds the machinery +of the brain inside. It was President Castle's habitual posture when +working. The temples and dome of the head seemed to bulge, as if there +was too much inside for the strength of the restraining walls. The +president looked up and fastened eyes that themselves bulged from +hollowed sockets. It was the face of a man who ran his mental dynamo at +top speed in defiance of nature's laws against speeding. + +"Well?" he snapped. "_Well--well_?" + +"Name's Scattergood Baines. Figger to build a railroad. Want to see you +about it," said Scattergood, succinctly. + +"Not interested. Busy. Get out," said Castle. + +Scattergood dropped the secretary, and lumbered up to the president's +desk. He leaned over it heavily. "I've come to see you about this here +thing," he said, quietly. "Either you'll talk to me about it _now_, or +I'll have to sort of arrange so that you'll come to _me_, askin' to talk +about it, later. Now you kin save both our time." + +Castle regarded Scattergood with eyes that seemed to burn with +unnatural nervous energy--it was a brief scrutiny. "Clear out," he said +to his secretary. "Sit down," to Scattergood. + +"Obleeged," said Scattergood. "I'm figgerin' on buildin' a railroad down +Coldriver Valley from Coldriver to connect with the G. and B. narrow +gauge. Carry freight and passengers. Want you to agree about train +service, freight transfer, buildin' a station, and sich matters." + +Here was a man who could get down to business, President Castle +perceived, and who could state his business clearly and to the point. + +"I know the valley. Been talking about it. Where do you come in?" + +"I calculate to build the road." + +"For Crane and Keith?" + +"Eh?" + +"They're the men backing it, aren't they? In to see me about it last +week." + +Crane and Keith! Scattergood's career in the valley had been one of +warfare with Crane and Keith. He had beaten them with his dam and boom +company; he had beaten them in certain stumpage operations. Now they +were after his railroad and his valley. + +"Um!..." he said, and reached down mechanically to loosen his shoe. Here +was need for careful thought. + +"I gave them all necessary information," said the president. + +"Don't concern me none," said Scattergood. "This here is to be _my_ +railroad, and I'm the feller that's goin' to own and run it. Crane and +Keith hain't in it at all." + +"You're too late. The G. and B. has agreed to handle their freight and +to stop passengers at their station. Tentatively agreed to lease and +operate the road when built.... Good morning." "I calculate there's +room for argument," said Scattergood. "I own right consid'able of that +right of way." + +"Railroad can take it under the right of eminent domain," said the +president. + +"Kin one railroad take from another one?" asked Scattergood, a bit +anxiously. + +"No." + +"Um!... Wa-al, you see, Mr. Castle, I got me a charter to build this +railroad. Legislature up and give me one." + +"Makes no difference. We've made an agreement with Crane and Keith which +_stands_. You can't build your road, whatever you've got. Frankly, we +won't tolerate a road there that we don't control. Good morning." + +"That final, Mr. President?" + +"Absolutely." + +"If I was to build in spite of you I calc'late you'd fix things so's +runnin' it wouldn't do much good to me, eh? Stop no trains for me, and +sich like?" + +"Exactly." + +"Um!... Mornin', Mr. President. If you ever git up to Coldriver don't go +to the hotel. Come right to my house. Mandy'll be glad to see you. +Mornin'." + +Scattergood and Johnnie Bones, the young lawyer whom Scattergood had +taken to his heart, were studying a railway map of the state with +special reference to the G. & B. It showed them that the G. & B. +traversed a southerly corner of the state and had within its boundaries +some forty miles of track. + +"The idee," said Scattergood, "is to make that forty mile of track +consid'able more of a worry to Castle than all the rest of his +railroad." + +"Meddling with the railroads is a dangerous pastime," said Johnnie. +"Besides, how can you manage it?" + +"We got a legislature, hain't we?" + +"Yes, but the boys feel pretty friendly to the railroads, I +understand." + +"Feel perty friendly to me, too," said Scattergood. + +"I doubt if you could pass any legislation they wanted to fight hard." + +"Um!... I'll look out for that end, Johnnie. Now what I want is for you +to draw up a bill for me that'll sort of irritate 'em where irritation +does the most hurt--which, I calc'late, is in the pocketbook. Here's my +notion: To make a pop'lar measure of it; somethin' that'll appeal to the +folks. We kin git the papers to start a holler and have folks demandin' +action of their representatives, and sich like. Taxes! That'll fetch 'em +every time." + +"Yes," said Johnnie, dubiously, "but--" + +"You _listen_" said Scattergood. "It stands to reason that the state +don't realize much out of that there forty mile of track. The G. and B. +gits the use of the state, so to speak, without payin' a fair rent for +it. You draw up a bill pervidin' that the railroad has got to pay a fee +of, say a dollar, for every passenger car it runs over them forty miles, +and fifty cents for every freight car. That'll mount to a consid'able +sum every year, eh?" + +"It'll amount to so much," said Johnnie, gazing ruefully at his client, +"that there'll be the devil to pay. You'll pull every railroad in the +state down around your ears." + +"Let 'em drop." + +"And I don't know if the law'll hold water--even if you got it passed. +It's darn-fool legislation, Mr. Baines--but some darn-fool legislation +_sticks_. I don't believe this would, but it _might_." + +"That's plenty to suit me," said Scattergood, slipping on his shoes and +standing up. "You git at it.... And say," he said, as a sort of +afterthought, "I want to git through a leetle bill for my stage line. +Here's about it. Won't take more'n fifty words." He handed Johnnie a +slip, crumpled and grimy, with lead-pencil notes on. "This won't cause +no trouble, anyhow." + +Scattergood went back to his hardware store and sat down in his +reinforced armchair on the piazza. As he sat there young Jim Hands drove +up with his girl, alighted, and went into the ice-cream parlor for +refreshment. Scattergood studied the rig. It lacked something to give it +the final touch of style dear to the country youth. + +Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a +resplendent buggy whip--one with a white silk bow tied above its handle. +This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his +chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig. +He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished +it through the air to try its excellence. + +"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood. + +"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim. + +"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good +whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked." + +Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and +felt in his pocket. + +"Calc'late I _did_ need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips +fetchin'?" + +"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to +you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy." + +The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills, +which he passed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off +with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by +methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the +business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for. +Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business +opportunity slip--large or small--and that he manufactured for himself +fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail +salesmanship to the rank of an art. + +Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain +wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had +pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and +weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find +them and ship them at once. + +Presently Tim Plant, teamster, drove by, and Scattergood hailed him. + +"Tim," he said, "you owe me a leetle bill. This hain't a dun, but I got +a mite of work to be done, and seein' things wasn't brisk with you, I +figgered you might want to work it out--jest to keep busy." + +"Sure," said Tim. + +Whereupon Scattergood elevated himself to the seat beside Tim, and was +driven to the spot he had selected for the Coldriver terminal of his +railroad. + +"I want about a hunderd feet graded along here," he said, "to lay rails +on." + +"Rails!... Gosh! Scattergood, you hain't thinkin' of buildin' a +railroad, be you?" + +"Shucks!" said Scattergood. "I jest got a half dozen rails comin', and I +figgered I'd like to see how they'd look all laid down on the spot. Give +folks an idee how a railroad 'u'd look if there was one." + +In which manner Scattergood collected a doubtful bill, obtained a +quantity of labor at what might be called wholesale rates--and actually +started work on his railroad. Actual, patent for the world to see. The +railroad was begun. Not Crane & Keith, not President Castle, not a court +in the world could deny that actual construction had begun. Scattergood +was insuring himself against possible steps by the enemy to nullify his +charter. + +"What's this here _eminent domain_?" Scattergood asked Johnnie Bones. + +"It's a legal thing that allows railroads to take land necessary to its +operation--paying for it, of course." + +"Anybody's land?" + +"Yes." + +"Crane and Keith, f'r instance?" + +"Yes." + +"Um!... Have to be right of way, or jest land for railroad yards, or to +build railroad buildin's on?" + +"Any land _necessary_ to a railroad." + +"Um!... Who says if it's necessary?" + +"The courts." + +"How'd you git at it?" + +"Start what are called condemnation proceedings." + +"All right, Johnnie, start me some." + +"Against whom, and for what, Mr. Baines?" + +"Against Crane and Keith, to git their land down at the G. and B. All +their mill yards, you know. Don't want the mill buildin'. They're +welcome to that. Jest their yards." + +"But they can't run the mill without the log yard and the yard to pile +out their lumber." + +"Be too bad, wouldn't it? Calc'late I'm a heap sorry for Crane and +Keith. Them fellers arouses my sympathy mighty frequent." + +"But you're not a railroad, Mr. Baines." + +"Yes I be, Johnnie. To-morrow I'll be layin' rails to prove it." + +"But you own land right adjoining Crane and Keith's yards. Plenty of +it." + +"Not plenty, Johnnie.... Not plenty. As long as Crane and Keith owns +_anything_ in this neighborhood I hain't got plenty of it. Get the idee?" + +"You want to run them out?" + +"Wa-al, they hain't been exactly friendly to me. I like to dwell among +friends, Johnnie. Lately they been makin' a sight of trouble for me. +Seems like I ought to sort of return the favor. 'Tain't jest spite, +Johnnie. Spite's a luxury I can't afford if there hain't a money profit +in it. Seems like there might be a dollar or two in this here +proceedin'--if handled jest right." + +Johnnie didn't see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object +in a great many things that Scattergood undertook. It was not his +business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood's +directions. The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood's +right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead. + +"Didn't know Crane's sister married President Castle of the G. and B., +did you, Johnnie?" + +"No. What has that to do with it?" + +"Consid'able.... Consid'able. Goes some ways toward provin' to me I was +expected to call on Castle and that things was arranged on purpose. +Proves to my satisfaction that Crane and Keith went out of their way to +start this rumpus with me.... You start them condemnation proceedin's as +quick as you kin." + +Johnnie started them. Scattergood waited a few days; watched with +interest the laying of the first rails of the Coldriver Railroad, and +then made the day's drive to the state capital with drafts of his pair +of bills in his pocket. He hunted up the representative from his +town--Amri Striker by name. + +"Amri," said he, "how's your disposition these days, eh? Feel like doin' +favors?" + +"Guess a lot of us boys feel like doin' favors for you, Scattergood." +Which was not short of the truth, for Scattergood had been studying the +science of politics as it was practiced in his state and putting to +practical use his education. Indeed, he added to the science not a few +contrivances characteristic of himself, which made the old-timers +scratch their heads and admit that a new man had arisen who must be +reckoned with. Not yet did Scattergood hold the state in the hollow of +his hand, naming governors, senators, directing legislation, as he did +when his years were heavier on his shoulders. Probably, however, there +was no single individual in the commonwealth who could exert as much +influence as he. If there was a single man to compare with him it was +Lafe Siggins, from the northern part of the state. All men admitted that +a partnership between Scattergood and Lafe would be unbeatable. + +"Got a bill I want introduced, Amri," said Scattergood. + +"Let's see her, Scattergood." + +Amri read the bill; then he turned around in his chair and looked out of +the window. Then he walked to the door and opened it suddenly, and +peered up and down the hall. + +"The dum thing's loaded with dynamite," he said, when he came back. + +"Calc'lated on some explosion," said Scattergood. "But I calc'late the +folks'll be for it. Shouldn't be s'prised if the feller who introduced +it and made a fight for it would stand mighty well, back home. Might git +to be Senator, Amri. No tellin'." + +"Can't no sich bill be passed. The boys likes their passes, and I guess +there's some that gits more than passes out of the railroads." + +"If this bill's introduced, Amri," said Scattergood, solemnly, "there'll +be a chance for some of the boys to fat up their savings' +account--pervidin' there's a good chance of its passin'. The +railroads'll git scairt and send quite a bank roll up this way." + +"You bet," said Amri, with watering mouth. + +"Lafe in town?" + +"Come in last week." + +"Lafe, I understand, hain't in politics for fun." + +"Lafe's in right where he kin git the most the quickest." + +"Run out and git him to step up here," said Scattergood. + +In half an hour Lafe Siggins, tall, bony, long, and solemn of face, +stepped into the room, and closed the door after him cautiously. + +"Howdy, Scattergood!" he said. + +"Howdy, Lafe!... Want your backin' for a pop'lar measure. I've up and +invented a new way of taxin' a railroad." + +Lafe started for the door. "Afternoon," he said, with a tone of +finality. + +"But," said Scattergood, "I figger you to do the fightin' for the +railroads--reapin' whatever benefits you can figger out of it for +yourself." + +Lafe paused, considered, and returned. "What's the idee?" he asked. + +"I jest don't want this bill to pass too easy," said Scattergood, +soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye. + +"It wouldn't," said Lafe. + +"Um!... Railroads is more liberal, hain't they, when there's a good +chance of their gittin' licked? Suppose this come to a fight, and it +looked like they was goin' to git the worst of it. Supposin' the outcome +hung on two or three votes, eh? And them votes looked dubious." + +Lafe pressed his thin lips together. + +"I guess I kin account for near half of the boys, Lafe, and I guess you +kin line up clost to half with the railroads, can't you? Well, you don't +stand to lose nothin', do you? All we got to do is keep them decidin' +votes where we want 'em." Then he leaned over and whispered in Lafe's +ear briefly. + +Lafe's thin lips curved upward a trifle at the ends. "Scattergood," +said he, "this here's an idee. Never recollect nothin' resemblin' it +since I been in politics. What _you_ after?" + +"Jest pleasure, Lafe.... Jest pleasure. Is it a deal?" + +"It's a deal." + +"Amri outside?" + +"Standin' guard, Scattergood." + +"When you go out send him in." + +Amri opened the door that Lafe closed behind him. + +"All fixed," said Scattergood. "I want to see these boys to-night." +Scattergood handed Amri a list of names. "And say, Amri, here's a leetle +bill you might jest slip along quick. Don't amount to nothin', but it +might help me some. Like to git the Governor's signature to it as soon +as it kin be done." + +Amri read it cautiously. It was just a harmless little measure having to +do with stage lines. "All right," he said, carelessly. + +Crane was in President Castle's office, and his demeanor was that of a +man who has heard disquieting news. + +"I told you," he said, in tones of reproach, "that he wasn't safe to +monkey with. Keith and I thought he was just a fat, backwoods rube, but +we got burnt, and burnt good. We were going to let him alone, but you +got us into this--and now you've got to get us out again. Know what he's +done? Nothing much but start condemnation proceedings against us to take +our mill yards down on the railroad for a site for a depot and freight +sheds. That's all. And us with close to a hundred thousand tied up in +that mill. If he puts it through ..." + +"He won't," snapped Castle. + +"He's started to build his railroad. Actually laying rails." + +"So I heard. That's to hold his charter.... Don't you worry. He can't +build that road, and you men will. As soon as I found out he had that +charter, and saw the possibilities of that valley, I made up my mind he +had to be eliminated. And he will be." + +"Keith and I tried that." + +"I saw him," said Castle. "He's no fool. You thought he was. I'm not +making any such mistake. Going after you the way he has proves it." + +"And he'll be going after you, too. You want to mind your eye." + +"It's a little different tackling the G. and B., don't you think? And I +doubt if he figures we're really backing you." + +"What he figures and what you think he figures are mighty wide apart +sometimes. It cost me money to find that out." + +The telephone interrupted. Castle answered: "Yes, Hammond, I can see you +now. What is it?... All right. Come right up." Hammond was the +railroad's general counsel. + +He appeared presently. + +"I thought we had the legislature up yonder tamed," he said, angrily, as +he entered the office. + +"We have." + +"Huh!... Take a look at this." He handed to the president Scattergood's +novel taxation, measure. "What you make of that? Who's behind it? What's +the game?" + +Castle read it carefully; then he turned to Crane. "You win," he said, +succinctly. "Your friend Scattergood has brought the fight right on to +our front porch.... What about it, Hammond? Will such a tom-fool law +stand water?" + +"Can't tell. My judgment is that it wouldn't, but it's such a fool law +that nobody can tell. And if it stuck--" He sucked in his breath. "It +would give every jay legisature a show to rough the railroads +beautifully." + +"It would hurt.... Of course it mustn't pass. Get after it and don't let +any grass grow. Kill it in committee. That's the safest way.... Have +Lafe Siggins look after it." + +Hammond bustled out, and Castle turned to his brother-in-law. "I +underestimated this Scattergood _some_," he said. "Now I'll go after +him.... For reasons of necessity we will discontinue all train service +at the flag station at the mouth of Coldriver Valley. That'll leave his +stage line dangling in the air. Just for a taste of what we can do.... +I'll have Hammond look after that condemnation matter for you." + +"He'll be coming around to offer to sidetrack that legislation if you'll +let him build his railroad." + +"Probably. I guess we won't trade." + +But Scattergood did not come around to offer a compromise. He seemed to +have lost interest in the matter wholly and to give his time solely to +his hardware store. But the Transient Car bill, as it came to be called, +began mysteriously to attract unprecedented attention. The press of the +state showed unusual interest in it. In short, it became the one big +measure of the legislative session. Everything else was secondary to it. +When a railroad measure is hotly discussed in every loafing place in a +state there is a measure that legislators handle with gloves. It is +loaded. When the home folks get really interested in a thing they are +apt to demand explanations. Wherefore it was but natural that President +Castle's experts found it impossible to strangle the bill in committee. +It was reported out, and then Hammond found it wise to journey to the +capital to take charge of things himself. + +At the end of a week, Mr. Hammond, general counsel for the G. & B. and +expert handler of legislatures, was forced to write President Castle +that he faced a condition new in his broad experience. + +"The chances," he said, "are more than even that this bill passes. Men +we have been able to depend on are refractory. Siggins is doing his +best, but so far he has been able to account for only forty-five per +cent of the votes. The strange thing about it," he finished, with +genuine amazement, "is that the other side doesn't seem to be spending a +penny." + +Which was perfectly true. Neither in that fight nor in any of the scores +of legislative battles in which Scattergood took part in his after life +did he spend a dollar to buy a vote or to influence legislation. Perhaps +it was scruple on his part; perhaps economy; perhaps he felt that his +own peculiar methods were more efficacious than mere barter and sale. + +From end to end, the state was in excitement over the measure. Skillful +work had made it seem a vital thing to the people, and hundreds of +letters and telegrams poured in to representatives. It looked as if +public opinion were overwhelmingly with the bill. It was Scattergood's +first use of the weapon of public opinion. In this battle he learned its +potentialities. Men who knew him well and were close to him in political +matters declare he became the most skillful creator of a fictitious +public opinion that ever lived in the state. It was in keeping with his +methods that he always seemed to be acting in response to a demand from +the public rather than that he excited the public to demand what +Scattergood wanted. But that was when Scattergood's hair was touched +with gray and his girth had increased by twoscore pounds. + +"I can't find any trace of Scattergood Baines in this matter," Hammond +reported to President Castle. + +That was true. Scattergood stayed at home, tending vigorously to his +hardware business. Representatives did not call on him; he did not call +on them. No trails led to his door. + +President Castle had expected overtures from Scattergood, but none +materialized. To a man of Castle's experience this was more than +strange; it was uncanny. He began to consider the situation really +serious. Was the man so confident as his silence indicated? + +"Get the votes," he wired succinctly to Hammond, and Hammond, reading +the message correctly, dipped into the emergency barrel of the railroad +with generous hands. Prosperity had come to that legislature. Yet he was +able, at the end of another two weeks, to guarantee six votes less than +a majority. The opposition had captured one more vote than he, and +needed but five to pass their measure. Hammond faced the task of +acquiring those five unplaced legislators, and of weaning one away from +Scattergood--and the bill was due to come up in the House in two days. + +That day President Castle himself arrived in the capital, and, after +discussing the situation with Hammond, wired Scattergood, asking for an +appointment. The mountain was going to Mohammed. Scattergood replied not +a word. + +"I calc'late," he said to Mandy, "that President Castle's raisin' him a +blister." + +On the morning of the day on which the bill was to come to a vote +Scattergood appeared unostentatiously in the capital, but word of his +presence flashed from tongue to tongue with miraculous speed. Word of it +came to President Castle, who pocketed his pride for excellent business +reasons, and sent up his card to Scattergood's room. + +"Guess I kin see him a minute," said Scattergood, and the president +ascended with thoughts in his heart which Scattergood was well able to +lead. + +"Baines," said Castle, without preface, "what do you want?" + +"Nothin' you've got, I calc'late," said Scattergood, serenely. + +"You're back of this infernal bill. The railroads can't permit it to +pass. It won't pass." + +"Then what you wastin' your time on me for?" Scattergood asked. + +"If we let you build your infernal little railroad will you drop out of +this?" + +"Hain't in it to speak of." + +"Will you take your hands off--if we give you your railroad and +guarantee train service?" + +"Can't seem to see my way clear." + +"What do you gain by passing this bill? You're nothing ahead. It won't +give you your railroad. It won't give you anything." + +"Calc'late you're right." + +"Listen to reason, man. You want _something_. What is it?" + +"Me?... Um!... I'm a plain kind of a man, Mr. President, with a plain +kind of a wife. Hain't never met Mandy, have you? Wa-al, her and me is +perty contented with life. We got a good hardware store ..." + +"Rot! What do you want?" + +Scattergood leaned forward, his round face, with its bulging cheeks, as +expressionless as some particularly big and ruddy apple. + +"If you're achin' to do favors for me, Mr. President you kin drop in +along about supper time. Right now can't think of a thing you kin do for +me. But I'll try ... I'll spend the afternoon thinkin' over all the +things you might be able to do, and I'll try to pick one of 'em out.... +I got to see a hardware salesman now. Afternoon Mr. President." + +"Baines," said Castle, losing his temper for the first time in a dozen +years, "we'll smash you for this. We'll drive you out of the state. +Well--" + +"Don't slam the door," said Scattergood, placidly; "it might disturb the +other folks in the hotel." + +That afternoon the galleries of the House were jammed. Below, in their +seats, the legislators sat uncomfortably. There was a tenseness in the +air which made men's skin tingle. The Transient Car bill was about to +come to a vote. Everything had been done by both sides that could be +done. There could be no more outside interference; no more money +influence. It was all over. Now the matter was in the hands of those +uneasy men, who, even now, might hold steadfast to their principles or +to the money that had bought them or to the power that had compelled +them--or who might, for reasons secret to their several souls, change +sides with astonishing suddenness, upsetting all calculations. Such +things have been done.... But, even without the happening of the +unexpected, no man could say how the votes would fall. Neither side had +obtained a sure majority. + +The preliminary formalities went forward. Then began the roll call, and +from his place in the gallery Hammond checked off on his list name after +name, as they voted yea or nay--and President Castle watched and kept +mental count. Scattergood was not present. The thing was even, +dangerously even. For every yea there sounded a balancing nay. The count +stood sixty-one for, sixty against ... with ten more votes to call.... +With six votes to call the count was even. + +"Whittaker," called the clerk's monotonous voice. + +"Nay." + +"Robbins." + +"Nay." + +"Baker." + +"Nay." + +"Hooper." + +"Nay." + +"Bolger." + +"Nay." + +"Brock." + +"Nay." + +The six final votes had been cast--and cast solidly against +Scattergood's bill. Scattergood was beaten, decisively, destructively +beaten. Not only was he defeated here, but he was smashed where the +damage was even more destructive--in his prestige. He was a discredited +political leader.... Lafe Siggins could not restrain a chuckle, for +Scattergood had played into his hands. Scattergood had allowed himself +to be eliminated from calculation in the state, leaving Siggins as sole, +undisputed, victorious boss. It had been a clever scheme that +Scattergood had outlined to Lafe--so clever that Lafe hadn't seen the +great good that lay in it for himself--until days later. He shrugged his +shoulders. It was just another case of a man unfamiliar with the game +overplaying his hand. + +President Castle shook hands openly with Hammond. True, there was a +demonstration of disapproval from the gallery--but that was only the +people! It did not signify. + +"We got him," said Castle. + +"But it was a close squeak." + +Castle looked grimly down on the representatives, now huddled together +in whispering groups. + +"I don't often have the impulse to crow over a man," he said, "but this +Baines was so infernally cocky. He told me I might see him at six +o'clock and he'd tell me what I could do for him. Well, I'm going to see +him." His voice was grim and forbidding. + +On the way they picked up Siggins and invited him to dinner. The three +went to the hotel, where, sitting calmly, placidly in the lobby, was +Scattergood. + +Castle walked directly to him. "You were going to tell me what I could +do for you--at this hour, I believe." + +"Did say somethin' like that." + +Castle eyed Scattergood venomously, found him a hard man to crow over. +He admitted Scattergood to be a good loser. + +"I expect you'll be asking favors for some time," Castle said, "and not +getting them. I told you we'd lick you--and we have. I told you we'd +smash you and drive you out of the state. We'll do that just as +surely ..." + +"Maybe so," said Scattergood, phlegmatically. "Maybe so. Nobody kin +tell.... Howdy, Siggins! Lookin' mighty jubilant about somethin'. Glad +to see it.... And Mr. Hammond seems pleased, too. Done a good job of +work, didn't you? Bet your boss is pleased with you, eh?" + +"When you're ready to turn your chunks of right of way over to Crane and +Keith, let them know," said Castle. "I guess the G. and B. loses +interest in you from this on--or it will presently." + +"Jest a jiffy," said Scattergood, as the trio turned away. "Seems like +you was goin' to do a favor for me. Well, you hain't done it yet.... +Guess I need a favor perty bad at this minute, eh? Wa-al, 'tain't a big +one. Jest sort of cast your eye over this here." Scattergood handed +Castle a folded paper of documentary appearance. + +Castle snatched it and read it. It was brief. Not more than fifty words. +It was a copy of a bill having to do with stage lines, passed by both +Houses and signed by the Governor. It provided that wherever any stage +line or _other transportation company of whatsoever nature_ intersected +the line of a railroad or terminated on such line, the railroad should +be compelled to establish a regular station on demand, for the handling +of passengers and freight, and should stop all trains except through +trains, and should establish sidetracks for the handling and transfer of +freight. + +A few formal words, backed by the authority of the state, compelling the +G. & B. to do all, and more than all, that Scattergood had requested of +them! A few words making possible Scattergood's railroad more surely +than agreement with President Castle could have made it! + +"While you folks was busy with the Transient Car bill," Scattergood +said, amiably, "the boys sort of tended to this for me. If I'd thought +Hammond was int'rested I might have called it to his attention. But I +figgered he was paid to watch out for sich things, and I didn't want to +interfere none. Jest as well, I take it." + +Castle was scowling at Hammond, momentarily at a loss for words. Siggins +was gazing at Scattergood with thin lips parted a trifle. His joy was +blanketed. + +"Somethin' else," said Scattergood, looking from one to another, and +finally at Lafe. "Siggins figgered that my gittin' a beatin' on this +bill would sort of make him boss of the state. You see, Mr. President, +this here bill wasn't _meant_ to pass. It was fixed up for a couple of +reasons. One was to git something which I'll tell you about in a second. +Another was to make the boys in the House sort of prosperous like, and +grateful to me for gittin' 'em the prosperity--with the railroads payin' +for it. The last was to settle things between Lafe and me. I sort of +wanted Lafe and the boys in politics to understand which was which.... +And they'll understand.... Now, Mr. President, the thing I wanted to git +was in two parts. First one was to git your attention on this here bill +so's you wouldn't notice my little stage-line thing. The other was +pretty nigh as valuable. I got it. It's a list of every man in this +legislature that took money for a vote on this thing, with how much +money he took and the hour and minute it was paid him--and _who by_. +Seems like I managed to git _your_ name, Mr. President, connected with +them last six votes that you took over body and britches this noon. And +I kin _prove_ every item of it.... With the folks around the state +feelin' like they do, I shouldn't be s'prised if I could make a heap of +trouble." + +President Castle was a big man or he would not hold the position that +was his. He knew when a fight was over. "You win," he said, tersely. +"Name it." + +"Two things. First off I want an agreement with your road, made by a +full vote of the board of directors, agreein' to do jest what this bill +pervides--in case of emergencies. And second, I want your folks should +handle the bonds of my railroad--construction bonds. Guess I could +manage it without, but I need my money for somethin' else. About two +hunderd thousand dollars' worth of bonds'll do it." + +Castle shrugged his shoulders--seeing possibilities for the future. +However, he knew Scattergood had weighed those possibilities himself. + +"Agreed," he said. There was a moment's silence. "By the way," he asked, +"what was the idea of the condemnation proceedings against Crane and +Keith?" + +"Jest a mite of business. With the railroad goin', I need a good mill up +on a site I got below Coldriver. Seems like Crane and Keith got a might +timid, and yestiddy they up and sold out that mill to a friend of +mine--actin' for me--for fifty-five thousand dollars. Figger I got it +dirt cheap. Wuth close to a hunderd thousand, hain't it?... I'm goin' to +move it to Coldriver, lock, stock, and barrel." + +"Baines," said Castle, presently, "the G. and B. will keep hands off +your valley. It will be better for us to work together than at odds. +Suppose we bury the hatchet and work for each other's interest.... I'm +paid to know a coming man when I see one." + +"Was hopin' you'd see it that way, Mr. President. I hain't one that +hankers for strife ... not even with Lafe, here, if he can figger he's +willin' to admit what he's got to admit." + +"I take my orders from you," said Lafe. + +In which authentic manner Scattergood Baines, in one transaction, made +possible and financed his railroad, obtained his first mill, and became +undisputed political dictator of his state. Characteristically, there +was charged to expense for the whole transaction a sum that a very +ordinary man could earn in a week. Scattergood loved cheap results. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING + + +It is known to all the world that Scattergood came to own the stage line +that plied down the valley to the railroad, but minute research and a +sifting of dubious testimony was required to unearth the true details of +that transaction in which the peg leg of Deacon Pettybone figured in a +dominant manner. + +Scattergood had long had his eye on the stage line, because his valley, +the Coldriver Valley, was dominated by it. Transportation was king, and +Scattergood knew that if his vision of developing that valley and of +acquiring riches for himself out of the development were ever to become +actuality, he must first control the means of transporting passengers +and commodities. But the stage line was not to be acquired, because +Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper, who owned it in partnership, had not +been on speaking terms for twenty years. So bitter was the feud that +either would have borne cheerfully a loss to prevent the other from +making a profit. The stage line was a worry and an annoyance to both of +them, but neither of them would sell, because he was afraid his enemy +might derive some advantage. + +As Scattergood well knew, the feud had its inception in religion as +religion is practiced in that community. Deacon Pettybone had been born +a Congregationalist. Elder Hooper was the sturdiest pillar of the +Congregationalist church. They had grown up together from boyhood, as +chums, and later as business partners, but at the mature age of forty +Deacon Pettybone had attended a revival service in the Baptist church. +When he came out of that service the mischief was done--he had been +converted to the tenets of immersion and straightway withdrew from the +church of his birth to enter the fold of its bitterest rival in +Coldriver, if it were possible for the Baptists to be bitterer rivals of +the Congregationalist than the Methodists and Universalists were. +Coldriver's population was less than four hundred. It required a great +deal of religion to get that four hundred safely past the snares and +pitfalls of Coldriver, for there were no fewer than five full-grown +churches, of which the Roman Catholic was the fifth, and a body of folks +who met in one another's houses of a Sabbath under the denomination of +the United Brethren. Five churches worshiped God through the crackling +parchment of their mortgages, when one, or at most two, might have +pointed the way to heaven free and clear, and with no worries over +semiannual interest. + +When Pettybone turned apostate there was such a commotion as had never +before disturbed Coldriver; it subsided, and was forgotten as the years +dragged on, by all but Pettybone and Hooper, who continued tenaciously +to hate each other with a bitter hatred--and the more so that their +financial affairs were so inextricably mingled. + +Even when Pettybone's leg was mashed by a log, and he lay between life +and death, there was no hint of a reconciliation; and when Pettybone +appeared again on Coldriver's streets, hobbling on a peg leg of his own +fashioning, the fires of vindictiveness burned higher and hotter than +ever. + +The situation would have been hopeless to anybody not possessed of +Scattergood's optimism and resource. It is reported that Scattergood +propounded a saying early in his career at Coldriver, to this effect: + +"Anybody kin git anythin' done if he wants it hard enough. Trouble is, +most folks hain't got a sufficient capacity for wantin'." + +Scattergood's capacity for wanting was abnormal, and his ability to want +until he got was what made him the remarkable figure in the life of his +state that he was destined to become. + +Scattergood was sitting on the piazza of his hardware store, basking in +the sunshine, and gazing up the dusty road which passed between +Coldriver's business structures, and disappeared over the hill. His eyes +were half closed, and his bulk, which later became phenomenal, filled +comfortably the specially reinforced chair which came to be called his +throne. Pliny Pickett slouched around the corner, and, as he approached, +the unmistakable odor of horses became noticeable. Inhabitants of +Coldriver knew when Pliny came into a room even if their backs were +turned. + +"Mornin', Pliny," said Scattergood. + +"Mornin', Scattergood." + +"Fetch any passengers?" + +"Drummer 'n' a fat woman to visit the Bogles. Say, Scattergood, looks +like you're goin' to have competition." + +"Um!... Don't say." + +"Hardware," said Pliny, nasally. "Station's heaped with it. Every +merchant in town's layin' in a stock." + +"Do tell," said Scattergood, without emotion. "Kettleman and Locker?" +They were the grocers. + +Pliny nodded. "An' Lumley and Penny mixin' it in with dry goods, and +Atwell minglin' it with clothin'." + +Scattergood reached down and unlaced his shoes. His mind worked more +freely when his toes were unconfined, so that he might wriggle them as +he reasoned. Pliny knew the sign and grinned. + +"Much 'bleeged," said Scattergood, and Pliny moved off. + +"Pliny," said Scattergood. + +"Eh?" + +"Was you thinkin' of buyin' a stove?" + +"No." + +"Could think about it, couldn't you?" + +"Might manage it." + +"Folks thinkin' of buyin' stoves gits prices, don't they? Kind of +inquires around to see where they kin buy cheapest?" + +"Most does." + +"G'-by, Pliny." + +"G'-by, Scattergood." + +Something of the sort was not unanticipated by Scattergood. He knew the +merchants of the town had not forgiven him for once getting decidedly +the better of them in a certain transaction, and he knew now that they +had combined against him. Their idea was transparent to him. It was +their hope to put him out of business by adding hardware to their stocks +and to sell it at cost, until he gave up the ship. They could afford it. +It would not interfere with their normal profits. + +Scattergood wriggled his toes furiously and squinted his eyes. They +alighted on a young man in clerical black, who crossed the square from +the post office. It was no other than Jason Hooper, son of Elder Hooper, +who had been educated to the ministry and had recently come to occupy +the pulpit of his father's church--a pleasant and worthy young man. +Almost simultaneously Scattergood's eyes perceived Selina Pettybone, +daughter of Deacon Pettybone, just entering the post office. + +"Purty as a picture," said Scattergood to himself, and then he chuckled. + +The young minister nodded to Scattergood, and Scattergood spoke in +return. "Mornin', Parson," he said. "How d'you find business?" + +"Business?" The young man looked a bit startled. + +"Oh, how's the marryin' industry, f'r instance? Brisk?" + +Jason smiled. "It might be brisker." + +"Um!... Maybe folks figgers you hain't had enough experience to do their +marryin' jest accordin' to rule--seein' 's you hain't married yourself." + +Jason blushed and frowned. This was a subject that had been brought to +his attention insistently; he had been informed that a minister should +marry, and there were several marriageable daughters in his church. + +"You aren't going to pick a wife for me, too?" he said, with a rueful +smile. + +"Dunno but I might," said Scattergood. "Got any preferences as to weight +and color?" + +"My only preference is to have them all--a long way off," said the young +minister. + +"Some day you'll have opposite leanin's. There'll be a girl you'll want +to snuggle right clost to.... G'-by, Parson, I'll keep my eyes open for +you." + +A few days later consignments of hardware began to arrive, and +Scattergood, sitting on the piazza of his store, watched them carried +with much ostentation into the stores of his rivals. It was noticed that +he scarcely had his shoes on during this week and that he even walked to +the post office barefooted, squirming his delighted toes into the warm +sand with apparent enjoyment. Immediately Locker and Kettleman and +Lumley and the rest made it known to Coldriver and environs that they +were dealing in hardware and not for profit, but merely as a convenience +to their patrons. They emphasized the fact that they would sell hardware +at cost, and exhibited prices which Scattergood studied and saw that he +could not meet. + +The town watched the affair, expecting much of Scattergood, but he made +no move. Apparently he was contented to sit on his piazza and see +customers passing him by for the alluring bargains offered beyond. +Coldriver was disappointed in Scattergood, and it said so, much as a +disgruntled critic will speak of an actor who has made a flat failure in +a favorite piece. + +On a certain afternoon Scattergood was seen to accost Selina Pettybone, +who paused, and drew nearer, showing signs of regret and interest. + +"Seliny," said Scattergood, "you're one of them Daughters of Dorcas, or +half sisters of Mehitable, or somethin' religious and charitable, hain't +you?" + +"Yes," said Selina, with a smile. + +"What does sich folks do when they git to hear of a case of misery and +distress?" + +"They do what they can, Mr. Baines," said Selina. + +"Um!... If you heard Xenophon Banks was took sick of a busted leg, and +his wife was dead these two year, and a 'leven-year-old girl was tryin' +to nuss her pa and look after four more, what d'ye calc'late you'd +calc'late?" + +"I'd calculate," said Selina, "that I ought to go out there to the farm +and see about it at once." + +"Usin' your buggy or mine?" + +"Mine, thank you." + +"G'-by, Selina." + +"G'-by, Mr. Baines," she said, and laughed. + +Scattergood watched her disappear in the direction of her home and then +got up leisurely and ambled toward the Congregational parsonage, in +which young Jason Hooper lived in solitary dignity. Mr. Hooper was in +his study. + +"Howdy, Parson?" said Scattergood. + +"How do you do, Mr. Baines?" + +"Bible say anythin' regardin' visitin' the sick an' ministerin' to the +oppressed?" + +"A great deal, Mr. Baines." + +"Think it's meant, eh? Or was it put there jest to preach about?" + +"It is meant, undoubtedly." + +"For ministers?" + +"Yes." + +"Um!... Xenophon Banks busted his leg. 'Leven-year-old daughter's tryin' +to carry him and four other childern on to her back, so to speak." + +"I'll go at once, Mr. Baines." + +Scattergood fidgeted. "Calculate Xenophon wasn't forehanded. Six mouths +to feed. _More mealtimes than meals_," he said, and fumbled in his +pocket. He was visibly embarrassed. "Here's ten dollars that was give me +to be used for sich a purpose. The feller that give it let on he wanted +it to come like it was give by the church, and him not mentioned. Git +the idee?" + +"I get the idea perfectly," said young Mr. Hooper, his face lighting as +he surveyed Scattergood with a whimsical twinkle--and as he saw this +scheming, money-hungry, power-hungry man in a new light. "The man may +feel confident I shall not betray him." + +"If I was a minister in sich a case I wouldn't forgit some stick candy +for them five childern. Seems like candy's 'most necessary for sich. Dum +foolishness, but keeps 'em quiet.... Git a big bag of candy.... And, if +I was doin' this, I wouldn't let no grass grow under my feet." + +So it happened that Selina Pettybone and the Rev. Jason Hooper, +respectively, daughter of the leading deacon of the Baptist church, and +parson of the Congregational church, arrived at Xenophon Banks's little +house within ten minutes of each other, and each was greatly embarrassed +by the other's presence, for the family feud had compelled them to be +coldly distant to each other all of their short lives.... But there was +much to do, and embarrassment of such kind between an unusually pretty +and wholesome girl, and a reasonably well-looking and kindly young man, +is not an emotion that cannot be easily dissipated. + +About a week later Scattergood chanced to pass Deacon Pettybone's +house, and saw the old gentleman sitting on the front porch, shaping a +large piece of wood with a draw-shave. + +"Afternoon, Deacon," said Scattergood. + +"Set and rest your legs," said the deacon. "Jest puttin' the finishin' +touches on this timber leg of mine." + +"Sturdy-lookin' leg, Deacon." + +"Best I ever made. Always calc'late to keep one ahead. Soon's one leg +wears out and I put on the spare one, I set to work fashionin' another, +to have by me. Always manage to figger some improvement." + +"More int'restin' than cuttin' out ax handles," said Scattergood. + +The deacon looked his scorn. "Anybody kin cut an ax handle, but lemme +tell you it takes study and figgerin' and _brains_ to turn out a timber +leg that's full as good if not better 'n a real one.... I aim to varnish +this here leg and hang it in the harness room. Wisht I could keep it by +me in the kitchen, but the ol' woman says it sp'iles her appetite. +Wimmin is full of notions. Claims she'd go crazy with a leg a-hangin' +back of the stove, and some day she'd up and slam it in the oven and +serve it up for a roast. You kin thank your stars you hain't got +wimmin's notions to worry you, Scattergood." + +"How d'ye stand on the proposition to have the town build a sidewalk up +the hill apast the Congregational church, Deacon?" + +The deacon pounded on the porch with his nearly finished leg, and grew +red in the face. "All the doin's of ol' man Hooper. Connivin' and +squillickin' around for his own ends. Lemme tell you, Scattergood, no +town meetin' of Coldriver'll ever vote sich a steal only over my dead +body. Jest you tell that far and wide." + +Business had been almost at a standstill for Scattergood. The only +sales he made were of small articles his competitors had forgotten or +neglected to stock. He had not taken in enough money for a month to pay +for the wear and tear on his fixtures. Coldriver was coming to set him +down as a failure and a black disappointment; but it marveled that he +took no action whatever and showed no signs of worry. His eyes were as +blue and his manner as humorous as it had ever been. Most of his +conversation seemed to be on the subject of the sidewalk past the +Congregational church, and it was carried on in low tones, and never to +more than one individual at a time. If those individuals had compared +notes they would have been astonished. Scattergood's attitude on the +matter was widely different, depending on whether he talked with Baptist +or Congregationalist. One might almost say that both sides were coming +to him for advice on how to conduct its campaign to carry the town +meeting--and one would have been right. + +The matter had developed into the hottest political issue Coldriver had +ever seen. No presidential election had come near to rivaling it, and +the local-option issue had stirred up fewer heartburnings and given rise +to less bellowing and to fewer hard words. The town meeting was less +than a month away. + +But even in the heat of the campaign Scattergood found time to drive out +to Xenophon Banks's. The road to Banks's was fairly well traveled these +days, for there was hardly a day that did not see either Selina +Pettybone or Parson Hooper driving out to the little house, and, +strangely enough, the days on which both were present appeared to be in +the majority. Scattergood dropped out now and then with pockets full of +stick candy, which he never delivered himself, but which he always +handed to the minister or to Selina to be given anonymously after he was +gone. He seemed as much interested in watching Selina and Jason as he +was in talking with Xenophon, and he might have been perceived +frequently to nod his head with satisfaction--especially on the day when +he heard Jason call Selina by her first name, and on the other day when +he saw the young minister retaining Selina's hand longer than he should +have done in saying good afternoon. That day Jason drove back to town +with Scattergood. + +"Likely-lookin' girl--Seliny," observed Scattergood. + +"Beautiful," said the parson, and Scattergood grinned. + +"Um!... Single ministers is a menace. Yes, sir, churches has busted up +on account of their ministers not bein' married." + +There was no reply. + +"But I calculate you're different. You're jest made and created to be an +old batch. Never seen sich a feller. Couldn't no girl interest you, not +if she was the Queen of Sheeby." + +"Mr. Baines," said Jason, after a pause, "I'm very miserable. I--I think +I shall resign from my church and go away." + +"Sandrich Islands or somewheres--missionery feller?" said Scattergood. + +"I--why, yes, that's what I'll do.... I wish I'd never seen her." Then +he corrected himself sharply. "No, I don't. I'm glad I've seen her. I've +got that much, anyhow. I can always remember her and think about how +sweet and beautiful she was--" + +"And die at the age of eighty with her name comin' from your lips on +your last breath. To be sure.... Seems to me, though, it would be a +sight more satisfyin' to live them fifty-odd years _with_ her and raise +up a fam'ly, and git some benefits out of that sweetness and beauty and +sich like, besides mullin' 'em over in your mind. Speakin' of Seliny, +wasn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't hanker to marry her?" + +"Mr. Baines--" + +"Then why in tunket don't you?" + +"She's a Baptist." + +"White, hain't she?" + +"Yes." + +"Respectable?" + +"Of course, sir." + +"Don't call to mind no state law ag'in' Congregationalists marryin' +Baptists." + +"My congregation wouldn't allow it." + +"Hain't never seen no deed of sale of you to your congregation." + +"Her father would never permit it?" + +"Huh!..." + +"And she's an obedient daughter." + +"Has she said so?" + +"Y-yes." + +"Ho! Kind of human, after all, hain't you? Look pleased when she said +it?" + +"She cried." + +"Comfort her--some." + +"I--She--she loves me, Mr. Baines." + +"Well, I snum! Kind of disobedient to love you, hain't it? Knows her +father 'd be set ag'in' it?" + +"Yes, but she can't help that." + +"Why?" + +"You--why, you _fall_ in love! You don't do it on purpose, Mr. Baines. +It just comes to you." + +"From where?" said Scattergood, abruptly. + +The young minister stared. + +"Who's to blame for there bein' love?" Scattergood demanded. + +After a pause the young man answered. "God," he said. "Why does He send +it?" + +"So that people will marry, and the love will keep them together, strong +to bear the trials and labors of life. I think love is a kind of wages +that God pays to men and women for living on His earth." + +"Um!... Does He send love sort of helter-skelter and hit-or-miss, or +does He aim it at certain folks?" + +"I have often preached that marriages were made in heaven." + +"Then it's a kind of a command, hain't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Which d'ye calculate is the wust disobedience? To refuse to obey an +order sich as this, or to disobey a parent that runs counter to the +wants of the Almighty?" + +The young man's face was alight with happiness. "Mr. Baines," he said, +"I'm grateful to you. I shall marry Selina." + +"Maybe," said Scattergood. "It runs in my mind you got to have dealin's +with Deacon Pettybone, and the deacon always figgers that the news he +gits from heaven is fresher and more dependable than what anybody else +gits. Might ask him and see." + +A few days after that Coldriver knew that Parson Hooper had asked the +hand of Selina from her father and had been rejected with language and +almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had +married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been +enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him +as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it +espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to +marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean, +narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing became a +public question, second in importance only to the sidewalk. + +"Hold your hosses," Scattergood advised Jason. "Let's see what a mite +of dickerin' and persuasion'll do with the deacon. Then, if measures +fails, my advice to you as a human bein' and a citizen is to git Seliny +into a buckboard and run off with her. But hold on a spell." + +So Jason held on, and the town meeting approached, and Scattergood +continued to sit in idleness on the piazza of his store and twiddle his +bare toes in the sunshine. Deacon Pettybone was a busy man, organizing +the forces of the Baptists, and seeking diligently to round up the votes +of neutrals. Elder Hooper, the leader of the Congregationalist party, +was equally occupied, and no man might hazard a guess at the outcome of +the affair. + +"This here is a great principle," said Deacon Pettybone, "and men gives +their lives and sacrifices their families for sich. I'm a-goin' to fight +to the last gasp." + +"Don't blame ye a mite," said Scattergood. "If them Congregationalists +rule this town meetin' you might's well throw up your hands. They'll +rule the town forever." + +"It's got to be pervented." + +"And nobody but you kin manage it," said Scattergood. "The hull thing +rests with you. Why, if you was sick so's to be absent from that meetin' +the Congregationalists 'u'd win, hands down." + +"I b'lieve it," said the deacon, "and nothin' on earth'll keep me +away--nothin'. If I was a-layin' at my last gasp I'd git myself carried +there." + +"Deacon," said Scattergood, solemnly, "much is dependin' on you. +Coldriver's fort'nit to have sich a man at the helm." + +Even the cribbage game under the barber shop was suspended, and the +cribbage game was an institution. It was the deacon's one shortcoming, +but even there he strove to get the better of the enemy, for the two men +who were considered his only worthy antagonists at the game were +Congregationalists. The three bickered and quarreled and threatened +each other with violence, but they played daily. There were few +afternoons when a ring of spectators did not surround the table, +breathlessly watching the champions. It was the great local sporting +event, and who shall quarrel with the good deacon for touching cards in +the innocent game of cribbage? Certainly his pastor did not do so, nor +did the fellow members of his congregation. Indeed, there was even pride +in his prowess. + +But the game was discontinued, and Hamilcar Jones and Tilley Newcamp +were loud in their excoriations of their late antagonist. The +Congregationalists had no hotter adherents than they, nor none who +entered the conflict with more bitterness of spirit. Scattergood saw to +it that he encountered them on the evening before the momentous town +meeting. + +"Evenin', Ham. Evening Tilley." + +"Howdy, Scattergood?" + +"How's things lookin' for to-morrer?" + +"Mighty even, Scattergood. If 'twan't for that ol' gallus Pettybone, +we'd git that sidewalk with votes to spare." + +"Um!... If he was absent from the meetin' things might git to happen." + +"Ho! Tie him to home, and there wouldn't even be a fight." + +"Got a wooden leg, hain't he?" + +"Wisht he had three." + +"Got two, one hangin' in the harness room. Harness room's never locked. +If 'twas a boy could squirm through the window." + +"What of it?" + +"Nothin'. Jest happened to think of it.... Ever stop to think what a +comical thing it 'u'd be if somebody was to ketch a wooden-legged man +and saw his leg off about halfway up? Jest lay him across a saw buck +and saw her off while he hollered and fit. Most comical notion I ever +had." + +"Would make a feller laugh." + +"More 'special if his spare leg was stole away and he didn't have +nothin' but the sawed-off one. Sich a man would have difficulty gittin' +any place he wanted to git to.... G'-by, Ham. G'-by, Tilley. Hope the +meetin' comes out right to-morrer." + +Scattergood went inside and looked at his bank book. In two months his +deposits from sales had amounted to something like a hundred dollars. +The situation spelled nothing less than bankruptcy, but Scattergood +replaced the book and waddled out to his piazza, where he sat in the +cool of the evening, twiddling his toes and looking from the store of +one competitor to the store of another, reflectively. + +At a late hour a small boy named Newcamp delivered a bulky package to +Scattergood, and vanished into the darkness. The package was about large +enough to contain a timber leg. + +The town seethed with politics next morning, and the deacon was in the +center of it. The meeting was called for ten o'clock. At nine thirty a +small boy wriggled up to the deacon and whispered in his ear. The deacon +quickly made his way out of the crowd and down the stairs into the +basement room under the barber shop--for news had been given him of a +chance to swap for votes. He burst into the room, and stopped, frowning, +for Tilley Newcamp stood before him. Hamilcar Jones was not at the +moment visible, because he was behind the door, which he slammed shut +and locked. + +No word was uttered, but a Trojan struggle ensued. It was two against +one, but even those odds did not daunt the deacon. It was full five +minutes before he was flat on his back, panting and uttering such +burning and searing words as might properly fall from the lips of a +Baptist deacon. Tilley Newcamp, who was heavy, sat on his chest. +Hamilcar Jones dragged up a saw buck and laid the deacon's timber leg +across it.... The deacon saw and comprehended, and lifted up his voice. +Another five minutes were consumed in returning him to quiescence. And +then the saw did its work, while the deacon breathed threats of blood +and torture, and regretted that his religion prevented him from using +language better suited to his purpose. The leg was severed; a fragment +full ten inches long fell from the end, and the deacon's assailants drew +away, their fell purpose accomplished. + +There was a rapping on the door. It was Scattergood Baines, and he was +admitted. His face was full of wrath as he gazed within, and he quivered +with fury as he ordered the two miscreants out of the place. + +"What's this, Deacon, what's this?" he demanded. + +The deacon told him at length, and fluently. + +"I was jest in time. Now we kin send for that spare leg and you kin git +to the meetin'. Lucky you had that spare leg." + +The deacon sat on the floor, speechless now, staring down at all that +remained to him of his timber leg. Scattergood, with great show of +solicitude, dispatched a youngster to the deacon's house for his extra +limb. He returned empty-handed. + +"This here boy says the leg hain't in the harness room. Sure you left it +there?" + +Again the deacon found his voice, and his words were to the general +effect that the blame swizzled, ornery, ill-sired, and regrettably +reared pew-gags had, in defiance of law and order, stolen and made away +with his leg--and what was he to do? + +"Deacon, you can't go like that. If this story got into the meetin' it +would do fer you. You'd git laughed out. Them Congregationalists 'u'd +win. You got to have a sound leg to travel on, and I don't see but one +way to git it." + +"How's that?" + +"Call in young Parson Hooper and make him force them adherents of hisn +to give it up." + +Scattergood did not wait for the permission he surmised would not be +given, but sent word for Jason Hooper, who came, saw, and was most +remarkably astonished. + +"Parson," said Scattergood, "this here outrage is onendurable. Some of +you Congregationers done it, and stole his other leg. As leader of your +flock and a honest man, it's your bounden duty to git it back." + +"But I--I know nothing about it. What can I do? I--There isn't a thing +you can do." + +"Deacon," said Scattergood, "there hain't a soul in the world can git +back your leg in time but this young man. Maybe he don't know he kin do +it, but he kin. Hain't you got no offer to make?" + +The parson started to say something, but Scattergood silenced him with a +waggle of the head. + +"I got to git to that meetin'," bellowed the deacon. "There hain't +nothin' in the world I wouldn't give to git there, and git there whole +and hearty, and so's not to be laughed at." + +"Remind you of any leetle want of yourn?" asked Scattergood. He took the +young man aside and whispered to him. + +"Deacon," he said, presently, "Parson Hooper says as how he don't see no +reason for interferin' and helpin' his enemy." The parson had said +nothing of the sort. "But I kin see a reason, Deacon. If this here young +man was a member of your family, so to speak, and was related to you +clost by ties of love and marriage, I don't see how he'd have a right +to hold his hand.... Want this man's daughter f'r your wedded wife, +don't you?" + +"Yes," said the parson, faintly. + +"Hear that, Deacon? Hear that?" + +"Never, by the hornswoggled whale that swallered Jonah." + +"Meetin's about to start," said Scattergood, looking at his watch. + +The deacon sweated and bellowed, but Scattergood adroitly waved the red +flag of animosity before his eyes, and pictured black ruin and +defeat--until the deacon was ready to surrender life itself. + +"Git me my leg," he shouted, "and you kin have anythin'.... Git me my +leg." + +"Is it a promise, Deacon? Calculate it's a promise?" + +"I promise. I promise, solemn." + +Scattergood whispered again in the pastor's ear, who stuttered and +flushed and choked, and hurried out of the room, presently to reappear +with the deacon's spare leg. + +"Now, young feller, make your preparations for that there weddin'.... +Scoot." + +It is of record that the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in +the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to +triumph--and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too +late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all +against him, and he could not withstand the pressure. + +And then.... + +"Parson," said Scattergood, "your pa and the deacon ought to make up." + +"They'll never do it, Mr. Baines." + +"Deacon'll have to let your pa come to the weddin'. There'll be makin' +up and reconciliations when there's a grandson, but I can't wait. I'm in +a all-fired hurry. You go to the deacon and tell him your pa sent him +to say that he's ready to bury the hatchet and begs the deacon's pardon +for everythin'--everythin'." + +"But it wouldn't be true." + +"It's got to be true. Hain't I sayin' it's true? And then you go to your +pa and tell him the deacon wants to make up, and begs _his_ pardon out +and out. Tell both of 'em to be at my store at three o'clock, but don't +tell neither t'other's to be there." + +At three o'clock Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper came face to face in +Scattergood's place of business. + +"Howdy, gents?" said Scattergood. "Lookin' forward to bein' mutual +grandads, I calc'late. Must be quite a feelin' to know you're in line to +be a grandad." + +"Huh!" grunted the deacon. + +"Wumph!" coughed the elder. + +"To think of you old coots dandlin' a baby on your knees--and buyin' it +pep'mint candy and the Lord knows what, and walkin' down the street, +each of you holdin' one of its hands and it walkin' betwixt you.... +Dummed if I don't congratulate you." + +The deacon looked at the elder and the elder looked at the deacon. They +grinned, frostily at first, then more broadly. + +"By hek! Eph," said the deacon. + +"I'll be snummed!" said the elder, and they shook hands there and then. + +"Step back here a minute. I got a mite of business. You won't want the +nuisance of that stage line--with a grandson to fetch up. I'm kinder +hankerin' to run the thing--not that it'll be much of an investment." + +"What you offerin'?" asked the deacon. + +Scattergood mentioned the sum. "Cash," he concluded. + +"Calc'late we better sell," said the elder. + +An hour later, with the papers in his pocket to prove ownership, +Scattergood visited the stores of his rivals, Locker, Kettleman, Lumley, +and Penny. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "you been a-tryin' to crowd me out of business. I +hain't made a cent of profit f'r two months, and I calc'late on a profit +of two hunderd and fifty a month. Jest gimme your check for five hunderd +dollars and I'll take your stocks of hardware off'n your hands at, say, +fifty cents on the dollar, and we'll call it a day." + +"Scattergood, we got you where we want you. You can't hold out another +sixty days." + +"Maybe. But, gentlemen, I guess we kin do business. I jest bought the +only means of transportin' goods, wares, and merchandise into Coldriver. +Beginnin' now, rates for freight goes up. I've studied the law, and +there hain't no way to pervent me. I kin charge what I want for +freighting and what I want will be so much not a one of you kin do +business.... And I'll put in groceries and what not, myself. Gittin' my +freight free, I calc'late to under-sell you quite consid'able.... Kin we +do business?" + +The enemy went into executive session. They surrendered. Scattergood +pocketed a check for five hundred dollars, and came into possession of a +fine stock of hardware at fifty cents on the dollar. Likewise, he owned +the stage line and franchise, controlling the only right of way by which +a railroad could reach up the valley. It had required politics, marrying +and giving in marriage, and patience, to accomplish it, but it was done. + +That evening Mrs. Hooper and Mrs. Pettybone, childhood friends, long +separated by the feud, stopped to speak to Scattergood. + +"Nobody knows how we appreciate what you done Minnie and me," said Mrs. +Pettybone. + +"Blessed is the peacemaker," said Mrs. Hooper. + +"Thankee, ladies. I don't mind bein' a peacemaker any time--when I kin +do it at a profit." + +"It's always done at a profit, Mr. Baines, if you read the Good Book. +This day you laid up a treasure in heaven." + +"Trouble with depositin' profits in heaven," said Scattergood, very +soberly, "is that you got to wait so tarnation long to draw your +int'rest." + + + +CHAPTER V + +HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS + + +"It's a telegram from Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood Baines to his +wife, Mandy, as he tore open the yellow envelope and read the brief +message it contained. + +"Telegram!" said Mandy. "Why didn't he write? Them telegrams come +high.... Huh! Jest one word--'Come.' Costs as much to send ten as it +does one, don't it?" + +"Identical," said Scattergood. + +"Then," said Mandy, sharply, "if he was bound to telegraph why didn't he +git his money's worth?" + +"I calc'late he thought he said a plenty," Scattergood replied. "Johnnie +he don't like to put no more in writin' that's apt to pass from hand to +hand than he's obleeged to.... Mandy, looks like we better start for +home." + +"What d'you s'pose it kin be?" Mandy asked, already busy laying clothing +in their canvas telescope. "Mostly telegrams announces death or +sickness." + +"I kin think of sixty-nine things it _might_ be," said Scattergood, "but +I got a feelin' it hain't none of 'em." + +"We shouldn't of come away on this vacation," said Mandy. "Johnnie Bones +is too young a boy to leave in charge." + +"Johnnie Bones is a dum good lawyer, Mandy, and a dum far-seein' young +man. I don't calc'late Johnnie's done us no harm. Hain't no hurry, +Mandy. We can't git a train home for five hours." + +"We'll be settin' right in the depot waitin' for it," said Mandy, who +declined to take chances. "Be sure you keep your money in the pants +pocket on the side I'm walkin' on. Pickpockets 'u'd have some difficulty +gittin' past me." + +"Only thing ag'in' Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood, "is that he hain't +a first-rate hardware clerk." + +Scattergood, in spite of the ownership of twenty-four miles of +narrow-gauge railroad, of a hundred-odd thousand acres of spruce, and of +a sawmill whose capacity was thirty thousand feet a day, persisted in +regarding these things as side lines, and in looking upon his little +hardware store in Coldriver as the vital business of his life. It was +now ten years since Scattergood had walked up Coldriver Valley to the +village of Coldriver. It was ten years since he had embarked on the +conquest of that desirable valley, with a total working capital of forty +dollars and some cents--and he not only controlled the valley's business +and timber and transportation, but generally supervised the politics of +the state. He could have borne up manfully if all of it were taken away +from him--excepting the hardware store. To have ill befall that would +have been disaster, indeed. + +On the train Scattergood turned over a seat to have a resting place for +his feet, took off his shoes, displaying white woolen socks, a +refinement forced upon him by Mandy, and leaned back to doze and +speculate. When Mandy thought him safely asleep she covered his feet +with a paper, to conceal from the public view this evidence of a +character not overgiven to refinements. It is characteristic of +Scattergood that, though wide awake, he gave no sign of knowledge of +Mandy's act. Scattergood was thinking, and to think, with him, meant so +to unfetter his feet that he could wriggle his toes pleasurably. + +Johnnie Bones was waiting for Scattergood at the station. + +"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "did you sell that kitchen range to Sam +Kettleman?" + +"Almost, Mr. Baines, almost. But when it came to unwrapping the weasel +skin and laying money on the counter, Sam guessed Mrs. Kettleman could +keep on cooking a spell with what she had." + +"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "you're dum near perfect; but you got your +shortcomings. Hardware's one of 'em.... What about that telegram of +yourn?" + +"Yes," said Mandy. + +"Mr. Castle, president of the G. and B.--" + +"I know what job he's holdin' down, Johnnie." + +"--came to see you yesterday. I wouldn't tell him where you were, so he +had to tell me what he wanted. He wants to buy your railroad. Said to +have you wire him right off." + +"Um!..." Scattergood walked deliberately, with heavy-footed stride, to +the telegraph operator, and wrote a brief but eminently characteristic +message. "I might," the telegram said to President Castle. + +"Now, folks," he said, "we'll go up to the store and sort of figger on +what Castle's got in mind." + +They sat down on the veranda, under the wooden awning, and Scattergood's +specially reinforced chair creaked under his great weight as he stooped +to remove his shoes. For a moment he wriggled his toes, just as a golfer +waggles his driver preparatory to the stroke. "Um!..." he said. + +"Castle," said he, presently, "works for jest two objects--makin' money +and payin' off grudges. Most gen'ally he tries to figger so's to combine +'em." + +Johnnie and Mandy waited. They knew better than to interrupt +Scattergood's train of thought. Had they done so he would have uttered +no rebuke, but would have hoisted himself out of his chair and would +have waddled away up the dusty street, and neither of them would ever +hear another word of the matter. + +"He knows I wouldn't sell this road without gittin' money for it. +_Therefore_ he's figgerin' on makin' a lot of money out of it, or payin' +off a doggone big grudge.... Somebody we don't know about is calc'latin' +on movin' into this valley, Johnnie. Somebody that's goin' to do a heap +of shippin'--and that means timber cuttin'.... And it must be settled or +Castle wouldn't come out and offer to buy." + +Johnnie and Mandy had followed the reasoning and nodded assent. + +"What timber be they goin' to cut?" Scattergood poked a chubby finger at +Johnnie, who shook his head. + +"The Goodhue tract, back of Tupper Falls. Uh-huh! Because there hain't +no other sizable tract that I hain't got strings on. And the mills, +whatever kind they be, will be at Tupper Falls. Mills _got_ to be there. +Can't git timber out to no other place. And, Johnnie, buyin' timber is a +heap more important and difficult than buyin' mill sites. Eh?... +Johnnie, you ketch the first train for Tupper Falls. I own a mite of +land along the railroad, Johnnie, but you buy all the rest from the +falls to the station. Not in my name, Johnnie. Git deeds to folks whose +names we're entitled to use--and the more deeds the better. Scoot." + +"Now, Scattergood, don't go actin' hasty," said Mandy. "You don't +_know_--" + +"The only thing I don't know, Mandy, is whether Johnnie 's too late to +buy that land. Knowin' nobody else wants it, and it hain't no good for +nothin' but what they want it for, these folks may not have bought +_yit_...." + +Scattergood shouted suddenly at the passing drayman. "Hey, Pete.... Come +here and git a cookin' range and take it up to Sam Kettleman's house. +Git a man to help you. Tell Mis' Kettleman I sent it, and she's to try +it a week to see if she likes it. Set it up for her and all." + +Scattergood settled back to watch with approval, while two men hoisted +the heavy stove on the wagon and drove away with it. Presently Sam +Kettleman appeared on the porch of his grocery across the street, and +Scattergood called to him: "Well, Sam, glad you decided to git the woman +a new stove. Shows you're up an' doin'. It's all set up by this time." + +Sam stared a moment; then, smitten speechless, he rushed across the road +and stood, a picture of rage, glaring at Scattergood. "I didn't buy no +stove. You know dum well I didn't buy no stove. I can't afford no stove. +You jest git right up there and haul it back here, d'you hear me?" + +"Well, now, Sam, don't it beat all--me makin' a mistake like that? Sure +I'll send after it, right off.... Now I won't have to order one special +for Locker." Locker was the rival grocer. "I kin haul this one right to +his house, and explain to him how he come to git it so soon. I'll say: +'Locker, we jest hauled this stove down from Sam Kettleman's. Had it all +set up there and then Sam he figgered it was too expensive a stove for +him and he couldn't afford it right now on account of business not bein' +brisk.'" + +"Eh?" said Kettleman. + +"'Twon't cause a mite of talk that anybody'll pay attention to. +Everybody knows what Locker's wife is. Tongue wagglin' at both ends. And +I'll take pains to conterdict whatever story she goes spreadin' about +you bein' too mean to git your wife things to do with in the kitchen, +and about how you're 'most bankrupt and ready to give up business. +Nobody'll b'lieve her, anyhow, Sam, but if they do I'll explain it to +'em." + +"Now--" + +"Locker's wife'll be glad to have it, too. She'd have to wait two +weeks for hers, and now she'll git it right off. Oven's cracked on hern, +and she allows she sp'iles every batch of bread she bakes--and her +pledged to furnish six loaves for the Methodist Ladies' Food Sale...." + +"Scattergood Baines, if you dast touch my stove I'll have the law onto +you. You can't go enterin' my house and removin' things without my +permission, I kin tell you. Don't you try to forgit it, neither. If you +think you can gouge me out of my stove jest to make it more convenient +for Mis' Locker, you're thinkin' _wrong_...." + +"'Tain't your stove till it's paid for, Sam." + +"Then, by gum! it'll be mine darn quick. Thirty-eight dollars, was it? +Now you gimme a receipt.... Locker!..." + +Scattergood waddled into the store, wrote a receipt, and put the money +in the safe. When Sam had recrossed the road again he turned to Johnnie +Bones. "Sellin' hard-ware's easy if you put your mind to it, Johnnie. +Trouble with you is you don't take no int'rest in it.... Next time +you'll know better. Train's goin' in fifteen minutes. Better hustle." + +Next noon Scattergood was in his usual place on the piazza of his store +when the train came in. Presently Mr. Castle, president of the G. & B., +came into view, and Scattergood closed his eyes as if enjoying a midday +snooze. Mr. Castle approached, stopped, regarded Scattergood with a +pucker of his thin lips, and said to himself that the man must be an +accident. It was one of Scattergood's most valuable qualities that his +appearance and manner gave that opinion to people, even when they had +suffered discomfiture at his hands. Mr. Castle coughed, and Scattergood +opened his eyes sleepily and peered over the rolls of fat that were his +cheeks. + +"Howdy?" said Scattergood, not moving. + +"Good day, Mr. Baines. You got my message?" + +"Seein' as you got my reply to it, I must have," said Scattergood. + +"Can we talk here?" + +"I kin." + +Mr. Castle looked about. No one was within earshot. He occupied a chair +at Scattergood's side. + +"I understand your message to mean that you are willing to sell your +railroad." + +"I calculate that message meant jest what it said." + +"I know what your railroad cost you--almost to a penny." + +"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood, without interest. + +"I'll tell you why I want it. My idea is to extend it through to +Humboldt--twenty miles. May have to tunnel Hopper Mountain, but it will +give me a short line to compete with the V. and M. from Montreal." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood, who knew well that such an extension was +not only impracticable from the point of view of engineering, but also +from the standpoint of traffic to be obtained. "Good idee." + +"I'll pay you cost and a profit of twenty-five thousand dollars." + +"Hain't interested special," said Scattergood. "I git that much fun out +of railroadin'." + +"It isn't paying interest on your investment." + +"I calculate it's goin' to. I'm aimin' to see it does." + +"Set a figure yourself." + +"Hain't got no figger in mind." + +"Mr. Baines, I'll be frank with you. I want your railroad." + +"So I jedged," said Scattergood. + +"I _need_ it. I'll pay you a profit of fifty thousand--and that's my +last word." + +Scattergood closed his eyes, opened them again, and sat erect. "Now that +business is over with," he said, "better come up and set down to table +with Mandy and me. Mandy's cookin' is considered some better 'n at the +hotel." + +"You refuse?" + +"I was wonderin'," said Scattergood, "if you had any notion if I could +buy the Goodhue timber reasonable?" + +"Eh?" said Mr. Castle, startled. "The Goodhue timber?" + +"Back of Tupper Falls." + +"Who told--" Mr. Castle snapped his teeth together sharply. + +"Leetle bird," said Scattergood. "Dinner's ready." + +"There might come a time when you'd be mighty glad to sell for less than +I'm offering." + +"Once there was a boy," said Scattergood, "and he up and says to another +boy, 'I kin lick you,' The story come to me that the boy sort of +overestimated his weight.'" + +"I'm not threatening you," said Castle. + +"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you +goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?" + +"Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in +Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information." + +"Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg, +and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all +fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used +right." + +"Will you answer a fair question?" + +"If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another." + +"Has McKettrick got to you first?" + +It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face +showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who +McKettrick was--but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any +conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe +what he desired--and Castle believed. + +"He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling +them to you. It cost _me_ money to find out." + +"Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood. + +"Did he offer to buy your road?" + +"If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'." + +It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information, +though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a +haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle +knew less after the interview than he had known when he came; +Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover. + +Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he +had been partially successful. + +"I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on +the quiet. Three strips from the river to the hill were not to be had, +but I bought four strips, two at the ends and two between the pieces I +couldn't get." + +"Better call it a side of bacon, Johnnie. Strip of fat and strip of +lean. Dunno but it's better as it lays. Hear anythin' about the Goodhue +tract?" + +"Somebody's been cruising it for a month back--without a brass band." + +"Um!... Send a wire, Johnnie. Lumberman's Trust Company, Boston. Set +price Goodhue tract...." + +Johnnie telephoned the wire. Two hours later the answer came, "Goodhue +tract no longer in our hands." + +"Did you ever wonder, Johnnie, why I never got int'rested into that +Goodhue timber?" + +Johnnie shook his head. + +"Because," said Scattergood, "you got to log it by rail. Forty thousand +acres of it, and no stream runnin' through it big enough to drive logs +down.... But I got an idee, Johnnie, that loggin' by rail can be done +economical. Know who bought that timber?" + +"No." + +"McKettrick of the Seaboard Box and Paper Company, biggest concern of +the kind in America. Calc'late they'll be makin' pulp here to ship to +their paper mills. Calculate I'll give 'em a commodity rate of around +seven cents to the G. and B. Johnnie, our orchard's goin' to begin +givin' a crop. That'll give us sixteen dollars and eighty cents for +haulin' a minimum car of twenty-four thousand. And this hain't goin' to +be any one-car mill, neither. Five cars a day'll be increasin' our +revenue twenty-four thousand three hunderd dollars a year--on outgoin' +freight. Then there's incomin' freight to figger. All we got to do is +set still and take _that_. Beauty of controllin' the transportation of a +region. But it seems like we ought to git more out of it than that--if +we stir around some. Especial when you come to consider that McKettrick +and Castle is flyin' at each other's throats. It's a situation, Johnnie, +that man owes a duty to himself to take advantage of." + +Scattergood went back to his hardware store and seated himself on the +piazza. Presently a team drove up from down the valley and a tall, gaunt +individual, with hair of the color of a dead leaf, alighted. + +"I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said. + +"You kin," Scattergood replied. + +"Where is he?" + +"Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him." + +The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks +to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and +disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the +scrutiny stopped. + +"Some mistake," he said; "I want the owner of the Coldriver Valley +Railroad." + +"It may be a mistake," said Scattergood. "Calculate it _is_ a mistake to +own a railroad. But 'tain't the only mistake I ever made." + +"_You_ own the road?" + +"Calculate to." + +Evidently the stranger was not impressed by Scattergood in a manner to +arouse him to a notable exertion of courtesy. He allowed it to appear in +his manner that he set a light value on Scattergood; in fact, that it +was not exactly pleasant to him to be compelled to do business with such +a human being. Scattergood's eyes twinkled and he wriggled his toes. + +"Well, Baines," said the stranger, "I want to talk business to you." + +"Step into my private office," said Scattergood, motioning to a chair at +his side, "and rest your legs." + +"I'm thinking of establishing a plant below," said the stranger. "A very +considerable plant. In studying the situation it seems as if your +railroad might be run as an adjunct to my business. I suppose it can be +bought." + +"Supposing" said Scattergood, "is free as air." + +"I'll take it off your hands at a fair figure." + +"'Tain't layin' heavy on my hands," said Scattergood. + +"How much did it cost you?" + +"A heap less 'n I'll sell for.... You hain't mentioned your name." + +"McKettrick." + +Scattergood nodded. + +"I'd sell to a man of that name." + +"How much?" + +"One million dollars," said Scattergood. + +"You're--you're _crazy_," said McKettrick. It was an exclamation of +disgust, a statement of belief, and a cry of pain. "I might go a quarter +of a million." + +"This here's a one-price store--marked plain on the goods. Customers is +requested not to haggle." + +"You're not serious?" + +"One million dollars." + +"I'll build a road down my side of the river." + +"Maybe. Can be done. Twelve mile of tunnel and the rest trestle. +Wouldn't cost more 'n fifteen, twenty million--if you're figgerin' on +the west side of the stream.... How you figgerin' on gettin' your pulp +wood down to Tupper Falls?" + +"What?... What's that?" + +"Goin' to log, yourself, or job it?" + +"Look here, Baines, what do you know?" + +"About what's needful. I try to keep posted." + +"Tell me what you know. I insist." + +Scattergood opened his eyes and peered over his dumpling cheeks at +McKettrick, but said nothing. + +"And how you found it out." + +"I've been figgerin' over your case," said Scattergood. "I'll give you a +sidetrack into your yards pervidin' you pay the cost of bridgin' and +layin' the track, me to furnish ties and rails. _Also_, I'll give you a +commodity rate of seven cents to the G. and B. As to sellin', I don't +calc'late you want to buy at a million. But that hain't no sign you and +me can't do business. You got to log by rail. You got to cut consid'able +number of cords of pulpwood. I'll build your loggin' road, and I'll +contract to cut your pulp and deliver it.... Want to go into it with +me?" + +McKettrick peered at Scattergood with awakened interest. His scrutiny +told him nothing. + +"What backing have you?" + +"My own." + +McKettrick almost sneered. + +"Been lookin' me up?" asked Scattergood. + +"No." + +"Let's step to the bank." + +McKettrick followed Scattergood's bulky figure-wondering. + +In the bank Scattergood presented the treasurer. "Mr. Noble, meet Mr. +McKettrick. He wants you should tell him somethin' about me. For +instance, Noble, about how fur you calculate my credit could be +stretched." + +"Mr. Baines would have no difficulty borrowing from five hundred +thousand to three quarters of a million," said Noble. + +"How's his reppitation for keepin' his word?" said Scattergood. + +"The whole state knows your word is kept to the letter." + +"What you calculate I'm wuth--visible prop'ty?" + +"I'd say a million and a half to two millions." + +"Backin' enough to suit you, Mr. McKettrick?" asked Scattergood. + +McKettrick wore a dazed look. Scattergood did not look like two +millions; he did not look like ten thousand. His bearing became more +respectful. + +"I'll listen to any proposition you wish to make," he said. + +"Come over to Johnnie Bones's," said Scattergood. + +In a moment they were sitting in Johnnie's office, and McKettrick and +Johnnie were acquainted. + +"Here's my proposition," said Scattergood. "I'll build and equip a +loggin' road accordin' to your surveys. You furnish right of way and +enough money to give you forty-nine per cent of the stock in the company +we'll form. I kin build cheaper 'n you, and I know the country and kin +git the labor. You pay the new railroad a set price for haulin' +pulpwood--say dollar 'n a quarter to two dollars a cord, as we figger it +later.... Then I'll take the job of loggin' for you and layin' down the +pulpwood at sidings. It'll save you labor and expense and trouble. I've +showed I was responsible. The new railroad company'll put up bonds, and +so'll the loggin' company--if you say so." + +This was the beginning of some weeks of negotiations, during which +Scattergood became convinced that McKettrick was wishful of using him so +long as he proved useful; then, when the day arrived for a showing of +profit on the profit sheet, the same McKettrick was planning to see that +no profit would be there and that Scattergood Baines should be +eliminated from consideration--to McKettrick's profit in the sum of +whatever amount Scattergood invested in the construction of the +railroad. It was a situation that exactly suited Scattergood's love of +business excitement. + +"If McKettrick had come up here wearin' better manners," said +Scattergood to Johnnie, "and if he hadn't got himself all rigged out as +little Red Ridin' Hood's grandmother--figgerin' I'd qualify for little +Red Ridin' Hood without the eyesight for big ears and big teeth that +little girl had--why, I might 'a' give him a reg'lar business deal. But +seem's he's as he is, I calc'late I'm privileged to git what I kin git." + +Therefore Scattergood made it a clause in the contract that all the +stock in the new railroad and construction company should remain in his +own name until the road was completed and ready to operate. Then 49 per +cent should be transferred to McKettrick. This McKettrick regarded as a +harmless eccentricity of the lamb he was about to fleece. + +The new company was organized with Johnnie Bones as president, +Scattergood as treasurer, an employee of McKettrick's as secretary, and +Mandy Baines and another employee of McKettrick's as the remaining two +directors. + +While the negotiations regarding the railroad were being carried on, +another matter arose to irritate Mr. McKettrick, and, in some measure, +to take the keen edge off his attention. Scattergood usually endeavored +to have some matter arise to irritate and distract when he was engaged +on a major operation, and it was for this reason he had bought the four +strips of land at Tupper Falls. + +McKettrick awoke suddenly to find that his men had not secured the site +for his mills, and that, apparently, it could not be secured. He +discussed the thing with Scattergood. + +"Prob'ly some old scissor bills that got a notion of hangin' on to their +land," Scattergood said. + +"It can't be that, for the sales to the present owners were recent. The +new owners refuse absolutely to sell." + +"And pulp mills hain't got no right of eminent domain like railroads." + +"All substantial businesses ought to have it," said McKettrick. "You +know these folks. I wish you'd see what you can do." + +"Glad to," Scattergood promised, and two days later he reported that all +four landowners might be brought to terms. Three would sell, surely; one +was holding back strangely, but the three had put the matter into the +hands of a local real-estate and insurance broker, by name Wangen. +"We'll go see him," said Scattergood. + +Which they did. "My clients," said Wangen, importantly, "realize the +value of their property. That, I may say, is why they bought." + +"It cost the three of 'em less 'n three thousand dollars for the three +passels," said Scattergood. + +"Prices have gone up," said Wangen. + +"Give them two hundred dollars profit apiece," said McKettrick. + +"Consid'able difference between givin' it and their takin' it," said +Scattergood. "I agree with that," said Wangen. + +"Now, Wangen, you and me has done consid'able business," said +Scattergood, "and you hain't goin' to hold up a friend of mine." + +"If it was a personal thing, Mr. Baines; but I've got to do my best for +my clients." + +"What's your proposition?" + +"Five thousand dollars apiece for the three strips." + +"It's an outrage," roared McKettrick. "I'll never be robbed like that." + +"Take it," said Wangen, "or leave it." + +"You've _got_ to have it," Scattergood whispered. + +McKettrick spluttered and stormed and pleaded, but Wangen was firm and +gave but one answer. There could be but one result: McKettrick wrote a +check for fifteen thousand dollars--and still had one strip to buy--a +strip not at an edge of his mill site, but bisecting it. + +This strip caused the worry when Scattergood needed attention distracted +the most. But Scattergood managed finally to secure it for McKettrick +for seventy-five hundred dollars. Thus it will be seen how Scattergood +resorted to the law of necessity, and how McKettrick suffered from +failure to build securely his commercial structure from its foundation. +Twenty-two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars were paid by +McKettrick for land that had cost Scattergood exactly three thousand six +hundred dollars. Scattergood believed in always paying for services +rendered, so Wangen and each of the four ostensible landowners were +given a hundred dollars. Net profit to Scattergood, eighteen thousand +one hundred and fifty dollars. + +"Which it wouldn't 'a' cost him if he hadn't looked sneerin' at my +stockin' feet," said Scattergood to Johnnie Bones. + +Johnnie Bones prepared the papers for the incorporation of the new +railroad, and the organization was perfected. There were two thousand +shares of one hundred dollars each. McKettrick put in his right of way +at five thousand, an excessive figure, as Scattergood knew well, and +gave his check for the balance of his 49 per cent. Scattergood deposited +a check for his 51 per cent, or one hundred and two thousand dollars. +Work was begun grading the right of way immediately. + +McKettrick vanished from the region and did not appear again except for +flying visits to his rising plant at Tupper Falls. He never inspected so +much as a foot of the new railroad back into the Goodhue tract--and +this, Scattergood very correctly took to be suspicious. The work was +left utterly in Scattergood's hands, with no check upon him and no +inspection. It was not like a man of McKettrick's character--unless +there were an object. + +Once or twice Scattergood encountered President Castle of the G. & B. +while the road was building. + +"Hear you're putting in a logging road for McKettrick," he said. + +"For me," said Scattergood. "Stock stands in my name. Calculate to +operate it myself." + +"Oh!" said Castle, and drummed with his fingers on the window ledge. +Scattergood said nothing. + +"Own the right of way?" asked Castle. + +"'Tain't precisely a right of way," said Scattergood. "It's a easement, +or property right, or whatever the lawyers would call it, to run tracks +over any part of McKettrick's property and operate a loggin' +railroad--where McKettrick says he wants to get logs from." + +"No definite right of way?" + +"Jest what I described." + +"Capitalized for two hundred thousand, I see." + +"Uh-huh!" + +"Any stock for sale?" + +"Not at the present writin'." + +"At a price?" + +"Wa-al, now--" + +"Say a profit of twenty dollars a share." + +"It'll pay dividends on more 'n that figger," said Scattergood, +"which," he added, "you know dum well." + +"Yes," said Castle, "but for a quick turnover--and I'm not figuring +dividends altogether." + +"Kind of got a bone to pick with McKettrick, eh?" + +"Maybe." + +"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "I'll sell you forty-nine per +cent of the stock at a hunderd and twenty. Stock to stand in my name +till the road's ready to operate, I don't want it known I've been +sellin' any.... Shouldn't be s'prised if you was able to pick up control +one way and another--but I hain't goin' to sell it to you." + +"I see," said Castle, closing his eyes and squinting through a slit +between the lids. "It's a deal, Mr. Baines," he said, presently. + +"Cash," said Scattergood. + +"You'll find a certified check in the mail the day after I get the +proper papers." + +Which transaction gave Scattergood another profit on the whole affair of +nineteen thousand six hundred dollars--this time a capitalization of the +spite of man toward man. It will be seen that McKettrick owned 49 per +cent of the stock, Castle, 49 per cent, and Scattergood, 2 per cent. He +was now in a position to await developments. + +They arrived as the railway was on the point of running its first train. +McKettrick brought them in person. He burst upon Scattergood as +Scattergood sat in front of his hardware store, and began to storm. + +"What's this? What's this?" he roared. "What's that railroad doing up +the easterly side of our timber? It's waste money, lost money. It'll +have to be rebuilt. We've made all arrangements to cut off the westerly +side. Now we'll have to swamp roads and log by team till the road can be +moved." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood, "so _that's_ it, eh? I was wonderin' how it +would come." + +"It was an inexcusable blunder, and it'll cost you money. You know how +the railroad's contract with the company reads. Who gave you directions +to run up the easterly side?" + +"My engineer got 'em in your office." + +"Oh, your engineer. He made the mistake, eh? Then the mistake's yours, +all right, for every scrap of writing in our office has the word +'westerly' in it, plain and distinct. It means tearing up those rails, +grading a new line--and you'll pay for it. I sha'n't stand loss for your +mistake. It'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars for that blunder." + +"Hain't you discoverin' it a mite late?" + +"It was left wholly to you." + +"Seems like I noticed it," said Scattergood. "So all that work's lost, +eh? Seems a pity, too." + +"You don't seem to take it seriously." + +"You bet I do, and I calculate to look into it _some_." + +"It won't do any good. The mistake is plain." + +"Shouldn't be s'prised. I git your idee, McKettrick. You've been +figgerin' from the start on smougin' me out of what I invested in that +road, eh?... By the way, your stock's in your name. I'll git the +certificates out of the safe." + +McKettrick shoved the envelope in his pocket. "The Seaboard Box and +Paper Company will force you to remove your tracks from our land. I'll +sue you for damages for your blunder. The Seaboard will sue the new +railroad for damages for failure to have the tracks into the cuttings +on time. I guess when we begin collecting judgments by levying on the +new road, there won't be much of it left. The Seaboard will come pretty +close to owning it." + +"And you and I will be frozen out, eh?" said Scattergood. + +McKettrick purred and smiled. "Exactly," he said. "Now, my advice to you +is not to fight the thing. You can't deny the blunder and you'll save +cost of litigation." + +"What's your proposition?" + +"Transfer your stock to the Seaboard." + +"And lose a hunderd and two thousand?" + +"It's not our fault if you make expensive mistakes." + +"Course not," said Scattergood. "I admit I hain't much on litigation. +S'posin' you and me meets in Boston to-morrow with our lawyers, and sort +of figger this thing out." + +"There's nothing to figure out--but I'll meet you to-morrow. You're +sensible to settle." + +"Calc'late I be," said Scattergood. + +That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle's 49 per cent of +the railroad's stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the +hands of the railroad's chief executive. + +"Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow. There will be a meeting at his hotel +at three o'clock. McKettrick will be there." + +"I'll come," said President Castle. + +The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized. +McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with +Johnnie Bones--and last came President Castle. + +At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet. + +"What do _you_ want here?" he demanded. + +"Well," said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths +of disagreeability, "I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this +concern. I imagine I have a right to be here." + +"What's that? What's that?" McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat +placidly removing his shoes. + +"Calc'late I'll relieve my feet," he said. + +"So I got you, too," McKettrick said to Castle. "I didn't figure on +_that_ luck." + +"Got me? I'm interested." + +McKettrick explained at length, and, as he explained, Castle glared at +him, and then at Scattergood, with increasing rage. As he saw it there +was a plot between Scattergood and McKettrick to get him--and he +appeared to have been gotten. He started to speak, but Scattergood +stopped him. + +"Jest a minute, Mr. Castle," he said. "'Tain't time for you to cuss yet. +Maybe you won't git to do no reg'lar cussin' a-tall. You see, McKettrick +he up and made a little error himself. Regardin' me makin' an error. +Yass.... I don't calc'late to make errors costin' upward of a hunderd +thousand. No.... Not," he said, "that I got any doubts about the word +'westerly' appearin' in all the papers McKettrick's got regardin' this +enterprise. What I doubt some is whether the word 'westerly' was there +right from the start off of the beginnin'. In other words, it looks to +me kind of as if McKettrick had done a mite of fixin' up to them +documents. Rubbin' out and writin' in, so to speak." + +"Fiddlesticks!" said McKettrick. "Of course that is what you would +charge." + +"McKettrick," said Scattergood, "did you figger I'd take notes in lead +pencil on my cuff of where I was to build that railroad? Did you figger +I was goin' to lay down a railroad without knowin' the place I put it +was where it b'longed? Castle he knows me better 'n you, and he +wouldn't guess I'd do sich a thing. No, sir, Mr. McKettrick. I took +them original papers out of your office for jest a day, and bein' as +they constituted an easement on land, I got 'em recorded in the office +of the recorder of deeds. Paid reg'lar money in fees to have it done. +And who you think I got to compare the records with the original in case +somethin' come up, eh? Why, the circuit jedge of this county and the +prosecutin' attorney--they both bein' personal and political friends of +mine.... That's what I done, and if you'll search them records you'll +find the word 'easterly' standin' cool and ca'm in every place where it +ought to be.... So, if you're figgerin' on litigation, I guess maybe +we'll litigate, eh?" + +"These are the references to the records," said Johnnie Bones, laying a +memorandum on the table. "You'll find them correct." + +"Knowing Baines as I do," said President Castle, "I'm satisfied." + +McKettrick and his attorney were conversing in hoarse whispers. +McKettrick looked like a man who had come out of a warm bath into a +cold-storage room. He was speechless, but his lawyer spoke for him. + +"You win," he said, succinctly. + +"Always calc'late to when I kin," said Scattergood. "Now, don't hurry, +gentlemen. I got another leetle matter to call to your attention. +McKettrick there's got forty-nine per cent of the stock in the railroad +that's built where it ought to be, and Castle's got another forty-nine +per cent. That leaves two men with all but two per cent of the stock, +and neither of them in control. If I know them men they hain't apt to +git together and agree peaceable and reasonable. Therefore, the feller +that has the remainin' two per cent of the stock, or forty shares, +stands perty clost to controllin' the corporation, eh? Him votin' with +either of the forty-nine per cents? Sounds that way, don't it?... And I +got that two per cent.... Do I hear any suggestions?" + +Castle stood up and bowed. "I take off my hat to you, Baines.... I bid +ten thousand." + +"Eleven," choked McKettrick. + +"This here road's goin' to be mighty profitable. Contract with the +Seaboard folks makes it look like it would pay eighteen, twenty per cent +on the investment, maybe more. And control--hain't that wuth a figger?" + +"Fifteen," said Castle. + +"Sixteen." + +"Seventeen five hundred." + +"That's enough," said Scattergood. "I got a leetle grudge ag'in' +McKettrick for havin' bad manners, and for regardin' me as somethin' to +pick and eat. It'll hurt him some to have you control this road, Castle, +so you git it, at seventeen thousand five hunderd. I don't want to burn +you, and I calc'late the figger you're payin' is clost to bein' fair. +I'm satisfied. Write a check." + +Castle drew out his check book, and in a moment passed the valuable slip +across to Scattergood. "Thankee," said Baines, "and good day.... Another +time, McKettrick, don't look sneerin' at white woolen socks." + +He walked out of the room, followed by Johnnie Bones. + +"Perty fair deal for a scissor bill," said Scattergood. "This last +check, deductin' four thousand as cost of stock, gives me a profit of +twelve thousand two hunderd and fifty for the day. Add that to eighteen +thousand one hunderd and fifty on the strips of land, and nineteen +thousand six hunderd on the stock I sold Castle first, and what do we +git?" + +"Even fifty thousand," said Johnnie. + +"I always did cotton to round figgers," said Scattergood, comfortably. +"Let's git us a meal of vittles." + + + +CHAPTER VI + +INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE + + +Scattergood Baines was not a man to shingle his roof before he built his +foundations. He knew the value of shingles, and was not without some +appreciation for frescoes and porticoes and didos, but he liked to reach +them in the ordinary course of logical procedure. His completed +structure, according to the plans carefully printed on his brain, was +the domination of Coldriver Valley through ownership of its means of +transportation and of its water power. He wanted to be rich, not for the +sake of being rich, but because a great deal of money is, aside from +love or hate, the most powerful lever in the world. For five years, now, +Scattergood had moved along slowly and irresistibly, buying a bit of +timber here, acquiring a dam site there, taking over the stage line to +the railroad twenty-four miles away, and establishing a credit and a +reputation for shrewdness that were worth much more to him than dollars +and cents in the bank. + +As a matter of fact, Scattergood had amassed considerable more money +than even the gimlet eyes and whispering tongues of Coldriver had been +able to credit him with. It is doubtful if anybody realized just how +strong a foot-hold Scattergood was getting in that valley, but the men +who came closest to it were Messrs. Crane and Keith, lumbermen, who were +beginning to experience a feeling of growing irritation toward the fat +hardware merchant. They were irritated because, every now and then, they +found themselves shut off from the water, or from a bit of timber, or +from some other desirable property, by some small holding of +Scattergood's which seemed to have dropped into just the right spot to +create the maximum amount of trouble for them. It could be nothing but +chance, they told each other, for they had sat in judgment on +Scattergood, and their judgment had been that he was a lazy lout with +more than a fair share of luck. + +"It's nothing but luck," Crane told his partner. "The man hasn't a brain +in his head--just a big lump of fat." + +"But he's always getting in the way--and he does seem to know a +water-power site when he sees it." + +"Anybody does," said Crane. "He's a doggone nuisance and we might as +well settle with him one time as another--and the time to settle is +before his luck gives him a genuine strangle hold on this valley. We've +got too much timber on these hills to take any risks." + +"I leave it with you, Crane. You're the outside man. But when you bust +him, bust him good." + +Crane retired to his office and devoted his head to the subject +exclusively, and because Crane's head was that sort of head he devised +an enterprise which, if Scattergood could be made to involve himself in +it, would result in the extinction of that gentleman in the Coldriver +Valley. + +It was a week later that a gentleman, whose clothes and bearing +guaranteed him to be a genuine denizen of the city, stopped at +Scattergood's store. Scattergood was sitting, as usual, on the piazza, +in his especially reinforced chair, laying in wait for somebody to whom +he could sell a bit of hardware, no matter how small. + +"Good morning," said the gentleman. "Is this Mr. Scattergood Baines?" + +"It's Scattergood Baines, all right. Don't call to mind bein' christened +Mister." + +"My name is Blossom." + +"Perty name," said Scattergood, unsmilingly. + +"I wonder if I can have a little talk with you, Mr. Baines?" + +"Havin' it, hain't you?" + +Mr. Blossom smiled appreciatively, and sat down beside Scattergood. "I'm +interested in the new Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company. You've heard of it, +haven't you?" + +"Some," said Scattergood. "Some." + +"We are starting to build our mill. It will be the largest in America, +with the most modern machinery. Now we're looking about for somebody to +supply us spruce cut to the proper length for pulpwood. You own +considerable spruce, do you not?" + +"Calc'late to have title to a tree or two." + +"Good. I came up to find out if you are in a position to swing a rather +big contract--to deliver us at the mill a minimum of twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood?" + +"Depends," said Scattergood. + +Mr. Blossom drew a jackknife from his pocket and began leisurely to +sharpen a pencil. It was a rather battered jackknife, and Scattergood +noticed that one blade had been broken off. He stretched out his hand. +"Jackknife's kind of lame, hain't it? Don't 'pear to be as stylish as +the rest of you?" + +"It is a bit dilapidated." + +"Got some good ones inside. Fine line of jackknives. Only carry the +best. Show 'em to you." + +He lifted himself out of the groaning chair and went into the store, to +return with a dozen or more knives, which he showed to Mr. Blossom, and +Mr. Blossom looked at them gravely. He was smiling to himself. A man who +could interrupt a deal involving upward of a hundred thousand dollars to +try to sell a jackknife certainly was not of a caliber to give serious +worry to an astute business man. + +"Recommend the pearl-handled one," said Scattergood. "Two dollars 'n' a +half." + +"I'll take it," said Mr. Blossom, and he stuck his old knife in a post, +replacing it in his pocket with the new purchase. + +"Cash," said Scattergood, and Mr. Blossom handed over the currency. + +"Speakin' of pulpwood," said Scattergood, "how much you figger on +payin'?" + +Mr. Blossom named a price, delivered at the mill. + +"Pay when?" + +"On delivery." + +"When want it delivered, eh? What date?" + +"Before May first." + +"Water power or steam?" said Scattergood, somewhat irrelevantly. + +"Both. We're putting in steam engines and boilers, but we're going to +depend mostly on water power." + +"Goin' to build a dam, eh? Big dam?" + +"Yes." + +"Um!... Stock company?" + +"Yes. We'll be solid. Capitalized for a quarter of a million and bonded +for a quarter of a million. Gives us half a million capital to start +business." + +"Stock all sold?" + +"Every share." + +"Who to?" + +"Mostly in small blocks in Boston." + +"Um!... Bonds sold?" + +"Yes." + +"Who bought 'em?" + +"They're underwritten by the Commonwealth Security Trust Company." + +"Want to know!... Got authority? Vested with authority to put it in +writin'?" + +"The contract, you mean?" + +"Calculate to mean that." + +"Yes." + +"Lawyer acrost the street," said Scattergood. + +"You can swing it?" + +"Calculate to." + +"You have the capital to make good?" + +"Know I have, don't you? Wouldn't have come to me if you hadn't?" + +"You'll have to borrow heavily." + +"My lookout, hain't it? Don't need to worry you?" + +"Not in the least." + +"Lawyer's still acrost the street." + +So Scattergood and Mr. Blossom went across the street and up the narrow +stairs to Lawyer Norton's office, where a contract was drafted and +signed, obligating Scattergood to deliver to the Higgins's Bridge Pulp +Company twenty-five thousand cords of pulp, on or before May 1st, +payment to be made on delivery. Mr. Blossom went away wearing a +satisfied expression, and in the course of the day sent to Crane & Keith +a brief message, a message of two words. "He bit," was the telegram. + +Scattergood went back to his chair, and presently might have been seen +to unlace his shoes absent-mindedly. For an hour he sat there, twiddling +his bare toes. Then he got up, jerked Mr. Blossom's old jackknife from +the post where it had been abandoned, and pocketed it. + +"If nothin' else happens," he said to himself, "I'm figgered to make a +profit of sixty cents and a tradin' knife." + +There followed a very busy fall and winter for Scattergood. Not that he +neglected his hardware store, but from its porch, and later from a post +beside its big stove, he recruited men for his camps and directed the +labor of cutting and piling pulpwood along the banks of Coldriver. +Also, from time to time, he visited various banks to borrow the money +necessary to carry on the operation, sometimes on notes and collateral, +sometimes on timber mortgages. The sum of his borrowing mounted and +mounted, until, before the arrival of spring, his credit had been +strained to the uttermost. + +Nor had the pulp company been idle. Its new mills had arisen beside the +river at Higgins's Bridge, machinery had been installed, and the little +hamlet was beginning to speculate in town lots and to look forward to +unexampled prosperity. + +But before the ice was out of the river disquieting rumors began to +breathe out of Higgins's Bridge. They were the meerest vapor of +conjecture at first, apparently based upon no evidence whatever, but +friends delighted to convey them to Scattergood, as friends always +delight to perform such a disagreeable duty. + +"Hear things hain't goin' right down to the new pulp mill," said Deacon +Pettybone, one bitterly cold afternoon, when he came into Scattergood's +store to thaw the icicles out of his sparse beard. + +"Do tell," said Scattergood. + +"Be perty bad for you if they was to go wrong, wouldn't it?" + +"Perty bad, Deacon." + +"'Most ruin you, wouldn't it? Clean you out? Leave you with nothin'?" + +"Hain't mortgaged my health. Hain't mortgaged my brains. Have them left, +Deacon. Don't figger I'm clean bankrupt till them two is gone." + +But it was to be noticed that Scattergood toasted his bare toes a great +deal during the ensuing days. He scarcely put on his shoes except when +he was going out to wallow through the drifts; and, as Coldriver knew, +when Scattergood waggled his bare toes he was struggling with a +problem. + +Also it might have been noticed that he pored much over the detailed +maps in the county atlas, studying the flow of streams and the lie of +timber. It might have been seen that several large blocks of timber had +been marked by Scattergood with red crosses, and that certain other +limits had been blotted out in black. The black pieces were neither +numerous nor individually extensive, but they belonged to Scattergood. +Those marked with red crosses were the property of Messrs. Crane & +Keith. + +Now, it may be taken as axiomatic that in those early days the value of +a piece of timber depended upon its accessibility to flowing water down +which logs might be driven. A medium piece of timber on the banks of a +stream which came to plentiful flood in the spring was worth more in +hard dollars and cents than a much larger and finer piece back in the +hills. A piece of timber which had no access whatever to water +approximated worthlessness. On the atlas, the largest pieces of Crane & +Keith timber were back from the river--not too far back, but still +separated from it by narrow strips which, for the most part, were farms. +Some few pieces ran down to the river, but it was apparent that Crane & +Keith were looking to the future--buying timber when it was at its +lowest, and preparing to hold for a better day. They had bought +strategically. More than one tributary valley was in their hands, and, +when the day ripened, small land purchases would connect their holdings, +bring them to water, and place them in such a commanding position that +the valley would be as surely theirs as if they owned every foot of it. +Inasmuch as Scattergood planned, himself, to control Coldriver Valley, +the prospect was not pleasing to him. + +Scattergood closed the atlas and put on his shoes. "Um!..." he said. +"Calculate that'll keep their minds off'n other things a spell. If +they see me dickerin' there, they won't figger I'm dickerin' some place +else." + +If Scattergood had been a general, history would have recorded that he +won his battles by making feints at some vulnerable point in the enemy's +line, and then struck his major blow at a distance where he was not +suspected to be operating at all. + +It chanced that Crane & Keith were cutting timber from the Bottle--a +valley so named. Their rollways were piled high, and it was time for +them to team to the river. To reach the river they must pass through the +Bottleneck and over the farm belonging to Old Man Plumm. There was +another road into the valley--a public road--but it was a fifteen-mile +haul. Old Man Plumm was a non-assertive person, and good-natured. His +farm was a ramshackle, down-at-heels, worthless place, off which he +gleaned the meagerest of livelihoods, so that he had not been averse to +permitting Crane & Keith to traverse his land for a nominal +consideration. It was cheaper for Crane & Keith than purchase--and so +the matter stood. + +Scattergood went across the road to Lawyer Norton's office. + +"Goin' up Bottleneck way perty soon?" he asked. + +"Not that I know of, Scattergood." + +"Nice drive. Old Man Plumm's got a farm there." + +"I know that, of course." + +"Don't figger to visit him?" + +"Why--" said Norton, beginning to see that Scattergood had something in +view--"I could." + +"Wouldn't try to buy the farm, would you?" + +Norton hesitated. "I--I might." + +"Cash?" + +"Why, I suppose so." + +"In your own name, eh? Not in anybody else's." + +"How much should I pay?" + +"Folks always pays what they have to--no more--no less. Immediate +possession. Always a good thing. Got any money?" + +"No." + +"Call at the bank. They'll give you what's needed. Ought to be back with +the deed by night. Fast hoss?" + +"Fast enough." + +"G'-by, Norton." + +That night Norton returned with the deed and with Old Man Plumm, who +took the morning stage for Connecticut and his youngest daughter. + +"Hear folks is trespassin' on your land, Norton. Name of Crane and +Keith. Haulin' logs acrost. No contract with you? No contract with +Plumm?" + +"No contract." + +"Hain't got a right to do it, have they?" + +"No." + +"If I owned that land I'd give 'em notice," said Scattergood. "G'-by, +Norton. Goin'to Boston to-day. Set tight, Norton. G'-by." + +Twenty-four hours later both Crane and Keith were in Coldriver, storming +up to Lawyer Norton's office. Scattergood was in Boston and not visible. + +"What does this mean?" blustered Crane, displaying to Norton the notice +mailed at Scattergood's direction. + +"What it says." + +"You can't stop us hauling to the river." + +Norton shrugged his shoulders. "You can use the state road." + +"Fifteen miles! You know it's impossible. We've got millions of feet on +our rollways. It'll doze and spoil if we don't get it out." + +"That's your lookout." + +"What do you want?" + +"Nothing." + +"It's some kind of a hold-up. What'll you take for that farm?" + +"Not for sale." + +"What will it cost us to haul across you?" + +"You can't haul across. Not for money, marbles, or chalk. Use the road." + +That was the best Crane & Keith could get out of Norton, though they +besieged him for a week, though they consulted lawyers, though they made +threats, and though they begged and promised. Norton was a stubborn man. + +During this week Scattergood had been in Boston. His first visit had +been to Linderman, president of the Atlantic Pulp and Paper Company. + +"Have you an appointment with Mr. Linderman?" asked a clerk. + +"Never heard of me." + +"Then I'm afraid you can't see him. He's very busy." + +"That his office? That door?" + +"Yes." + +"He in? Right in there?" + +"Yes." + +Scattergood walked calmly toward it. The slender clerk interposed. +Scattergood picked him up, tucked him under a huge arm, and waddled +through the great man's door. + +"Howdy, Mr. Linderman? Howdy?" + +Linderman looked up and frowned, then his eyes twinkled. + +"Who are you? What have you there?" + +"Young feller I found outside. 'Fraid of steppin' on him, so I picked +him up to save him. You can run along now, sonny," he said to the clerk. +"He let on I couldn't see you," Scattergood explained. + +"What's your name?" + +"Scattergood Baines." + +"Of Coldriver?" Scattergood was surprised, but did not show it. "Yes." + +"Sit down." + +"Thankee.... Come to do a mite of business with you. Interested in pulp, +hain't you. Quite consid'able interested?" + +"Very much." + +"Know the Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company?" + +"Of course. Understand they're in difficulties." + +"In some, and goin' to be in more. That's why I come down." + +Thereupon Scattergood explained in detail his contract with the pulp +company, and his theories of what that company was planning to do to +him. "Double barreled," he said. "Crane and Keith owns them bonds. +Figger on freezin' out the stockholders and buyin' 'em out for a song. +Figger on bustin' me. Next we hear the mill'll be in receiver's hands. +No money. Can't pay no contracts. My notes'll come due, and I'm done +for. Simple. Crane thought it up." + +"What do you want of me? So far as I can see, you are up against it. You +can't borrow any more, and your notes won't be extended. You're done." + +"Hain't started yet--not yet. Figger to start to-day. That's why I come +to see you." + +"But I can do nothing for you." + +"Higgins's Bridge mill's good, hain't it? Logical payin' proposition? +Money to be made?" + +"Yes." + +"Like to own it cheap?" + +"Of course." + +"Crane and Keith is gittin' ready for a killin'. Own big block of stock. +Paid par. Want to sell, I hear ... if anybody's fool enough to buy. Then +want to buy back for dum' near nothin' when receivership comes. Good +scheme. Money in it. Crane thought it up." + +"What's your idea?" + +"Buy all they got. Option the rest. Easy.... What happens when a man +sells somethin' he hain't got?" + +"He has to get it some place." + +"If he can't get it, what?" + +"Makes it expensive for him." + +"Thought so. Figgered that way.... Nobody to interfere. Crane and Keith +left orders to sell. They won't be takin' notice. Got 'em worried some +place else. Mighty worried." Scattergood recounted the story of Plumm's +farm. + +Mr. Linderman scrutinized Scattergood intently and nodded his head. "And +you want me--" + +"Put up the money. Git the stock. Lemme handle it. Gimme twenty per +cent." + +"In stock?" + +"Calc'late so." + +"Baines," said Linderman, "I'll go you. Crane and Keith are due for a +lesson." + +"Ready now?" + +"Yes." + +"G'-by, Mr. Linderman. Have money when I want it. G'-by." + +Scattergood had a list of stockholders in the pulp company and knew they +were worried. He spent two days in interviewing a dozen of them, and +found little difficulty optioning their stock at a pleasant figure. They +imagined he must be crazy, and he did nothing to destroy the belief. + +Then he called at the offices of Crane & Keith. + +"Want to see the boss man," he said. + +"What for?" + +"Hear you got stock for sale. Pulp company. Figger to buy." + +Here was a lamb ready for the slaughter. Mr. McCann, who received him, +could see the delight of his employers, and his own profit, if he +should succeed in taking this fat backwoodsman into camp. + +"You want to buy stock in the pulp company, I understand?" + +"Yes." + +"How much?" + +"How much you got?" + +"Guess we can sell you all you want." + +"Money-makin' proposition, hain't it?" + +"Of course." + +"But you're willin' to sell? Kind of funny, hain't it?" + +"Oh no. We have so many enterprises." + +"Glad you want to sell. I figger to make money on this stock. Want to +buy a lot of it." + +"About how many shares?" + +"What you askin'?" said Scattergood. + +"Par." + +"Shucks! Give you thirty." + +There was haggling and bickering until a price of sixty was agreed upon, +and Mr. McCann's heart expanded with satisfaction. + +"Now, how many shares?" + +"Want control. Want fifty-one per cent, anyhow. Got 'em?" + +"Of course." This was not the fact, but Mr. McCann was not addicted to +unnecessary facts. He knew where he could get the rest for less than 60. +There would be an additional profit and additional credit coming to him. +In cold reality, Crane & Keith owned some 40 per cent of the stock. + +"Take all you'll sell." + +"I can let you have fifteen hundred shares--for cash." This was an even +60 per cent, but McCann knew where he could get the other 20. + +"Come to the bank. Come now. Give you the cash." + +"I can't deliver but one thousand shares to-day, but I can give you the +other five hundred to-morrow." + +"Suits me. Pay for 'em all to-day. Gimme what you got and a receipt for +the rest. Comin' to the bank?" + +Mr. McCann put on his coat and hat and accompanied Scattergood to the +bank, where he received a certified check for the full amount, gave +Scattergood in return a thousand shares of stock, and a receipt which +recited that Scattergood had paid for five hundred shares more, to be +delivered within twenty-four hours. + +Scattergood went to see Mr. Linderman; McCann went out to round up five +hundred shares of stock. By midnight he was a worried young man. The +stock he had thought to pick up so readily was not to be had. Everybody +seemed to have disposed of it and nobody seemed to know exactly who had +been doing the buying, for the options had been taken in a number of +names. Next morning McCann sought diligently until he found Scattergood. + +"I've been a bit delayed in the delivery of the rest of the stock," he +told Scattergood, and there was cold moisture on his forehead. "Would +you mind waiting until to-morrow?" + +"Guess I'll have to," said Scattergood. "G'-by. Better be movin' around +spry. I want to git back home." + +That night McCann wired his employers to get back home as quickly as +conveyances would carry them. They did so, and in no happy mood, for +Lawyer Norton had remained immovable in his position. Young McCann told +his tale hesitatingly. + +"Who did you say you sold to?" demanded Crane. + +"Fat man by the name of Baines." + +"Baines! He's busted. Hasn't a cent." + +"Paid cash." + +Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane. Just then the telephone +rang. It was Scattergood. + +"Want to speak to Mr. Crane," he said. + +"Hello!" Crane said, gruffly. "What's this about your buying pulp +company stock?" + +"Bought some. Bought a little. Called up to see why your young man +wasn't deliverin'. Want to git home." + +"Where did you get the money?" + +"Have to know that? Have to know where it come from before you kin make +delivery? Hain't inquisitive, be you?" + +Mr. Crane made use of language. "I want to see you--got to have a talk. +Come right down here." + +"Jest been measurin'," said Scattergood, "and I figger it's a mite +longer from here to there than it is from there to here. If you want to +see me, here I be." + +"Where?" + +Scattergood gave an office address and hung up the receiver. + +"They'll be here in a minnit," he said to Mr. Linderman, and he was not +exaggerating greatly as to the time required to bring the gentlemen to +him. "Know Mr. Linderman--Crane and Keith?" said Scattergood. "Come in +and set." + +"What do you want with pulp company stock?" Crane demanded. + +"Paper the kitchen. Maybe, if I kin git enough, I'll paper the parlor. +Lack five hunderd shares for the parlor. Got'em with you?" + +"No, and we're not going to get them." + +"Um!... Paid for 'em, didn't I? Got a receipt?" + +"What's Linderman doing in this?" + +Mr. Linderman leaned forward a little. "I'm in a legitimate business +transaction--something quite foreign to you gentlemen's notions of doing +business. I came into it to make a profit, but mostly to teach you +fellows a lesson in decent business methods. I don't like you. I don't +like your ways. If you like your ways you must expect to pay for the +pleasure you get out of them.... Mr. Baines is waiting for delivery of +the stock he bought." + +"I suppose you know we haven't got it?" + +"I do." + +"We can't deliver." + +"Yes, you can. Go out in the open market and buy. Now, I own a few +shares, for instance. I might sell." + +The faces of Messrs. Crane and Keith did not picture lively enjoyment. +They were caught. If it had been Scattergood alone they might have +wriggled out of it, they thought, for they had scant respect for his +sagacity, but Linderman--well, Linderman was not to be trifled with. + +"How much?" said Crane. + +"You need five hundred shares. Par is a hundred, is it not? I will part +with mine for three hundred. First, last, and only offer. In ten minutes +the price goes up to three fifty, and fifty for each five minutes after +that." + +"It's robbery ..." Mr. Crane spluttered, and made uncouth sounds of +rage. + +"Now you know how the other fellow has been feeling. Seven minutes +left...." + +Four more minutes sped before the surrender came. + +"Certified check," said Mr. Linderman. "My messenger will go to the bank +for you." + +The check was drawn for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and Crane +and Keith settled back sullenly. + +"You can retain your bonds. I believe you have about a quarter of a +million dollars' worth of them. Glad to have you finance the mill for +me. It will, of course, go ahead under my direction," said Linderman. "I +guess I can iron out the difficulties you gentlemen have arranged for, +and there will be no receivership. That will relieve Mr. Baines, who has +a considerable contract with the company." Mr. Crane swore softly. + +Scattergood heaved himself to his feet. "One other leetle matter, Crane. +There's the Plumm farm. Kind of exercised about that, hain't you? Stayed +up in the country a week to look after it--while I was dickerin' down +here.... Like to buy that farm?" + +There was no answer. + +"Calculate to take a hint from Mr. Linderman. That farm's mine, and you +can't haul a log acrost it. My price is fifteen thousand. Bought it for +two. Price goes up hunderd dollars a minute. Cash deal." + +That surrender was more prompt, and a second check was sent to the bank +to be certified. + +"G'-by, gentlemen," said Scattergood, and Messrs. Crane and Keith took +their departure in no dignified manner, but with rancor in their hearts, +which there was no method of salving. + +"Let's take stock," said Scattergood. "Like to know jest how we come +out." + +"Let's see. We bought the stock at an average of sixty dollars a share. +That makes a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in expenses, doesn't it? +The five hundred shares just transferred cost thirty thousand dollars +and we sold them for a hundred and fifty thousand. Profit on that part +of the deal is a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. That made the +total capital stock in the mill worth a quarter of a million of +anybody's money; cost us exactly thirty thousand dollars, didn't it? +Nice deal.... And you cleaned up an extra thirteen thousand on your side +issue. Not bad." + +"I git five hunderd shares worth fifty thousand dollars, don't I? Then +my thirteen. That's sixty-three thousand. Then my profit on twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood--which is goin' to be paid, I jedge. That'll +be anyhow another twenty-five thousand. Calc'late this deal's about +fixed me so's I kin go ahead with a number of plans. Much obleeged, Mr. +Linderman. You come in handy." + +"So did you, Mr. Baines. Mighty handy." + +"Oh, me. I had to. I was jest takin' out reasonable insurance ag'in' +loss...." + +"I guess you have a permanent insurance policy against loss, inside your +head." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood, slipping his feet into his shoes, preparatory +to leaving, "difficulty about that kind of insurance is that most folks +lets it lapse 'long about the first week after they're born." + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER + + +The world has come to think of Scattergood Baines as an astute and +perhaps tricky business man, or as the political despot of a state. +Because this is so it has overlooked or neglected many stories about the +man much more indicative of character, and more fascinating of detail +than those well-known and often-repeated tales of his sagacity in +trading or his readiness in outwitting a political enemy. To one who +makes a careful study of Scattergood's life with a view to writing a +truthful biography, he inevitably becomes more interesting and more +lovable when seen simply as a neighbor, a fellow townsman of other New +Englanders, and as a country hardware merchant. There is a certain charm +in the naivete with which he was wont to stick his pudgy finger in the +affairs of others with benignant purpose; and it is not easy to believe +other tales of hardness, of ruthless beating down of opposition, when +one repeatedly comes upon well-authenticated instances in which he has +stood quietly hidden behind the scenes to pull the strings and to make +his neighbors bow and dance and posture in accordance with some schemes +which he has formulated for their greater happiness. + +Scattergood loved to meddle. Perhaps that is his dominant trait. He +could see nothing moving in the community about him and withhold his +hand. If Old Man Bogle set about buying a wheelbarrow, Scattergood would +intervene in the transaction; if Pliny Pickett stopped at the Widow +Ware's gate to deliver a message, Scattergood saw an opportunity to +unite lonely hearts--and set about uniting them forthwith; if little Sam +Kettleman, junior, and Wade Lumley's boy, Tom, came to blows, +Scattergood became peacemaker or referee, as the needs of the moment +seemed to dictate. It would be difficult to find a pie in Coldriver +which was not marked by his thumb. So it came about that when he became +convinced that Grandmother Penny was unhappy because of various +restrictions and inhibitions placed on her by her son, the dry-goods +merchant, and by her daughter-in-law, he determined to intervene. +Scattergood was partial to old ladies, and this partiality can be traced +to his earliest days in Coldriver. He loved white hair and wrinkled +cheeks and eyes that had once been youthful and glowing, but were dulled +and dimmed by watching the long procession of the years. + +Now he sat on the piazza of his hardware store, his shoes on the +planking beside him, and his pudgy toes wriggling like the trained +fingers of an eminent pianist. It was a knotty problem. An ordinary +problem Scattergood could solve with shoes on feet, but let the matter +take on eminent difficulty and his toes must be given freedom and elbow +room, as one might say. Later in life his wife, Mandy, after he had +married her, tried to cure him of this habit, which she considered +vulgar, but at this point she failed signally. + +The facts about Grandmother Penny were, not that she was consciously ill +treated. Her bodily comfort was seen to. She was well fed and reasonably +clothed, and had a good bed in which to sleep. Where she was sinned +against was in this: that her family looked upon her white hair and her +wrinkles and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that her interest in +life was gone--in short, that she was content to cumber the earth and to +wait for the long sleep. To them she was simply one who tarries and is +content. Scattergood looked into her sharp, old eyes, eyes that were +capable of sudden gleams of humor or flashes of anger, and he _knew_. He +knew that death seemed as distant to Grandmother Penny as it had seemed +fifty years ago. He knew that her interest in life was as keen, her +yearning to participate in the affairs of life as strong, as they had +been when Grandfather Penny--now long gone to his reward--had driven his +horse over the hills with one hand while he utilized the other arm for +more important and delightful purposes. + +Scattergood was remembering his own grandmother. He had known her as no +other living soul had known her, because she had been his boyhood +intimate, his defender, always his advocate, and because the boyish love +which he had given her had made his eyes keen to perceive. His parents +had fancied Grandma Baines to be content when she was in constant +revolt. They had supposed that life meant nothing more to her now than +to sit in a comfortable rocker and to knit interminable stockings and to +remember past years. Scattergood knew that the present compelled her +interest and that the future thrilled her. She wanted to participate in +life, to be in the midst of events--to continue to live so long as the +power of movement and of perception remained to her. He was now able to +see that the old lady had done much to mold his character, and as he +recalled incident after incident his face wore a softer, more melancholy +expression than Coldriver was wont to associate with it. He was +regretting that in his thoughtless youth he had failed to accomplish +more to make gladder his grandmother's few remaining years. + +"I calc'late," said Scattergood to himself--but aloud--"that I'll kind +of substitute Grandmother Penny for Grandma Baines--pervidin' Grandma +Baines is fixed so's she kin see; more'n likely she'll understand what +I'm up to, and it'll tickle her--I'm goin' to up and borrow me a +grandmother." + +He wriggled his toes and considered. What thing had his grandmother most +desired? + +"Independence was what she craved," he said, and considered the point. +"She didn't want to be beholdin' to folks. She wanted to be fixed so's +she could do as she pleased, and nobody to interfere. I calc'late if +Grandma Baines 'd 'a' been left alone she'd 'a' found her another +husband and they'd 'a' had a home of their own with all the fixin's. It +wasn't so much doin' that grandma wanted, it was knowin' she _could_ do +if she wanted to." + +Scattergood's specially reinforced chair creaked as he strained forward +to pick up his shoepacs and draw them on. It required no small exertion, +and he straightened up, red of face and panting a trifle. He walked up +the street, crossed the bridge, and descended to the little room under +the barber shop where the checker or cribbage championship of the state +was decided daily. Two ancient citizens were playing checkers, while a +third stood over them, watching with that thrilled concentration with +which the ordinary person might watch an only son essaying to cross +Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Scattergood knew better than to interrupt +the game, so he stood by until, by a breath-taking triple jump, Old Man +Bogle sent his antagonist down to defeat. Then, and only then, did +Scattergood speak to the old gentleman who had been the spectator. + +"Morning Mr. Spackles," he said. + +"Mornin', Scattergood. See that last jump of Bogle's? I swanny if +'twan't about as clever a move as I see this year." + +"Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "I come down here to find out could I +ask you some advice. You bein' experienced like you be, it 'peared to +me like you was the one man that could help me out." + +"Um!..." grunted Mr. Spackles, his old blue eyes widening with the +distinction of the moment. "If I kin be of any service to you, I +calculate I'm willin'. 'Tain't often folks comes to me for advice any +more, or anythin' else, for that matter. Guess they figger I'm too old +to 'mount to anythin'." + +"Feel like takin' a mite of a walk?" + +"Who? Me? I'm skittisher'n a colt this mornin'. Bet I kin walk twenty +mile 'fore sundown." + +They moved toward the door, but there Mr. Spackles paused to look back +grandly upon the checker players. "Sorry I can't linger to watch you, +boys," he said, loftily, "but they's important matters me and +Scattergood got to discuss. Seems like he's feelin' the need of sound +advice." + +When they were gone the checker players scrutinized each other, and then +with one accord scrambled to the door and stared out after Scattergood +and Mr. Spackles. + +"I swanny!" said Old Man Bogle. + +"What d'you figger Scattergood wanted of that ol' coot?" demanded Old +Man Peterson. + +"Somethin' deep," hazarded Old Man Bogle. "I always did hold Spackles +was a brainy cuss. Hain't he 'most as good a checker player as I be? +What gits me, though, is how Scattergood come to pick him instid of me." + +"Huh!..." grunted Old Man Peterson, and they resumed their game. + +Scattergood walked along in silence for a few paces; then he regarded +Mr. Spackles appraisingly. + +"Mr. Spackles," said he, deferentially, "I dunno when I come acrost a +man that holds his years like you do. Mind if I ask you jest how old you +be?" + +"Sixty-six year," said Spackles. + +"Wouldn't never 'a' b'lieved it," marveled Scattergood. "Wouldn't 'a' +set you down for a day more 'n fifty-five or six, not with them clear +eyes and them ruddy cheeks and the way you step out." + +"Calc'late to be nigh as good as I ever was, Scattergood. J'ints creak +some, but what I got inside my head it don't never creak none to speak +of." + +"What I want to ask you, Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "is if you +calc'late a man that's got to be past sixty and a woman that's got to be +past sixty has got any business hitchin' up and marryin' each other." + +"Um!... Depends. I'd say it depends. If the feller was perserved like I +be, and the woman was his equal in mind and body, I'd say they was no +reason ag'in' it--'ceptin' it might be money." + +"Ever think of marryin', yourself, Mr. Spackles?" + +"Figgered some. Figgered some. But knowed they wasn't no use. Son and +daughter wouldn't hear to it. Couldn't support a wife, nohow. Son and +daughter calc'lates to be mighty kind to me, Scattergood, and gives me +dum near all I kin ask, but both of 'em says I got to the time of life +where it hain't becomin' in 'em to allow me to work." + +"How much kin sich a couple as I been talkin' about live on?" + +"When I married, forty-odd year ago, I was gittin' a dollar a day. Me +'n' Ma we done fine and saved money. Livin's higher now. Calc'late it +'u'd take nigh a dollar 'n' a half to git on comfortable." + +"Figger fifty dollars a month 'u'd do it? Think that 'u'd be enough?" + +"Scattergood, you listen here to me. I hain't never earned as much as +fifty dollar a month reg'lar in my whole life--and I got consid'able +pleasure out of livin', too." They had walked up the street until they +were passing the Penny residence. Grandmother Penny was sitting on the +porch, knitting as usual. She looked very neat and dainty as she sat +there in her white lace cap and her lavender dress. + +"Fine-lookin' old lady," said Scattergood. + +Mr. Spackles regarded Grandmother Penny and nodded with the air of a +connoisseur. "Dum'd if she hain't." He lifted his hat and yelled across +the road: "Mornin', Ellen." + +"Mornin', James," replied Grandmother Penny, and bobbed her head. "Won't +you folks stop and set? Sun's a-comin' down powerful hot." + +"Don't mind if we do," said Scattergood. He seated himself, and mopped +his brow, and fanned himself with his broad straw hat, whose flapping +brim was beginning to ravel about the edges. Presently he stood up. + +"Got to be movin' along, Mis' Penny. Seems like I'm mighty busy off and +on. But I dunno what I'd do without Mr. Spackles, here, to advise with +once in a while. He's jest been givin' me the benefit of his thinkin' +this mornin'." + +With inward satisfaction Scattergood noticed how the old lady turned a +pert, sharp look upon Mr. Spackles, regarding him with awakened +interest. To be considered a man of wisdom by Scattergood Baines was a +distinction in Coldriver even in those days, and for a man actually to +be consulted and asked for advice by the ample hardware merchant was to +lift him into an intellectual class to which few could aspire. + +"I hope he gin you good advice, Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny. + +"Allus does. If ever you're lookin' for level-headedness, and f'r a man +you kin depend on, jest send a call for Mr. Spackles. G'-by, ma'am. +G'-by, Mr. Spackles, and much 'bleeged to you." + +Mr. Spackles was a little bewildered, for he had not the least idea +upon what subject he had advised Scattergood, but he was of an acuteness +not to pass by any of the advantage that accrued from the situation. He +replied, with lofty kindness, "Any time you want for to consult with me, +young man, jest come right ahead." + +When Scattergood was gone, Mr. Spackles turned to the old lady and +waggled his head. + +"Ellen, that there's a mighty promisin' young man. Time's comin' when +he's a-goin' to amount to suthin'. I'm a-calc'latin' on guidin' him all +I kin." + +"I want to know," said Grandmother Penny, almost breathless at this new +importance of Mr. Spackles's, and Mr. Spackles basked in her admiration, +and added to it by apochryphal narratives of his relations with +Scattergood. + +For a week Scattergood let matters rest. He was content, for more than +once he saw Mr. Spackles's faded overalls and ragged hat on the Penny +premises, and watched the old gentleman in animated conversation with +Grandmother Penny, who seemed to be perter and brighter and handsomer +than she had ever seemed before. + +On one such day Scattergood crossed the street and entered the gate. + +"Howdy, folks?" he said. "Wonder if I kin speak with Mr. Spackles +without interferin'?" + +"Certain you kin," said Grandmother Penny, cordially. + +"Got a important bankin' matter over to the county seat, Mr. Spackles, +and I was wonderin' if I could figger on your help?" + +"To be sure you kin, Scattergood. To be sure." + +"Got to have a brainy man over there day after to-morrer. B'jing! that's +circus day, too. Didn't think of that till this minnit. Wonder if you'd +drive my boss and buggy over and fix up a deal with the president of the +bank?" + +"Glad to 'bleege," said the flattered Mr. Spackles. + +"Circus day," Scattergood repeated. "Been to a circus lately, Mis' +Penny?" + +"Hain't seen one for years." + +"No?... Mr. Spackles, what be you thinkin' of? To be sure. Why, you kin +bundle Mis' Penny into the buggy and take her along with you! Finish the +business in no time, bein' spry like you be, and then you and her kin +take in the circus and the side show, and stay f'r the concert. How's +that?" + +Mr. Spackles was suddenly red and embarrassed, but Grandmother Penny +beamed. + +"Why," says she, "makes me feel like a young girl ag'in. To be sure I'll +go. Daughter'll make a fuss, but I jest don't care if she does. I'm +a-goin'." + +"That's the way to talk," said Scattergood. "Mr. Spackles'll be round +f'r you bright and early. Now, if you kin spare him, I calc'late we got +to talk business." + +When they were in the street Mr. Spackles choked and coughed, and said +with some vexation: + +"You went and got me in f'r it that time." + +"How so, Mr. Spackles? Don't you want to take Mis' Penny to the circus?" + +"Course I do, but circuses cost money. I hain't got more 'n a quarter to +my name." + +"H'm!... Didn't calc'late I was askin' you to take a day of your time +for _nothin_', did you? F'r a trip like this here, with a lot hangin' on +to it, I'd say ten dollars was about the fittin' pay. What say?" + +Mr. Spackles's beaming face was answer enough. + +Grandmother Penny and Mr. Spackles went to the circus in a more or less +surreptitious manner. It was a wonderful day, a successful day, such a +day as neither of them had expected ever to see again, and when they +drove home through the moonlight, across the mountains, their souls +were no longer the souls of threescore and ten, but of twoscore and one. + +"Great day, wa'n't it, Ellen?" said Mr. Spackles, softly. + +"Don't call to mind nothin' approachin' it, James." + +"You be powerful good company, Ellen." + +"So be you, James." + +"I calculate to come and set with you, often," said James, diffidently. + +"Whenever the notion strikes you, James," replied Grandmother Penny, and +she blushed for the first time in a score of years. + +Two days later Pliny Pickett stopped to speak to Scattergood in front of +the hardware store. Pliny supplemented and amplified the weekly +newspaper, and so was very useful to Baines. + +"Hear tell Ol' Man Spackles is sparkin' Grandmother Penny," Pliny said, +with a grin. "Don't figger nothin' 'll come of it, though. Their +childern won't allow it." + +"Won't allow it, eh? What's the reason? What business is 't of theirn?" + +"Have to support 'em. The ol' folks hain't got no money. Spackles 's got +two-three hunderd laid by for to bury him, and so's Grandmother Penny. +Seems like ol' folks allus lays by for the funeral, but that's every red +cent they got. I hear tell Mis' Penny's son has forbid Spackles's comin' +around the house." + +This proved to be the fact, as Scattergood learned from no less an +authority than Mr. Spackles himself. + +"Felt like strikin' him right there 'n' then," said Mr. Spackles, +heatedly, "but I seen 'twouldn't do to abuse one of Ellen's childern." + +"Um!... Was you and Grandmother Penny figgerin' on hitchin' up?" +Scattergood asked. + +"I put the question," said Mr. Spackles, with the air of a youth of +twenty, "and Ellen up and allowed she'd have me. But I guess 'twon't +never come off now. Seems like I'll never be content ag'in, and Ellen's +that downcast I shouldn't be a mite s'prised if she jest give up and +passed away." + +"Difficulty's money, hain't it? Largely financial, eh?" + +"Ya-as." + +"Folks has got rich before. Maybe somethin' like that'll happen to you." + +"Have to happen mighty suddin, Scattergood, if it aims to do any good in +this world." + +"I've knowed men to invest a couple hunderd dollars into some venture +and come out at t'other end with thousands. You got couple hunderd, +hain't you?" + +"Ellen and me both has--saved up to bury us." + +"Um!... Git buried, anyhow. Law compels it. Doggone little pleasure +spendin' money f'r your own coffin. More sensible to git some good out +of it.... I'm goin' away to the city f'r a week or sich a matter. When I +come back we'll kind of thrash things out and see what's to be done. +Meantime, don't you and Grandmother Penny up and elope." + +In this manner Scattergood planted the get-rich-quick idea in the head +of Mr. Spackles, who communicated it to Grandmother Penny in the course +of a clandestine meeting. The old folks discussed it, and hope made it +seem more and more plausible to them. Realizing the fewness of the days +remaining to them, they were anxious to utilize every moment. It was +Grandmother Penny who was the daring spirit. She was for drawing their +money out of the bank that very day and investing it somehow, somewhere, +in the hope of seeing it come back to them a hundredfold. + +Scattergood had neglected to take into consideration Grandmother Penny's +adventuresome spirit; he had also neglected to avail himself of the +information that a certain Mr. Baxter, registered from Boston, was at +the hotel, and that his business was selling shares of stock in a mine +which did not exist to gullible folks who wanted to become wealthy +without spending any labor in the process. He did a thriving business. +It was Coldriver's first experience with this particular method of +extracting money from the public, and it came to the front handsomely. +Mr. Spackles got wind of the opportunity and told it to Grandmother +Penny. She took charge of affairs, compelled her fiance to go with her +to the bank, where they withdrew their savings, and then sought for Mr. +Baxter, who, in return for a bulk sum of some five hundred dollars, sold +them enough stock in the mine to paper the parlor. Also, he promised +them enormous returns in an exceedingly brief space of time. Their +profit on the transaction would, he assured them, be not less than ten +thousand dollars, and might mount to double that sum. They departed in a +state of extreme elation, and but for Mr. Spackles's conservatism +Grandmother Penny would have eloped with him then and there. + +"I'd like to, Ellen. I'd like to, mighty well, but 'tain't safe. Le's +git the money fust. The minnit the money comes in, off we mog to the +parson. But 'tain't safe yit. Jest hold your hosses." + +When Scattergood returned and was visible again on the piazza of his +hardware store, it was not long before the village financiers came to +him boasting of their achievement. He, Scattergood, was not the only man +in town with the ability to make money. No, indeed, and for proof of it +here were the stock certificates, purchased from a deluded young man for +a few cents a share, when common sense told you they were worth many, +many dollars. Scattergood listened to two or three without a word. +Finally he asked: + +"How many folks went into this here thing?" + +"Sev'ral. Sev'ral. Near's I kin figger, folks here bought nigh five +thousand dollars' wuth of stock off'n Baxter. Must 'a' been fifty or +sixty went into the deal." + +"Dum fools," said Scattergood, with sudden wrath. "Has it got so's I +don't dast to leave town without you folks messin' things up? Can't I +leave overnight and find things safe in the mornin'?... You hain't got +the sense Gawd give field mice--the whole kit and b'ilin' of you. Serves +you dum well right, tryin' to git somethin' f'r nothin'. Now git away +fr'm here. Don't pester me.... You've been swindled, that's what, and it +serves you doggone well right. Now git." + +It was one of the few times that Coldriver saw Scattergood in a rage. +The rage convinced them. Scattergood said they were swindled and he was +in a rage. Therefore he must be right. The news spread, and knots of +citizens with lowered heads and anxious eyes gathered on street corners +and whispered and nodded toward Scattergood, who sat heavily on his +piazza, speaking to nobody. It was Grandmother Penny who dared accost +him. She crept up to his place and said, tremulously: + +"Be you sure, Scattergood, about that feller bein' a swindler?" + +Scattergood looked down at her fiercely. Then his eyes softened and he +leaned forward and scrutinized her face. + +"Did you git into this mess, too, Grandmother Penny?" + +"Both me 'n' James," she said. "You let on that folks got rich quick by +investin'. Me 'n' James was powerful anxious to git money so's--so's we +could git married on it. So we drawed out our money and--and invested +it." + +"Come here, Grandmother," said Scattergood, and she stood just before +his chair, her head coming very little higher than his own as he sat +there, big and ominous. "So the skunk took _your_ money, too. I hain't +carin' a whoop for them others. They got what was comin' to 'em, and I +didn't calculate to do nothin'. But you! By crimminy!... Wa-al, +Grandmother, you go off home and knit. I'll look into things. It's on +your account, and not on theirs." He shook his head fiercely toward the +town. "But I calculate I'll have to git theirn back, too.... And, +Grandmother--you and James kin rest easy. Hain't sayin' no more. Jest +wait, and don't worry, and don't say nothin' to nobody.... G'-by, +Grandmother Penny. G'-by." + +That evening Scattergood drove out of Coldriver in his rickety buggy. +Nobody had dared to speak to him, but, nevertheless, he carried in his +pocket a list of the town's investors in mining stock, together with the +amounts of their investments. He was not seen again for several days. + +Two days later Scattergood appeared in the lobby of the Mansion House, +in the county seat. He scrutinized the register, and found, to his +satisfaction, that a Mr. Bowman of Boston was occupying room 106. Mr. +Bowman had signed the hotel register in Coldriver as Mr. Baxter, also of +Boston. Scattergood seated himself in a chair and lighted one of the +cigars which made his presence so undesirable in an inclosed space. He +appeared to be taking a nap. + +Fifteen minutes after Scattergood began to nod, Sam Bangs, a politician +with some strength in the rural districts, came down the stairs in +company with a young man of prepossessing appearance, and clothing which +did not strike the beholder as either too gaudy or too stylish. Indeed +the young man impressed the world as being a sober, conservative person +in whose judgment it would be well to place confidence. + +When Bangs saw Scattergood he stopped and whispered a moment to his +companion, who nodded. They approached Scattergood, and Bangs touched +him on the shoulder. + +"Mr. Baines," he said, "I want you should meet my friend Mr. Bowman. +Mr. Bowman's a broker. Been buyin' some stocks off'n him--or calculate +to. I knowed you done consid'able investing so I took the liberty." + +Scattergood looked drowsily at the young man. "Set," he said. "Set and +have a cigar." + +The young Mr. Bowman accepted the cigar, but, after a glance at it, +thrust it into his mouth unlighted. The conversation began with national +politics, swung to crops, and veered finally to the subject of +investments. Mr. Bowman, backed in his statements by Mr. Bangs, spoke to +Scattergood of a certain mine whose stock could be had for a song, but +whose riches in mineral, about to be reached by a certain shaft or drift +or tunnel, were fabulous. Scattergood was interested. An appointment was +made for further discussion. + +The appointment was kept that evening, in the same lobby, and Mr. +Bowman, while finding more than ordinary difficulty in convincing this +fat country merchant, did eventually succeed in bringing him to a point +of enthusiasm. + +"Looks good," said Scattergood. "Calc'late a feller could make a +killin'. I'm a-goin' into it hair, hide, and hoofs. Figger me f'r not +less 'n five thousand dollars' wuth of it. Ought to make me fifty +thousand if it makes a cent." + +"You're conservative, Mr. Baines, conservative." + +"Always calculated to be, Mr. Bowman." He looked up as a middle-aged man +with a drooping mustache approached. "Howdy, John? Still workin' f'r the +express company, be you?" + +"Calc'late to, Mr. Baines. Got charge of the local office. 'Tain't all +pleasure, neither. In a sight of trouble this minnit." + +"I want to know," said Scattergood. "Stand to lose my job," said John, +sadly. "Dunno where I'll find me another." + +"What you been doin', eh? What got you in bad?" + +"One of them dummed gold shipments from the state bank. Hadn't ought to +speak about it, 'cause the comp'ny's bein' awful secret. Hain't lettin' +it out." He glanced apprehensively at Mr. Bowman. + +"Needn't to be afraid of Mr. Bowman, John. What's the story?" + +"Bank shippin' bullion. Three chunks of it. Wuth fifty-odd thousand +dollars. I know, 'cause that's the comp'ny's liability wrote in black +and white.... Been stole," he said, after a brief pause. + +"Where?" + +"Out of my office, this mornin'. Not a trace. Jest up and disappeared. +Detectives and all can't run on to no clue. Might as well 'a' melted and +run through a crack. Jest gone, and that's all anybody kin find." + +"Mighty sorry to hear it, John. Hope you wasn't keerless, and don't +figger you was. Guess you won't be blamed when the facts comes out." + +"If they ever do," said John. "G' night, Mr. Baines. I'm mighty oneasy +in my mind." + +Scattergood turned the subject back at once to mining stocks. + +"You set me down for five thousand dollars. Don't let nobody else have +it. Got jest that sum comin' due tomorrer. You and me'll drive over to +git it, and you fetch them stock certificates along. Got 'em in that +little satchel you're always carryin'?" + +"No," smiled Mr. Bowman. "That's my purse. I take no chances on robbers, +like your express agent spoke of. I don't mind telling you that I have +fifteen thousand dollars in that bag--and I intend to keep it there." + +"Do tell!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Wa-al, you know your business. Now, +then, if you want to drive over six mile with me to-morrer, well git us +that money and I'll take the stock." + +"Good," said Mr. Bowman. "An early start. Can I take a train from there? +I'll be through here, I think." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Mighty funny thing about that gold, now +wa'n't it? Three bars. Wuth fifty thousand! Mighty slick work--to spirit +it off and nobody never find a trace." + +"The criminal classes," said Mr. Bowman, "have produced some remarkable +intellects. Good night, Mr. Baines." + +"See you early in the mornin'," replied Scattergood. + +After a breakfast which Mr. Bowman watched Scattergood dispose of with +admiration and astonishment, the pair entered the old buggy and started +across the hills. In addition to his small bag Mr. Bowman brought a +large suitcase containing his apparel, so it was apparent he was leaving +the county seat for good. The morning came off hot and humid. +Scattergood kept his eyes open for a spring, but it was not until they +had driven some miles that an opportunity to find water appeared. + +"Calculate we kin git a drink there," said Scattergood, pointing to a +little shanty in a clearing by the roadside. He stopped his horse, and +they alighted and knocked. There was no reply. Scattergood pushed open +the door and then stepped back suddenly, for within were three +individuals of disreputable appearance, and one of them regarded +Scattergood over the leveled barrels of a shotgun. + +"Come right in and set," invited this individual, and Scattergood, +followed by Mr. Bowman, entered. On a table of pine wood, unconcealed, +lay three enormous bars of gold. + +"Um!..." said Scattergood, faintly, and leaned against the wall. "You +would come rammin' in," said the gentleman with the shotgun. "Now I +calc'late you got to stay." + +Scattergood grinned amiably. "Vallyble loaves of bread you got there," +he said. + +"Gold," said the man, succinctly. + +"Hain't no mines around here, be there?" + +"We hain't sayin'. But that there gold come from a mine, all +right--sometime." + +"Calc'late you been robbin' a train or somethin'," said Scattergood, +mildly. "Now don't git het up. 'Tain't none of my business. Doin' +robbin' for a reg'lar livin'?" he asked, innocently. + +"Hain't never done none before--" began one of the men, but his +companion directed him to "shut up and stay shut." + +"No harm talkin' 's I kin see. We got these fellers here and here they +stay till we git clean off. Kind of like to tell somebody the joke." + +"I'm doggone int'rested," said Scattergood. + +The rough individual with the gun laughed loudly. "May's well tell you," +he said, raucously. "Me and the boys was in town yestiddy, calc'latin' +to ship some ferns by express. Went into the office. Agent wa'n't there. +Safe was. Open. Ya-as, wide open. We seen three gold chunks inside, and +nobody around watchin'. Looked full better 'n ferns, so we jest took a +notion to carry 'em out to the wagin and drive off.... Now we got it, +I'm dummed if I know what to do with it. Hear tell it's wuth fifty +thousand dollars." + +Mr. Bowman spoke. "You'll find it mighty hard to dispose of." + +"Don't need to worry you." + +"Suppose you could sell it for a fair price, cash, and get away with the +money?" + +"That's our aim." + +"Mr. Baines," said Bowman, "there's money in this if you aren't too +particular." + +"Hain't p'tic'lar a-tall. How you mean?" + +"What would you say to buying this gold--at a reasonable price? I can +dispose of it--through channels I am acquainted with. You can put in the +money we were going for, and I'll put in some more. Ought to show a +handsome profit." + +"Might nigh double my money, maybe, eh? Figger that? Gimme twict as much +to buy stock with." + +"Yes, indeed." + +"Let's dicker." + +"What will you men take to walk away and leave that gold?" + +"Forty thousand." + +"Fiddlesticks. I'll give you ten--and you're clear of the whole mess." + +There was a wrangle. For half an hour the dicker went on, and finally a +price of fifteen thousand dollars was agreed upon. Mr. Bowman was to pay +over the money, and Scattergood was to contribute his five thousand +dollars as soon as they got it. For one third of the profits. + +The money was paid over; the three robbers disappeared with alacrity, +leaving Scattergood and Bowman with the stolen gold. + +"We can take it along in the buggy, covered with ferns," said Bowman. +"Nobody'll suspect _you_." + +"Be safe as a church," said Scattergood, boldly. "Lug her out." + +So they carried the gold to the buggy, covered it snugly with ferns, and +drove toward the next town, Scattergood talking excitedly of profits and +of how much mining stock he could purchase with the money received, and +of ample wealth from the transaction. Mr. Bowman smiled with the faint, +quiet smile of one whose soul is at peace. Just before they got to town +Scattergood suggested that they stop to make sure the gold was +completely concealed. + +They drove into the woods a few rods and uncovered the treasure. +Scattergood gloated over it. + +"I've heard tell you kin cut real gold like cheese," he said, and opened +his jackknife. With it he hacked off a shaving and held it up to the +light. + +"Is all gold this here way?" he asked. "Don't look to me to be the same +color all the way through. Looks like silver or suthin' inside." + +Mr. Bowman snatched the shaving, scrutinized it, and uttered language in +a loud voice. He snatched Scattergood's knife and tested all three +ingots. + +"Lead!" he said, savagely. "Nothing but lead! We've been swindled!" + +"You mean it hain't gold a-tall?" + +"It's lead, I tell you." + +"I vum!... Them fellers stole lead! And they got off with all your +money. Gosh! I'm glad I didn't have none along." His eyes were mirthless +and his face vacuous. "Beats all. Never heard tell of nothin' sim'lar." + +They got into the buggy and drove silently into town. Mr. Bowman tried +to recover his spirits, but they were at low ebb. He did manage to hint +that Scattergood should stand his share of the loss, but in his heart he +knew that to be vain. Still, he could get that five thousand dollars for +the mining stock. It would be five thousand dollars. + +"Anyhow," he said, "you're fortunate. You still can buy the stock and +make your pile." + +"This here deal," said Scattergood, "has kind of made me figger. 'Tain't +safe to buy gold chunks till you _know_ they're gold. Likewise 'tain't +safe to buy mine stock till you know there's a mine. Calc'late I'll do a +mite of investigatin' 'fore I pungle over that five thousand.... Where +kin I leave you, Mr. Bowman? I'm calc'latin' to drive home from here. +Maybe I'll see you later. But I got to investigate." + +Mr. Bowman made himself unpleasant for a brief time, but Scattergood was +vacuously stubborn. Presently he drove away, leaving Mr. Bowman on the +veranda of the hotel, scowling and uttering words of strength and +meaning. Mr. Bowman was very unhappy. + +Scattergood drove as rapidly as his horse could travel, arriving at +Coldriver just after the supper hour. He went directly to his store, +which had been left in charge of Mr. Spackles. Three men were waiting +there for him. They handed him a leather bag and he satisfied himself +that it contained fifteen thousand dollars. + +"Much 'bleeged, boys," he said. "Do as much f'r you, some day. G'-by." + +"Mr. Spackles," he said, "kin you fetch Grandmother Penny over +here--right now?" + +"Calculate I kin," said Mr. Spackles, and he proved himself able to keep +his word. + +"Grandmother Penny," said Scattergood, when she arrived, "you and Mr. +Spackles up and made a investment. I been a-lookin' after that +investment f'r you--and f'r these other dum fools in town. Best I could +do f'r them others was to git their money back--every cent of it. But I +took keer to do a mite more f'r you and Mr. Spackles. I got your five +hunderd f'r you--and then I seen a way to git ten thousand more. Here +she be. Count it.... I don't guess there's any way this here money could +be put to better use." + +"F'r us? Ten thousand--" + +"I'll handle it f'r you. Give you int'rest of six hunderd a year. You +kin marry like you planned, and if your childern objects you kin tell +'em to go to blazes.... You'll want a place to live. Wa-al, I got twenty +acre back of town and a leetle house and furniture. Took it on a deal. +You kin move in and work it on shares. Ought to be able to live blamed +well." + +Grandmother Penny was crying. + +"You done all this f'r us, f'r James and me! There hain't no reason f'r +it. 'Tain't believable.... There hain't no way to say thankee." + +"I hain't wantin' you to say thankee, Grandmother Penny. Jest mog along +and marry this old coot, and git what joy you kin out of livin'." + +Mr. Spackles was inquisitive in addition to being grateful. + +"What I want to know," he demanded, "is how you managed it?" + +"Oh," said Scattergood, "jest made use of the sayin' about curin' with +the hair of the dog that bit you. Figgered a swindler wouldn't never +suspect nobody of swindlin' him with one of his own tricks. This here +Mr. Baxter, or Mr. Bowman, or whatever his name is, used to make a +livin' sellin' gold bricks. When I found that there fact out I jest +calc'lated he was ripe to do a mite of gold-brick buyin' himself.... +Which he done." + +"Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny, "I'm a-goin' to kiss you." + +Scattergood presented his cheek, and Grandmother Penny threw her arms +around his neck and pressed her lips to his weather-beaten face. He +smiled, but as if he were smiling at somebody not present. When they had +gone their way to find marriage license and parson he went out on to his +piazza and looked up at the moonlit sky. + +"Grandma Baines," he said, after a moment, "if you kin see down from +where you be, I hope you hain't missin' that I done this f'r you. I was +pertendin' all the time that you was Grandmother Penny...." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON + + +Scattergood Baines sat on the piazza of his hardware store and twiddled +his bare toes reflectively. He was not thinking of to-day nor of +to-morrow, but of days a score of years distant and of plans not to come +to maturity for twenty years. That was Scattergood's way. From his +history, as it is to be gathered from the ancient gossips of Coldriver, +one is forced to the conclusion that few of his acts were performed with +reference to the immediate time. If he set on foot some scheme, one +learns to study it and to endeavor to see to what outcome it may lead +ten years after its inception. He looked always to the future, and more +than once one may see where he has forgone immediate profit in order to +derive that profit a hundredfold a generation later. + +So, as Scattergood twiddled his reflective toes, he looked far ahead +into the future of Coldriver Valley; he saw that valley as his own, +developed as few mountain valleys are ever developed. Its stage line, +already his property, was replaced by a railroad. The waters of its +river and tributaries were dammed to give a cheap and constant power +which should be connected in some way to this electricity of which he +heard so much and about which he always desired to hear more. He saw +factories springing up. In short, he saw his valley as the center of the +state's commercial life, and himself as the center of the valley. + +Scattergood was well aware that there always will exist those who will +clog the road of progress and attempt to stem any tide arising for the +public good--unless they can see for themselves an individual benefit. +He knew that it is not uncommon for those whose business is the common +good--such individuals as legislators and governors and judges--to +assume some such attitude, and he knew that it was regarded as expensive +to win their favor. He did not grow especially angry at this condition, +but accepted it as a condition and studied to see what he could do about +it--for he knew he must do something about it. + +He must take it into consideration, because one does not build railroads +without legislative sanction, nor does one dam streams nor carry out +wide commercial programs. The consent of the _people_ must be had, and +the people had handed over their consent in trust to their elected +representatives. Scattergood saw at once that it was preferable to be +one from whom governors and legislators and judges asked favors and +looked to for guidance, than to be one to come a suppliant before those +personages, and as soon as he saw that clearly he reached his +determination. + +"Calculate," said he, to the shoes which he held in his hand, "that I +got to git up and stir around in politics some." + +From that moment Scattergood scrutinized the bowl of politics to +discover when and where he could dip in his spoon. + +The opportunity to dip, it soon became apparent, would be at the time of +the fall town meetings, for there was a fight on in the state and its +preliminary rumblings were already making themselves audible. Hitherto +the state had been held securely by certain political gentlemen, who in +turn had been held securely by a certain other and greater political +gentleman--Lafe Siggins. Other non-political gentlemen who represented +_money_ and _business_ had seen, as Scattergood did, the necessity for +becoming political, and had chosen their moment to endeavor to take the +state away from Messrs. Siggins & Co. and to hold it thereafter for +their own benefit and behoof. They were, therefore, laying their plans +to win the legislature by winning the town meetings of the fall, and to +win they had decided to make their fight upon the total prohibition of +liquor in the state. It was not that they cared ethically whether drinks +of a spirituous nature were dispensed or not, but it was the best +available issue. If it did not work out to their satisfaction they could +reverse themselves when they came into power. + +So they made an issue of prohibition, and planned astutely to go to the +town meetings on that platform, for a majority of the towns voted local +option with regularity. The new powers would first sweep the town +meetings for local option, and in the wave of enthusiasm put into office +at the same time legislators chosen by themselves. + +Scattergood saw the trend of affairs early and gave them his earnest +consideration. That his ancient ill wishers, Messrs. Crane & Keith, were +identified with the new and rising power may not have been the least of +the considerations which determined him to dip in his spoon on the side +of Siggins and the old order. But there was one obstacle. Scattergood +desired local option, for he was now the employer of many men, both in +the woods and in other enterprises, and he knew well that labor and hard +liquor are disturbing bedfellows.... He considered and reached the +conclusion that for this one time, perhaps, he could both have his cake +and eat it. + +He could have his cake and still eat it only by the results of an +election which should not be a victory for the new powers nor for the +old, but for another minor power differing from each. In other words, +Scattergood saw the wisdom of defeating both the contenders locally, and +then of throwing in with Siggins as to the fight for state control.... +But of this determination he notified not a soul. Judging from his +actions, it may be safely said that he was at some pains to conceal the +fact that he was interested in politics in any manner or degree +whatever. + +But Scattergood was a chatty body, and Coldriver would have been +surprised if he did not talk politics, as did all its other male +inhabitants. It came about that more politics than hardware was +discussed on Scattergood's piazza, but to the casual listener it seemed +only purposeless discussion. But Scattergood was a master of purposeless +discussion. His methods were his own and worthy of notice. + +Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle sauntered past and paused to mention the +weather. + +"Goin' to be lots of politics this year," said Scattergood. "Jest got in +a line of gardenin' tools, Bogle." + +"Town's goin' to be het up for certain," said Mr. Bogle, waggling his +ancient head. "Calc'late to have all the tools I need." + +"Who's figgerin' on runnin' for legislature, Marvin?" + +"Guess Will Pratt's puttin' up Pazzy Cox ag'in." Pratt was postmaster +and local party leader. + +"Anybody calc'latin' to run ag'in' him, Marvin? Any opposition +appearin'?" + +"Goin' to be a fight, Scattergood. Big doin's in the state. Tryin' to +upset Lafe Siggins. Uh-huh! Wuth watchin', says I." + +"I hear tell the lawless elements is puttin' up Jim Allen on a whisky +platform," said Old Man Bogle, acidly. + +"Them all the candidates, Bogle? Hain't no others?" + +"Nary." + +"Coldriver's got to take whatever candidates them outsiders chooses, eh? +Coldriver hain't got no say who'll represent her in the legislature?" + +"Don't 'pear so. All done by party machinery, Scattergood. We got +nothin' to do but pick between parties." + +"Looks so.... Looks that way," said Scattergood. "Too bad there hain't +one more party that hain't controlled so folks could git a chance.... +What's this here Prohibition party I been hearin' some of in other +parts?" + +"'S fur's I know it's all right, only it hain't got no votes, and votes +is necessary in politics." + +"Licker enters into this here campaign, don't it?" + +"Backbone of it." + +"Seems like these Prohibition fellers ought to take a hand. Any of 'em +in Coldriver?" + +"Don't seem like I ever heard speak of one." + +"Could be, couldn't there? 'Tain't impossible?" + +"S'pose one could be got up--if anybody was int'rested." + +"Need a strong candidate, wouldn't they? Have to have a man to head it +up that would command respect?" + +"Wouldn't git fur with it. Parties too well organized." + +"Um!... Lemme show you a new hand seeder I jest got in. Labor savin'. +Calc'late it's a bargain." + +"Don't hold with them newfangled notions, Scattergood." + +"S'prised at you, Marvin. Folks expects progress of you. Look up to you, +kind of. Take their idees from you." + +"I dunno," said Marvin, visibly pleased, but deprecatory. + +"Careful, cautious--but most gen'ally right, that's what I hear folks +say. Quite a bit of talk goin' around about you. Politics. Uh-huh! Heard +several say it was a pity Marvin Towne couldn't be got to go to the +legislature. Heard that, hain't you, Bogle?" + +"Don't call it to mind, but maybe I have. Maybe I have. Anyhow, I +calc'late it's true." + +"There you be, Marvin. Now it behooves a man that's looked up to for to +keep in the lead. Ought to look into that seeder, Marvin. Folks'll say: +'Marvin Towne's got him one of them seeders. Darn progressive farmer. +Gits him all the modern improvements.'" + +"Suthin' in what you say, Scattergood. Calculate I might examine into +that tool one of these days." + +"Hain't much choice between Pazzy Cox and Jim Allen, eh? Hain't neither +of 'em desirable lawmakers, eh? That what you was sayin'?" + +"Them's my idees," said Marvin. + +"Too bad we're forced to take one or t'other. Now if they was some way +for you to step in and run." + +"Hain't." + +"Sh'u'd think you'd look over them Prohibitionists. Draw all the best +citizens after you. Set a example to the state.... Step back and look at +that there seeder, Marvin." + +Marvin looked at the seeder judicially. "Calc'late to guarantee it, +Scattergood?" + +"Put it in writin'," said Scattergood. + +"Calc'late I'll have to have it. Considerin' everything, guess I'll take +it along." + +"Knowed you would, Marvin. Sich men as you is to be depended on. Folks +realizes it." + +"If I thought they was a call for me to go to the legislature--" + +"Call?" said Scattergood. "Marvin, I'm tellin' you it's dum near a +shout." + +"Huh!... Where could I git to find out about this here Prohibitionist +party?" + +Presently Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle went along. Scattergood gazed +after them speculatively, and as he gazed his hands went automatically +to his shoes, which he removed to give play to his reflective toes. +"Um!..." he grunted. "If nothin' more comes of it I made a profit of +three dollar forty on that seeder." + +Pliny Pickett, stage driver, was a frequent caller at Scattergood's +store, first as an employee, but more importantly as a dependable +representative who could carry out an order without asking questions, +especially when no definite order had been given. + +"Pliny," said Scattergood, "know Marvin Towne, don't you? Brought up +with him, wasn't you?" + +"Know him like the palm of my hand." + +"Um!... Strange he hain't never been talked up for the legislature, +Pliny. Strange there hain't talk about him on the stagecoach. Ever hear +any?" + +"Some, lately." + +"Could hear more, couldn't you? If you listened.... Set around the post +office, evenin's, don't you?" + +"Some." + +"Discussin' topics? Ever discuss this Prohibition party?" + +"I _could_," said Pliny. + +"Seems like a shame folks here can't run the man they want for office. +Strike you that way?" + +"Certain sure. Calc'late they want Marvin bad?" + +"They _could_," said Scattergood. "G'-by, Pliny." + +Ten days later a third party made its appearance in the politics of +Coldriver, and Marvin Towne was announced as its candidate for the +legislature. It seemed a spontaneous excrescence, but, nevertheless, it +caused a visit from that great man and citizen, Lafe Siggins, as well as +a call from Mr. Crane, of Crane & Keith. Both astute gentlemen viewed +the situation, and their alarm subsided. Indeed, both perceived where it +could be turned to advantage. A canvass of the situation showed them +that the new Prohibitionists, though they talked loud and long, were +made up mainly of the discontented and of a few men always ready to +join any novel movement, and promised at best to poll not to exceed +forty votes of Coldriver's registered three hundred and eighty. It +really simplified the situation to Lafe and to Crane, for it removed +from circulation forty doubtful votes and left the real battle to be +fought between the regulars. Wherefore Messrs. Siggins and Crane +departed from the village in satisfied mood. + +Scattergood sat on his piazza as usual, the morning after the portentous +visit, and called a greeting to Wade Lumley, dry-goods merchant, as that +prominent citizen passed to his place of business. + +"How's the geldin' this mornin', Wade?" he asked. + +"Feelin' his oats. Got to take him out on the road this evenin'. Time to +begin shapin' him up for the county fair." + +"Three-year-old, hain't he?" + +"Best in the state." + +"Always figgered that till I heard Ren Green talkin'. Ren calculates +he's got a three-year-old that'll make any other hoss in these parts +look like it was built of pine." + +Wade was eager in a moment. "Willin' to back them statements with money, +is he?" + +"Said somethin' about havin' a hunderd dollars that wasn't workin' +otherwise, seems as though," said Scattergood. "Jest half a mile from +Pettybone's house to the dam," he continued, with apparent irrelevance. +"Level road." + +"And my geldin' kin travel that same road spryer 'n Green's hoss--for a +hunderd dollars," said Wade, eagerly. + +"Dunno," said Scattergood. "Hoss races is uncertain. G'-by, Wade. See +you later." + +A similar conversation with Ren Green during the day resulted in a +meeting between the horsemen, an argument, loud words, and a heated +offer to wager money, which was accepted with like heat. + +"From Pettybone's to the dam--half a mile," shouted Wade. + +"Suits me to a T," bellowed Ren; "and now you kin step across with me +and deposit that there hunderd dollars ag'in' mine with Briggs of the +hotel." + +So, terms and conditions having been arranged, the bets were made, and +the money locked in the hotel safe. News of the matter swept through +Coldriver, and for the evening politics were forgotten and excitement +ran high. Next day it arose to a higher pitch, for Town-marshal Pease +had forbidden the race to be run through the public streets of +Coldriver, viewing it as a menace to life, limb, and the public peace. +Scattergood had conversed sagely with Pease on the duties of a town +marshal. + +Marvin Towne had formed the habit of stopping to chat with Scattergood +daily, totally unconscious that to all intents and purposes he had been +ordered by Scattergood to make daily reports to him. He seemed depressed +as he leaned against a post of the piazza. + +"Lookin' peaked, Marvin. Hain't all goin' well? Gittin' uneasy?" + +"It's this dum hoss race," said Marvin. "Everybody's het up over it so's +nobody'll talk politics. How's a feller goin' to win votes if he can't +git nobody to talk to him, that's what I want to know? Seems like there +hain't nothin' in the world but Wade Lumley's geldin' and that hoss of +Green's." + +"Um!... Sort of distressing hain't it? Know Kent Pilkinton perty well, +Marvin?" + +"Brother-in-law." + +"Holds public office, don't he?" + +"Chairman of the Board of Selectmen's what he is." + +"Good man fur't," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "Calculate to be +on good terms with him, Marvin? Perty good terms?" + +"Good enough so's he kin ask me to loan him two thousand dollars he's +needin' a'mighty bad." + +"Give it to him, Marvin?" + +"Huh!" said Marvin, eloquently. + +"If I was to indorse his note, think you could see your way clear?" + +"Certain sure." + +"See him ag'in, won't you? Perty soon?" + +"Yes." + +"What d'you calc'late to tell him?" + +"What you said?" + +"Didn't say nothin', did I? Jest asked a question. It was you _said_ +something Marvin, wa'n't it? Said you'd lend on my indorsement." + +"That what you want me to tell him?" + +"Didn't say so, did I? Jest asked a question. G'-by, Marvin. Lemme know +what he says." + +It was unnecessary for Marvin to report, for early next morning Kent +Pilkinton, owner of a hill farm on the out-skirts of a village--a farm +on which he succeeded in raising the most ample crop of whiskers in +Coldriver, and little else, came diffidently up to Scattergood as he sat +in front of his hardware store. + +"Morning Kent," said Scattergood. "Come to look at mowin' machines, I +calc'late." + +"Might _look_ at one," said Kent. + +"Need one, don't you?" + +"Bad." + +"Need quite a mess of implements, don't you?" + +"Could do with 'em if I had 'em.... 'Tain't what I come fur, though, +Scattergood. Been tryin' to borrow money off of my brother-in-law, but +he don't calclate to lend without I git an indorser, and seems like he +sets store by your name on a note." + +"Does, eh? Any reason I should indorse for you? Know any reason?" + +"Nary," said Kent, and started to move off. + +"Hold your bosses. What you need the money for?" + +"Pay off a thousand-dollar mortgage and another thousand to git the farm +in shape to run." + +"Calculate you kin run it, then?" + +"If I git the tools." + +"I figger maybe you kin. Like to see you git ahead. Where d'you +calculate to buy them implements?" + +"Off of you." + +"I got 'em to sell. When you got to have the money?" + +"Two weeks to-morrow." + +This was the day after the town meeting. + +"Come in and pick out your implements," said Scattergood. + +"Meanin' you'll indorse?" + +"Meanin' that--pervidin' nothin' unforeseen comes up between now and +then." + +Half a day was spent selecting tools and implements for the farm, and +though Pilkinton did not know it, it was Scattergood's selection that +was purchased. Scattergood knew what was necessary and what would be +economical, and that was what Pilkinton got, and nothing more. It netted +Scattergood a pleasant profit, and Kent got the full equivalent of his +money. + +"Preside at town meetin', don't you?" + +"My duty," said Kent. + +"Calc'late to _do_ your duty?" + +"Always done so." + +"Comin' to see you do it," said Scattergood. He paused. "Next mornin' +we'll fix up the note. G'-by, Kent." During the fourteen days that +followed Coldriver was happy; between politics and the forbidden horse +race, it had such food for conversation that even cribbage under the +barber shop languished, and one had to walk into the road to pass the +crowd at the post office of evenings. As to the horse race, it resembled +a boil. Daily it grew more painful. Like a boil, such a horse race as +this must burst some day, and it was reaching the acute stage. But +Town-marshal Pease was vigilant and spoke sternly of the majesty of the +law. + +As to the election, it grew even more dubious. Scattergood privately +took stock of the situation. Marvin Towne and the Prohibitionists might +count now on a vote or two more than fifty. Postmaster Pratt appeared +certain of better than a hundred, and so did the opposing party. One or +the other of them was certain to win as matters lay, and Marvin's case +seemed hopeless. Marvin conceived it so and was for withdrawing, but +Scattergood saw to it that he did not withdraw. + +"Keep your votes together," he said. "Stiffen 'em." It was his first +direct order. "Fetch 'em to the meetin' and be sure of every one." + +On town-meeting day Coldriver filled with rigs from the surrounding +township. Every rail and post was utilized for hitching, and +Town-marshal Pease, his star displayed, patrolled the town to avert +disorder. He patrolled until the meeting went into session, and then he +took his chair just under the platform, and, as was his duty, guarded +the sacredness of the ballot. + +Scattergood was present, sitting in a corner under the overhang of the +balcony, watching, but discouraging conversation. If one had studied his +face during the early proceedings he would have read nothing except a +genial interest, which was the thing Coldriver expected to see on +Scattergood's face. Town questions were decided, matters of sidewalks, +of road building, of schools, and every instance Marvin Towne's +fifty-two voted as a unit, swinging from one side to the other as their +peculiar interest dictated. On all minor questions it was Marvin Towne's +Prohibitionists who decided, because they carried the volume of votes +necessary to control. But when it came to major affairs, such as the +election of officers, there would be a different story. Then they could +join with neither party, but must stand alone as a unit, far outvoted. + +So the regulars disregarded them, or if they gave them any attention it +was jocular. Even Marvin viewed the day as lost, but Scattergood held +him to the mark with a word passed now and then. It came three o'clock +of the afternoon before nominations for the high office of legislator +were the order of proceeding. Jim Allen and Pazzy Cox were placed before +the meeting as candidates amid the stimulated applause of their +adherents. Marvin Towne's name was received with laughter and such jeers +as the New England breed of farmer and townsman has rendered his own, +and at which he is a genius surpassed by none. + +Chairman Pilkinton arose, as befitted the moment. + +"Feller townsmen, we will now proceed to cast our ballots for the office +of representative in the legislature. The polls is open, and overlooked +by Town-marshal Pease. The ballotin' will begin." + +And then.... + +At that instant there was an uproar on the stairs. Pliny Pickett burst +into the room, his hat missing, his eyes gleaming with excitement. + +"It's a-comin' off. They've stole a march. Hoss race!... Hoss race!... +Ren Green and Wade Lumley's got their hosses up to Deacon Pettybone's +and they're goin' to race to the dam. Everybody out. Hoss race!... Hoss +race!..." He turned and ran frantically down the stairs, and on his +heels followed the voters of Coldriver. But one or two remained; men too +rheumatic to chance rapid movement, or those whose positions compelled +them to consider as non-existent such a matter as a race between +quadrupeds. + +But no sooner had the hall cleared than men began to return, in couples, +in squads, and to take their seats. Scattergood was standing up now, +counting. Fifty-two he counted, and remained standing. + +"Polls is open, Mr. Chairman," says he. + +"They was declared so, but--er--the voters has gone. I hain't clear how +to perceed." + +"Do your duty, chairman, like you said. Town meetings don't calculate to +take account of hoss races, do they? Eh?... None of your affair, is it?" + +Pilkinton looked at Scattergood, who smiled genially and said: "Duty's +duty, Pilkinton. If you was to fail in your duty as a public officer, +folks might git to think you wasn't the sort of citizen that could be +trusted. Might even affect sich things as credit and promissory notes." + +Mr. Pilkinton no longer hesitated. + +"The polls is open," he said. + +The fifty-two, ballots ready in their hands, started for the box, but +Town-marshal Pease, awakened from his astonishment, lifted his voice. + +"I got to stop that hoss race. Stop the votin' till I git back. That +hoss race has got to be stopped." + +"Seems to me like votes was more important than hoss races," said +Scattergood. + +"The town marshal will stay right where he is, and guard the ballot +box," said the chairman. + +The voters moved to the front, and as they deposited their ballots, +sounds from without, indicating excitement and delight, were carried +through the windows to their ears. The fifty-two voted and returned to +their seats. + +"If everybody present and desirin' to vote has done so," said +Scattergood, "I move you them polls be closed." + +Mr. Pilkinton put the motion, and it was carried with enthusiasm. + +"Tellers," suggested Scattergood. + +As was the custom, the votes were counted immediately. The result stood, +Marvin Towne: fifty-three votes; Jim Allen, two votes; Pazzy Cox, four +votes. + +"I declare Marvin Towne elected our representative to the legislature," +said Chairman Pilkinton, weakly, and sat down, mopping his brow. + +"That bein' the final business of this meetin'," said Scattergood, "I +move we adjourn." + +The story swept the state. Twenty-four hours later Lafe Siggins visited +Coldriver and was driven to Scattergood Baines's hardware store. +Scattergood sat on the piazza, and as soon as the visitor was identified +the male inhabitants of the village began to gather. + +"Kin we talk in private?" said Mr. Siggins. + +"Hain't got no need for privacy. Folks is welcome to listen to all I got +to say." + +Mr. Siggins frowned, but, being a politician and partially estimating +the quality of his man, he did not protest. + +"You beat us clever," said he. + +"Calculated to," said Scattergood. + +"In politics for good?" + +"Calculate to be." + +"What you aim to do?" + +"Kind of look after the politics in Coldriver." + +"Be you fur me or ag'in' me?" + +"I'm fur you till my mind changes." + +"How about this here Prohibition party?" + +"Don't figger it's necessary after this." + +"Guess we kin agree," said Siggins. "You can figger the party +machinery's behind you. So fur's _we're_ concerned, _you're_ Coldriver." + +"Calc'lated to be," said Scattergood. + +"Some day," said Siggins, in not willing admiration, "you're goin' to +run the state." + +"Calc'late to," said Scattergood, and thereby rather took Mr. Siggins's +breath. "Figger on makin' politics kind of a side issue to the hardware +business. Find it mighty stimilatin'. Politics took in moderation, +follerin' a meal of business, makes an all-fired tasty dessert.... +G'-by, Siggins, g'-by." + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP + + +"Calc'late both them young folks was guilty of an error of jedgment when +they up and married each other," said Will Pratt, postmaster of +Coldriver, in the judicial tone which he had affected since his +elevation to office. + +"Mean Marthy Norton and Jed Lewis, Will? Referrin' to them especial?" +Scattergood peered after the young couple who had the moment before +passed his hardware store, not walking jovially in the enjoyment of each +other's presence as young married folks should walk, but sullenly and in +silence. + +"They be the _i_-dentical ones," Will declared. "Naggin' and quarrelin' +and bickerin' from sunup to milkin' time. Used to do it private like, +but it's been gittin' so lately you can't pass the house without hearin' +'em referrin' to each other mighty sharp and searchin'." + +"Um!... Difficulty appears to be what, Will? Got any idee where lies the +seat of the trouble?" + +"They jest hain't habitually suited to one another," said Will. +"Whatever one of 'em is fur the tother's ag'in'. Looks like they go to +bed spiteful and wake up acr'monious. 'Tain't like as if Jed was the +breed of feller that beats his wife, or that Marthy was the kind that +looks out of the corner of her eye at drummers stoppin' to the hotel." + +"Jest kind of irritate one another, eh?" said Scattergood, thoughtfully. +"Kind of git on each other's nerves, you might say. Um!... I call to +mind when they was married, five year ago. 'Twan't indicated them days. +Jed he couldn't set easy if Marthy wasn't nigh, and Marthy went around +lookin' as if she'd swallered a pin and it hurt if Jed was more 'n forty +rod off. If ever two young folks was all het up over each other, Jed and +Marthy was them young folks.... And 'twan't but five year ago...." + +"End by separating" said the postmaster. + +"There's the stage a-rattlin' in," Scattergood said, suddenly. "Better +git ready f'r distributin' the mail, Will. G'-by, Will; and, Will, if +'twas me I dunno but what I'd kind of keep my mouth shet about Marthy +and Jed. Outside gabblin' hain't calc'lated to help matters none. G'-by, +Will." + +The postmaster recognized his dismissal; he knew that the manner which +had fallen upon Scattergood portended that something was on his mind and +that he wanted to be alone and think, so he withdrew hastily and plodded +across the dusty road to the office of which he was the executive head. + +As for Scattergood, he pressed his double chin down upon his bulging +chest, closed his eyes, and gave himself up enthusiastically to looking +like a gigantic figure of discouragement. He waggled his head dubiously. + +"Wonder if it kin be laid to my door," he said to himself. "I figgered +they was about made f'r each other, and I brung 'em together.... +Somethin's got crossways. Um!... Take them young folks separate, and +you couldn't ask for nothin' better.... Don't understand it a mite.... +Anyhow, things has turned out as they be, and what kin I do about it?" + +His reinforced chair creaked under the shifting of his great weight as +he bent mechanically to remove his shoes. With his toes imprisoned in +leather, Scattergood's brain refused to function, a characteristic +which greatly chagrined his wife, Mandy--so much so that she had +considered sewing him up in his footwear, as certain mothers in the +community sewed their children in their underwear for the winter. + +Scattergood had amassed a fortune that might be called handsome, but it +had not made him effete. His income had never warranted him in +purchasing a pair of socks, so now, upon the removal of his shoepacs, +his toes were fully at liberty to squirm and wriggle in the most +soul-satisfying manner. He sat thus, battling with his problem, until +Pliny Pickett, driver of the stage, and Scattergood's man, rattled up to +the store in his dust-whitened conveyance. + +"Afternoon, Scattergood," he said, in a manner which he endeavored to +make as like his employer's as possible. + +"Afternoon, Pliny. Successful trip, Pliny? Plenty of passengers? Eh? Any +news down the valley?" + +"Done middlin' well. Hain't much news, 'ceptin' that young Widder Conroy +down to Tupper Falls died of somethin' the matter with her stummick and +folks is wonderin' what'll become of her baby." + +"Baby? What kind of a baby did she calc'late to have?" + +"A he one--nigh onto two year old. Neighbors is lookin' after him." + +"Got relatives?" + +"Not that anybody knows of." + +"Um!... Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's house, was you?" + +"Didn't figger to." + +"Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's, was you?" Scattergood repeated, +insistently. + +"I could." + +"Um!... If you was to, and if you seen Jed, what was you figgerin' on +sayin' to him?" + +Pliny scratched his head and pondered. + +"Calculate I'd mention the heat some, and maybe I might say suthin' +about national politics." + +"Wouldn't mention me, would you, Pliny? Don't figger my name might come +up?" + +"It might." + +"If it did, what 'u'd you say, eh? Hain't no reason for mentionin' that +I might want to talk to him, is there? Hain't said so, have I?" + +"You hain't," said Pliny, at last enlightened as to Scattergood's desire +in the matter. + +"G'-by, Pliny." + +"G'-by, Scattergood." + +An hour later Jed Lewis sauntered past the store and stopped. "Pliny +Pickett says you want to see me, Scattergood." + +"Said that, did he? Told you I said I wanted to see you?" + +"Wa-al, maybe not exactly. Not in so many words. But he kind of hinted +around and pecked around till I figgered that was what the ol' coot was +gittin' at." + +"Um!... Didn't tell him nothin' of the kind, but as long's you're here +you might as well set. Hain't seen much of you lately. How's the +hayin'?" + +"Too much rain. Got her cocked twice and had to spread her ag'in to +dry." + +"Hear any politics talked around, Jed?" + +"Nothin' special." + +Jed was brief in his answers. He seemed depressed, and conducted himself +like a man who had something on his mind. + +"Any fresh news from anywheres?" + +"Hain't heard none." + +"Hear about the Packinses down to Bailey?" + +"Never heard tell of 'em." There was excellent reason for this, because +no such family as the Packinses existed in Bailey or anywhere else, to +Scattergood's knowledge. + +"Goin' to separate," said Scattergood. + +Jed looked up quickly, bit his lip, and looked down again. + +"What fur?" he asked. + +"Nobody kin figger out. Jest agreein' to disagree. Can't git along, +nohow. Always naggin' at each other and squabblin' and hectorin'.... +Nice young folks, too. Used to set a heap of store by one another. Can't +figger how they come to disagree like they do!" + +"Nobody kin figger it out," said Jed, with sudden vehemence. "All to +once you wake up and things is that way, and you dunno how they come to +be. It jest drifts along. Fust you know things has went all to smash." + +"Um!... You talk like you knowed somethin' about it." + +"Nobody knows more," said the young man, bitterly. He was suddenly +conscious that he wanted to talk about his domestic affairs; that he +wanted to loose the story of his troubles and dwell upon them in all +their ramifications. + +"Do tell," said Scattergood, with an inflection of astonishment. + +"Marthy and me has about come to the partin' of our roads," said Jed. +"It's come gradual, without our noticin' it, but it's here at last. +Seems like we can't bear the sight of each other--when we git together. +And yit--sounds mighty funny, too--I calc'late to be as fond of Marthy +as ever I was. But the minute we git together we bicker and quarrel till +there hain't no pleasure into life at all." + +"All Marthy's fault, hain't it? Kind of a mean disposition, hain't she?" + +"No sich thing, Scattergood, and you know it dum well. There didn't use +to be a sweeter-dispositioned girl in the state than Marthy.... +Somethin's jest went wrong. They's times when I git mad and it all +looks to be her fault, and then I ketch my own self startin' some +hectorin' meanness. 'Tain't all her fault, and 'tain't all my fault. The +whole sum and substance of it is that we can't git along with each other +no more." + +"So you calc'late to separate?" + +"Been talkin' it up some." + +"Marthy willin'?" + +"Hain't neither of us willin'. We fix it up and agree to try over ag'in, +and then, fust thing we know, we're right into the middle of another +squabble. I want Marthy, and I guess Marthy wants me, but we want each +other like we was five year back and not like we be now." + +"Been married five year, hain't you?" + +"Five year last April." + +"Um!... Wa-al, I hope nothin' comes of it, Jed. But if it has to it +will. Better live happy separate than unhappy together.... G'-by, Jed." + +Scattergood did not discuss this problem with Mandy, his wife, as it was +his custom to discuss business problems. He did not mention the young +Lewises because the first rule of Mandy's life was "Mind your own +business," and it irritated her beyond measure to see Scattergood poking +his finger into every dish that offered. He did talk the matter over +with Deacon Pettybone, but got little enlightenment for his pains. + +"Don't seem natteral," Scattergood said, "f'r young folks to git to +quarrelin' and bickerin' ontil life hain't endurable no longer. 'Tain't +natteral a-tall. Somethin' must be all-fired wrong somewheres." + +"It's human nature to quarrel," said the deacon, gloomily. "Nothin' +onusual about it." + +"Human nature," said Scattergood, "gits blamed f'r a heap of things that +ought to be laid at the door of human cussedness." + +"Same thing," said the deacon. "If you're human you're cussed. Used to +be so in the Garden of Eden, and it'll keep on bein' so till Gabriel +blows his final trump." + +"'Tain't no more natteral to bicker than 'tis to have dispepsy. +Quarrelin' and hectorin' hain't nothin' but a kind of dispepsy that +attacks families instid of stummicks. In both cases it means somethin' +is wrong." + +"Can't cure a unhappy family with a dose of calomel," said the deacon, +acidly. + +"Hain't so sure. Bet that identical remedy' u'd fix up three out of ten. +But somethin' else is wrong with them young Lewises. A dose of somethin' +'u'd cure 'em, if only a feller could figger out what 'twas." + +"Might try soothin' syrup," said the deacon, with an ironic grin. +"Sounds like it ought to git results.... Soothin' syrup--eh? Have to +tell the boys that one. Soothin' syrup. Perty good f'r an old man. Don't +call to mind makin' no joke like that f'r twenty year." + +"Do it often, Deacon," said Scattergood, gravely. "You won't have to +take so much sody followin' meals to sweeten you up.... G'-by, +Deacon.... Soothin' syrup. Um!... I swanny...." + +He looked across the square and saw that Pliny Pickett was delighting an +audience with apochryphal reminiscences, doubtless of a gallant and +spicy character. It is characteristic of Scattergood that he waited +until Pliny had reached his climax, shot it off, and was doubled up with +laughter at his own narration, before he lifted up his voice and +summoned the stage driver. + +"Hey, Pliny! Step over here a minute." + +"Comin'," said Pliny, with alacrity. Then in an aside to his audience: +"See that? Can't let an evenin' pass without a conference with me. Sets +a heap of store by my judgment." + +"Sets more store by your laigs," said Old Man Bogle. "They kin run +errants, anyhow." + +Pliny hastened across the square, and in careful imitation of +Scattergood said, "Evening Scattergood." + +"Evening Pliny. Flow of language good as usual to-night? Didn't meet +with no trouble sayin' what you had to say?" + +"Not a mite, Scattergood." + +"Come through Bailey to-day?" + +"Calculated to." + +"Any news?" + +"Nary." + +"What's become of that What's-his-name baby you was a-tellin' about? The +one that lost his ma and was bein' cared for by neighbors?" + +"Nothin' hain't become of him. Calc'late he'll be took to a +institution." + +"Um! Likely-lookin' two-year-old, was he? Take note of any blemishes?" + +"I hear tell by them that knows as how he was sound in wind and limb." + +"Who's keepin' him, Pliny?" + +"Mis' Patterson's sort of shuffled him in with her seven. Says she don't +notice no difference to speak of. Claims 'tain't possible f'r eight +childern to be no noisier 'n what seven be." + +"Um!... G'-by, Pliny. Ever deal in facts over there to the post office? +Ever have occasion to mention facts?" + +"Er--not _reg'lar_ facts, Scattergood. You needn't to worry about my +talkin' too free." + +"Seems like a feller that talks as much as you do would _have_ to +mention a fact once in a while. G'-by, Pliny." + +It was two or three days later that Postmaster Pratt alluded again to +Martha and Jed Lewis. + +"They're gittin' wuss and wuss," he said, with some gratification. +"Last night they was a rumpus you could 'a' heard forty mile. Ended up +by him threatenin' to leave her, and by her tellin' him that if he +didn't she'd lock him out of the house. Looks to me like that family +fracas was about ripe to bust." + +"Signs all p'int that way, Will. Too bad, hain't it? There's a reason +f'r it, I calculate. Ever look f'r the reason, Will? Ever think about it +at all?" + +"Hain't had no time. Post office keeps me thinkin' night and day." + +"Well, I _have_. Figgered a heap." + +"Any results, Scattergood?" + +"Some--_some_." + +"What be they?" + +Scattergood's eyes twinkled in the darkness. "I got it all figgered +out," he said, "that them young folks needs a dose of soothin' syrup." + +"I want to know," said the postmaster, breathlessly and with +bewilderment. "Soothin' syrup! I swan to man!... Hain't been out in the +heat, have you, Scattergood?" + +Scattergood made no reply to this question. He merely waggled his head +and said: "G'-by, Will. G'-by." + +Next morning Scattergood walked past the Lewis place. He passed it three +times before he made up his mind whether to go in or not, but finally he +turned through the gate and walked around to the kitchen door. Inside he +saw Martha ridding up the kitchen, not with a morning song on her lips, +but wearing a sullen expression which sat ill on her fine New England +face. + +"Mornin', Marthy," he called. + +She looked up and smiled suddenly. The change in her face was +astonishing. + +"Mornin', Mr. Baines. Set right down on the porch. ... Let me fetch you +a hot cup of coffee. 'Twon't take but a minute to make." + +"Can't stop," said Scattergood. "I was lookin' for Jed." + +"Jed's gone," she replied, shortly, the sullen expression returning to +her face. "'He won't be back 'fore noon." + +"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I calc'late I kin keep on drawin' my breath till +then--if you kin. I call to mind the time when you was all-fired oneasy +if Jed got away from you for six hours in a stretch." + +"Them times is gone," she said, shortly. + +"Shucks!" said Scattergood. + +"They be," she said, fiercely. "Hain't no use tryin' to hide it. Jed and +me is about through. Nothin' but fussin' and backbitin' and +maneuvering'. He don't care f'r me no more like he used to, and--" + +"You don't set sich a heap of store by him," Scattergood interrupted. + +Martha hesitated. "I do," she said, slowly. "But I can't put up with it +no more." + +"Jed's fault--mostly," said Scattergood, as one speaks who utters an +accepted fact. + +"No more 'n mine," she said, with a sudden flash. "I dunno what's got +into us, Mr. Baines, but we no sooner git into the same room than it +commences. 'Tain't no-body's fault--it jest _is_." + +"Um!... Kinder like to have things the way they used to be?" + +"Oh, Mr. Baines!" Her eyes filled. "Them first two-three years! Jed was +the best man a woman ever had." + +"Hain't drinkin', is he?" + +"Never touches a drop." + +"Jest his nasty temper," said Scattergood, casually. + +"No sich thing.... It's jest happened so. We can't git on, and I'm +through tryin'. One of us is gain' to git out of this house. I've made +up my mind." She started untying her apron. "I'm a-goin' right now. +It'll be off'n my mind then, and I kin sort of git a fresh start. I'm +goin' right now and pack." + +"Kind of hasty, hain't you?... Now, Marthy, as a special favor to me I +wish you'd stay, maybe two days more. I got a special reason. If you was +to go this mornin' it 'u'd upset my plans. After Sattidy you kin do as +you like, and maybe it's best you should part. But I do wisht you could +see your way to stayin' till Sattidy." + +"I don't see why, Mr. Baines, but if it'll be any good to _you_, I'll +do it. But not a minute after Sattidy--now mind that!" + +"Much 'bleeged, Marthy. G'-by, Marthy. G'-by." + +On Friday Scattergood was invisible in Coldriver village, for he had +started away before dawn, driving his sway-backed horse over the +mountain roads to the southward. He notified nobody of his going, unless +it was Mandy, his wife, and even to her he did not make apparent his +errand. + +Before noon he was in Bailey and stopping before the small white house +in which Mrs. Patterson managed by ingenuity to fit in a husband, a +mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy +orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done +it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes +containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once +removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some one +who knows the secret. + +Scattergood entered the house, remained upward of an hour, and then +reappeared, followed by Mrs. Patterson, seven children, an old man, and +an old woman--and in his arms was a baby whose lungs gave promise of a +healthy manhood. + +"Do this much, does he?" Scattergood asked, uneasily. + +"Not more 'n most," said Mrs. Patterson. + +"Um!... If he lets on to be hungry, what's the best thing to feed him +up on? I got a bag of doughnuts and five-six sandriches and nigh on to +half a apple pie in the buggy." + +"Feed him them," said Mrs. Patterson, "and you'll be like to hear some +real yellin'. What he's doin' now hain't nothin' but his objectin' to +you a-carryin' him like he was a horse blanket.... You wait right there +till I git a bottle of milk. And I'll fix you some sugar in a rag that +you kin put into his mouth if he acts uneasy. It'll quiet him right +off." + +"Much 'bleeged. Hain't had much experience with young uns. Might's well +start now. Bet me 'n this here one gits well acquainted 'fore we reach +Coldriver." + +"'Twouldn't s'prise me a mite," replied Mrs. Patterson, with something +that might have been a twinkle in her tired eyes. "I almost feel I +should go along with you." + +"G'-by, Mrs. Patterson," said Scattergood, hastily, and he climbed into +his buggy clumsily, placing the baby on the seat beside him, and holding +it in place with his left arm. "G'-by." + +The buggy rattled off. The baby hushed suddenly and began to look at the +horse. + +"Kind of come to your senses, eh?" said Scattergood. "Now you and me's +goin' to git on fine if you jest keep your mouth shet. If you behave +yourself proper I dunno but what I kin find a stick of candy f'r you +when we git there." + +Presently Scattergood looked down to find the baby asleep. He drove +slowly and cautiously, whispering what commands he felt were +indispensable to his horse. This delightful situation continued for +upward of two hours, and Scattergood said to himself that folks who +bothered about traveling with infants must be very easily worried. + +"Jest as soon ride with this one clean to the Pacific coast," he said. + +And then the baby awoke. It blinked and looked about it; it rubbed its +eyes; it stared severely up at Scattergood; it opened its mouth +tentatively, closed it again, and then--and then it uttered such an +ear-piercing, long-drawn shriek that the old horse jumped with fright. + +"Hey, there!" said the startled Scattergood. "Hey! what's ailin' you +now?" + +The baby closed his eyes, clenched his fists, kicked out with his legs, +and gave himself up whole-heartedly to the exercise of his voice. + +"Quit that," said Scattergood. "Now listen here; that hain't no way to +behave. You won't git that candy--" + +Louder and more piercing arose the baby's cries. Scattergood dropped the +reins, lifted the baby to his knee, and jounced it up and down +furiously, performing an act which he imagined to be singing, a thing he +had heard was interesting and soothing to babies. It did not even +attract this one's attention. + +"Sufferin' heathen!" Scattergood said. "What in tunket was it that woman +said I sh'u'd do? Hain't they no way of shuttin' him off? Look-ee here, +young feller, you jest quit it.... B'jing! here's my watch. You kin +listen to it tick." + +The baby tried the watch on his toothless gums, found it not to his +taste, and flung it from him with such vehemence that it would have +suffered permanent injury but for the size and strength of the silver +chain which attached it to Scattergood. The cries became more maddening. +Scattergood was not hungry, so it did not occur to him that the infant +might be thinking of food. He dandled it, he whistled, he sang, he +pointed out the interesting attributes of his horse, and promised to +direct attention to a rabbit or even a deer in a moment, but nothing +availed. Perspiration was pouring down Scattergood's face, and his +expression was that of a man who devoutly wishes he were far otherwise +than he is. + +Half an hour of this seemed to Scattergood like the length of a sizable +day--and then he remembered the milk. Frantically he fished it out of +the basket and thrust it toward the young person, who did with it what +seemed right to him, and, with a gurgle of satisfaction, settled down to +business. Scattergood sighed, wiped his forehead, and revised his +opinion of folks who were worried at the prospect of travel with an +infant. + +The rest of that drive was a nightmare to Scattergood. When the baby +yelled he was in torment. When the baby slept he was in torment lest he +wake it, so that it would commence again to cry. He sweat cold and he +sweat hot, and he wished wishes in his secret heart and blamed himself +for many things--chief of which was that he had not brought Mandy along +to bear the brunt of the adventure. + +But at last, long after nightfall, with baby fast asleep, Scattergood +drove into Coldriver by deserted and circuitous roads. He stopped his +horse in a dark spot on the edge of the village, and, with the baby +cautiously held in his arms, he slunk through back ways and short cuts +to the house where Jed and Martha Lewis made their home. With meticulous +stealth he passed through the gate, laid the baby on the doorstep, rang +the bell long and determinedly, and then, with astonishing quiet and +agility, hid himself in the midst of a clump of lilacs. + +The door opened, and a light shone through upon the squirming bundle +that lay upon the step. A tentative cry issued from the baby; a bass +exclamation issued from Jed Lewis. "My Gawd! Marthy, somebody's left a +baby here!" + +Martha pushed past her husband and lifted the baby in her arms. She said +no word, but Scattergood could see her press it close, and, in the +light that came through the door, could see the expression of her face. +It satisfied him. + +"What we goin' to do with the doggone thing?" Jed demanded. + +Martha pushed past him into the house, and he followed, wordless, +closing the door after them.... Scattergood remained for some time, and +then slunk away.... + +Postmaster Pratt gave the news to Scattergood in the morning. + +"Somebody went and left a baby on to Jed Lewis's stoop last night," he +declared. "Hain't nobody been able to identify it. Nary a mark nor a +sign on to it no place. ... Whatever possessed anybody to leave a baby +_there_ of all places?" + +"I want to know!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Girl er boy?" + +"Boy, I'm told." + +"What's Jed say?" + +"Hain't sayin' much. Jest sets and kind of hangs on to his head, and +every once in a while he gits up and looks at the baby and then goes +back to holdin' his head." + +"How about Marthy?" + +"Marthy," said Postmaster Pratt. "I can't make out about Marthy, but I +heard her a-singin' this mornin' 'fore breakfast. Fust time I heard her +sing for more 'n a year." + +"Might 'a' been singin' to the baby," Scattergood suggested. + +"Naw, it was while she was gittin' breakfast. Jest the time she and Jed +quarrels most powerful." + +During the day all of Coldriver called to see the mysterious infant. +Nobody could give a clue to its identity, and it was decided unanimously +that it had been brought from a distance. As to the intentions of the +Lewises regarding its disposition, they were noncommittal. It was +universally accepted as fact, however, that the baby would be sent to +an institution. + +Thereupon Scattergood called upon the First Selectman. + +"What's the town goin' to do about that baby?" he demanded. +"Taxpayers'll be wantin' to know. Seems like the town's liable f'r its +support." + +"Calculate we be.... Calculate we be. I been figgerin' on what steps to +take." + +"Better go across to Jed's and notify 'em," said Scattergood. "They'll +be expectin' you to take action prompt. I'll go 'long with you." + +They walked down the street and rapped at the Lewises' door. + +"Come on official business," said the First Selectman, pompously, to +Jed, "connected with that there foundlin'." + +Martha came hastily into the room. "What you want?" she demanded, in a +dangerous voice. + +"Come to tell you we would take that baby off'n your hands and send it +to a institution. Git it ready, and we'll take it to-morrer." + +"Take that baby!... Did you hear him, Jed Lewis? Did you hear that man +say as how he was goin' to take away my baby?" She stumbled across the +room to Jed and clutched the lapels of his coat. Scattergood noticed +with some pleasure that Jed's arm went automatically about her waist. +"Make 'em git out, Jed. Tell 'em they can't take this baby.... You want +we should keep it, don't you, Jed?... We wanted one. You know how we +wanted one.... You're goin' to let us keep it, hain't you, Jed?" + +Jed put Martha aside gently and walked over to a makeshift crib in the +corner, where the baby was asleep, where he stood for a moment looking +down at it with a curious expression. Then he turned suddenly, strode to +the door, opened it, and pointed. "Git!" he said to the First Selectman +and Scattergood. + +"Jed ... Jed ... darlin'," Martha cried, and as Scattergood passed out +he saw from the corner of his eye that she was sobbing on her husband's +hickory shirt and that he was patting her back with awkward gentleness. + +"Looked a mite like Jed wanted we should go," said Scattergood. + +"I'll have the law on to him. He'll be showed that he can't stand up to +the First Selectman of this here town, I'll--" + +"You'll go home and set down in the shade and cool off," said +Scattergood, merrily, "and while you're a-coolin' you might sort of +thank Gawd that there's sich things as human bein's with human feelin's, +and that there's sich things as babies ...that sometimes gits themselves +left on the right doorstep.... G'-by, Selectman. G'-by." + +A week later Scattergood was passing the Lewis home early in the +evening. In the side yard was a hammock under the trees which had been +unoccupied this year past, but to-night it was occupied again. Martha +was there with the baby against her breast, and Jed was there, his arm +tightly about his wife, and one of the baby's hands lying on his +calloused palm.... As Scattergood watched he saw Jed bend clumsily and +kiss the tiny fingers ... and Martha turned a trifle and smiled up into +her husband's eyes. + +Scattergood passed on, blinking, perhaps because dust had gotten in his +eyes. He stopped at the post office and spoke to Postmaster Pratt. + +"Call to mind my speakin' of soothin' syrup and Jed Lewis and his wife?" +he asked. + +"Seems like I mind it, Scattergood." + +"Jest walk past their house, Postmaster. Calc'late you'll see I figgered +clost to right.... Marthy's a-sittin' there with Jed in the hammick, +and they're a-holdin' on their lap the doggondest best soothin' syrup +f'r man and wife that any doctor c'u'd perscribe.... Calculate it's one +of them nature's remedies.... Go take a look, Postmaster.... G'-by." + + + +CHAPTER X + +HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK + + +Scattergood Baines, as he sat with shirt open at the throat, his huge +body sagged down in the chair that had been especially reinforced to +sustain his weight, seemed to passing Coldriver village to be drowsing. +Many people suspected Scattergood of drowsing when he was exceedingly +wide awake and observant of events. It was part of his stock in trade. + +At this moment he was looking across the square toward the post office. +A large, broad-shouldered young man, with hair sun-bleached to a ruddy +yellow, had alighted from a buggy and entered the office. He was a fine, +bulky, upstanding farmer, built for enduring much hard labor in times of +peace and for performing feats of arms in time of war. He looked like a +fighter; he was a fighter--a willing fighter, and folks up and down the +valley stepped aside if it was noised about that Abner Levens had broken +loose. It was not that Abner delighted in the fruit of the vine nor the +essence of the maize; he was a teetotaler. But it did seem as if nature +had overdone the matter of providing him with the machinery for creating +energy and had overlooked the safety valve. Wherefore Abner, once or +twice a year, lost his temper. + +Now, losing his temper was not for Abner a matter of uttering a couple +of oaths and of wrapping a hoe handle around a tree. He lost his temper +thoroughly and seemed unable to locate it again for days. He rampaged. +He roared up and down the valley, inviting one and all to step up and +be demolished, which the inhabitants were very reluctant to do, for +Abner worked upon his victims with thoroughness and enthusiasm. + +When Abner was in his normal humor he was a jovial, noisily jovial young +man, who would dance with the girls until the cock tired of crowing; who +would give a day's work to a friend; who performed his civic and +religious duties punctiliously, if gayly; who was honest to the fraction +of a penny; and who would have been the most popular and admired youth +in the valley among the maidens of the valley had it not been for their +constant, uneasy fear that he might suddenly turn Berserk. + +It was this young man whom Scattergood eyed thoughtfully, and, one might +say, apprehensively, for Scattergood liked the youth and feared the +germs of disaster that lay quiescent in his powerful body. + +Pliny Pickett lounged past, stopped, eyed Scattergood, and seated +himself on the step. + +"Abner Levens 's in town," he said. + +"Seen him," answered Scattergood. + +"Calc'late Asa'll be in?" + +"Bein' 's it's Sattidy night, 'most likely he'll come." + +"Hope Abner's feelin' friendly, then," said Pliny with an anticipatory +twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction +to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be +wrastlin' all over town and pushin' down houses." + +"They hain't never fit yet," said Scattergood. + +"Nor won't if Asa has the say of it.... He's full as big as Abner, too. +Otherwise they don't resemble twins none." + +"Hain't much brotherly feelin' betwixt 'em." + +"I hain't clear as to the rights of the matter," said Pliny, "but they +hain't nothin' like a will dispute to make bad blood betwixt +relatives.... Asa got the best of _that_ argument, anyhow. Don't seem +fair, exactly, is my opinion, that Old Man Levens should up and +discriminate betwixt them boys like he did--givin' Asa a hog's share." + +"Dunno's I'd worry sich a heap about that," said Scattergood, "if they +hadn't both got het up about the same gal. Looks to me like one or +tother of 'em took up with that gal jest to make mischief.... Seems like +Abner was settin' out with her fust." + +"Some says both ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner +he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to +the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate betwixt them boys." + +"And trouble'll come of it.... Wonder which of 'em Mary Ware favors? If +she favors either of 'em, and trouble comes, it'll mix her in." + +"Hope Abner gits him. Better for her, says I, to take up with a man like +Ab, that's a good feller fifty weeks out of the year, and goes on a tear +two weeks, than to be married to a cuss like Asa that jest goes along +sort of gloomy and _still_ and seekin'. I hain't never heard Asa laugh +with no real enjoyment into it yet. He grins and shows his teeth. He's +too dum quiet, and always acts like a feller that's afraid you'll find +out what he's got in mind." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood. + +"Mary's about the pertiest girl in Coldriver," said Pliny. "Dunno but +what she could handle Abner all right, too. Call to mind the firemen's +picnic last year when she went with Abner, and he busted loose on that +feller with the three shells and the leetle ball?" + +"When the feller had robbed Half-wit Stenens of nigh on to twenty +dollars? I call to mind." + +"Abner was jest on the p'int of separatin' that feller into chunks and +dispersin' the chunks over the county when Mary she steps up and puts +her hand en his arm, and says, 'Abner!' ... Jest like that she said it, +quiet and gentle, but firm. Abner he let loose of the feller and turned +to look at her, and in a minute all the fight went out of his face and +his eyes like somebody had drained it off. He kind of blushed and hung +his head, and walked away with her.... She didn't tongue-lash him, +neither, jest kept a-touchin' his arm so's he wouldn't forgit she was +there." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Here comes Asa." He lifted himself from his +creaking chair and started across the bridge. "If it's a-comin' off," he +said to Pliny, "I want to git where I kin git a good view." + +In the post office the twin brothers came face to face. Scattergood saw +Abner's thin lips twist in a provocative sneer. Abner halted suddenly, +at arm's length from his brother, and eyed him from head to foot, and +Asa returned an insolent stare. + +"You sneakin' hound," said Abner, without heat, as was his way in the +beginning, always. "You're lower'n I thought, and I thought you was +low." Scattergood took in these words and pondered them. Did they mean +some new cause for enmity between the brothers? Suddenly Abner's eyes +began to kindle and to blaze. Asa crouched and his teeth showed in a +saturnine, crooked smile. No man could look upon him and accuse him of +being afraid of Abner or of avoiding the issue. + +"I know what you've been up to, you slinkin' varmint ... I know where +you was Tuesday." Scattergood took possession of this sentence and +placed it in the safety-deposit box of his memory. Where had Asa been +Tuesday, he wondered, and what had Asa been doing there? + +"I've put up with a heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I +hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But +now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's nobody kin put you +together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake." +With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm struck Asa +across the mouth. + +Asa licked his lips and continued to smile his crooked, saturnine smile. + +"Hain't scarcely room in here," he said, softly. + +"Git outside and take off your coat," said Abner, "for I'm goin' to fix +you so's nobody kin ever accuse flesh and blood of mine of doin' agin +what I've ketched you doin'." + +"What's gnawin' you," said Asa, softly, "is that I got the best farm and +that I'm a-goin' to git your girl." + +There was a stark pause. Abner stiffened, grew tense, as one becomes at +the moment of bursting into dynamic action, but he did not stir. +Scattergood was surprised, but he was more surprised by Abner's next +words. "I hain't goin' to half kill you on account of your lyin' to +father, nor on account of her--it's on account of _her_." The sentence +seemed without sense or meaning, but Scattergood placed it with his +other collected sentences; he did not perceive its meaning, but he did +perceive that the first 'her' and the second 'her' were pronounced so +that they became different words, like names, indicating, identifying, +different persons. That was Scattergood's notion. + +Asa turned on his heel and walked into the square, removing his coat as +he went; Abner followed. They faced each other, crouching. Abner's face +depicting wrath, Asa's depicting hatred.... Before a blow was struck, a +girl, tall, slender, deep-bosomed, fit mate for a man of might, pushed +through the circle of spectators. Her face was pale and distressed, but +very lovely. Her brown eyes were dark with the emotion of the moment, +and a wisp of wavy brown hair lay unnoticed upon her broad forehead.... +She walked to Abner's side and touched his arm. + +"Abner!" she said, gently. + +He turned his blazing eyes upon her. "Not this time" he said. "Go away, +Mary." Even in his rage he spoke to her in a voice of reverence. + +"Abner!" she repeated. + +He turned to his brother. "You get off this time," he said, evenly, "but +there will be another time.... Asa, I think I am going to kill you...." + +Asa laughed mockingly, and Abner took a threatening step toward him, but +Mary touched his arm again. "Abner!" she said once more; and obediently +as some well-trained mastiff he followed her through the gaping ring, +she still touching his arm, and together they walked slowly up the road. + +Two days later, about eight o'clock in the morning, Sheriff Ulysses +Watts bustled down the street wearing his official, rather than his +common, or meat-wagon, air. He paused, to speak excitedly to +Scattergood, who sat as usual on the piazza of his hardware store. + +"They've jest found Asa Levens's body," he ejaculated. "A-layin' clost +to the road it was, with a bullet through the head. Clear case of +murder.... I'm gatherin' a posse to fetch in the murderer." + +"Murderer's known, is he?" said Scattergood, leaning forward, and eying +the sheriff. + +"Abner, of course. Who else would 'a' done it? Hain't he been +a-threatenin' right along?" + +"Anybody see him fire the shot, Sheriff? Any witnesses?" + +"Nary witness. Nothin' but the body a-layin' where it fell." + +"What was the manner of this shootin', Sheriff?" + +"All I know's what I've told you." + +"Gatherin' a posse, Ulysses? Who be you selectin'?" + +"Various and sundry," said the sheriff. + +"Any objection to deputizin' me?" said Scattergood. "Any notion I might +help some?" + +"Glad to have you, Scattergood.... Got to hustle. Most likely the +murderer's escapin' this minute." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Need any catridges or anythin' in the +hardware line, Sheriff? Figgerin' on goin' armed, hain't you?" + +"Dunno but what the boys'll need somethin'. You keep open till I gather +'em here." + +"I carry the most reliable line of catridges in the state," said +Scattergood. "Prices low.... I'll be waitin', Sheriff." + +In twenty minutes a dozen citizens of the vicinage gathered at +Scattergood's store, each armed with his favorite weapon, rifle or +double-barreled shotgun, and each wearing what he fancied to be the air +of a dangerous and resolute citizen. + +"Calc'late he'll be desprit," said Jed Lewis. "He won't be took without +a fight." + +It was characteristic of Scattergood that he delayed the setting out of +the posse until, by his peculiar methods of salesmanship, he had pressed +upon various members lethal merchandise to a value of upward of twenty +dollars. This being done, they entered a big picnic wagon with parallel +seats and set out for the scene of the crime. Coroner Bogle demanded +that the body should be viewed officially before the man-hunt should +begin. Scattergood threw the weight of his opinion with the coroner. + +The body was found lying beside a narrow path leading from the road +through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with +arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun +shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and +insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields +themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready +for the harvest. Scattergood looked about him at the trappings of the +day, and the thought came unbidden that it was a pleasant spot in which +to die ... perhaps more pleasant than the dead man deserved. + +"Shot from behind." said the sheriff. + +"By somebody a-layin' in wait," said Jed Lewis. + +"It was murder--cold-blooded murder," said the sheriff. + +Scattergood stepped forward as the coroner turned the face up to the +light of the sun. + +"It was a death by violence," said Scattergood. "It may be murder.... +Asa Levens wears, as he lies, the face of a man who troubled God...." + +There was none in that little group to comprehend his meaning. + +"There was no struggle," said the coroner. + +"He never knowed he was shot," said Jed Lewis. + +"Be you still a-goin' to arrest Abner Levens?" Scattergood asked. + +"To be sure. He done it, didn't he? Who else would 'a' killed Asa?" + +"Who else?" said Scattergood, solemnly. + +They raised Asa Levens and carried him to his house. Having left him in +proper custody, the posse re-entered its picnic van and drove with no +small trepidation toward Abner Levens's farm, a mile away. Abner Levens +was perceived from a distance, hoeing in a field. + +"He's goin' to face it out," said the sheriff; "or maybe he wasn't +expectin' Asa to be found yet." + +The picnic van stopped beside the field and the armed posse scrambled +out, holding its weapons threateningly; but as Abner was armed with +nothing more lethal than a hoe there was some appearance of +embarrassment among them, and more than one man endeavored to make his +shooting iron invisible by dropping it in the long grass. + +"Come on," said the sheriff, and in a body the posse advanced across the +field toward Abner, who leaned upon his hoe and waited for them. "Abner +Levens," said the sheriff, in a voice which was not of the steadiest, "I +arrest you for murder." + +Abner looked at the sheriff; Abner looked from one to another of the +posse in silence. It seemed as if he were not going to speak, but at +last he did speak. + +"Then Asa Levens is dead," he said. + +It was not a question; it was a statement, made with conviction. +Scattergood Baines noted that Abner called his brother by name as if +desiring to avoid the matter of blood kindred; that he made no denial. + +"You know it better than anybody," said the sheriff. + +Abner looked past the sheriff, over the uneven fields, with their rock +fences, and beyond to the green slopes of the mountains as they upreared +distinct, majestic, imposing in their serene permanence against the +undimmed summer sky. + +"Asa Levens is dead," said Abner, presently. "Now I know that God is not +infinite in everything.... His patience is not infinite." + +"It's my duty to warn you that anythin' you say kin be used ag'in' you," +said the sheriff. "Be you comin' along peaceable?" + +"I'm comin' peaceable," said Abner. "If God's satisfied--I be." + +Abner Levens was locked in the unreliable jail of Coldriver village, and +a watch placed over him. Those who saw him marveled at his demeanor; +Scattergood Baines marveled at it, for it was not the demeanor of a +man--even of an innocent man--accused of a crime for which the penalty +was death. Abner sat upon the hard bench and looked quietly, even +placidly, out at the brightness of day, as it was apparent beyond flimsy +iron bars, and his expression was the expression of _contentment_. + +He had not demanded the benefit of legal guidance; he had neither +affirmed nor denied his guilt; indeed, he had uttered no word since the +door of the jail had closed behind him. + +Mary Ware spoke to the young man through the window of the jail in full +view of all Coldriver. + +"You didn't do it, Abner. I know you didn't do it," she said, so that +all might hear, "and if you still want me, Abner, like you said, I'll +stick by you through thick and thin." + +"Thank ye, Mary," Abner replied. "Now I guess you better go away." + +"What shall I do, Abner--to help you?" + +"Nothing Mary. Looks like God's took aholt of matters. Better let him +finish 'em in his own way." + +That was all; neither Mary Ware nor any other could get more out of him, +and it was said by many to be a confession of guilt. + +"Realizes there hain't no use makin' a defense. Calc'lates on takin' his +medicine like a man," said Postmaster Pratt.... There were those in town +who voiced the wish that it had been some other than Abner who had +killed Asa Levens. "His gun's been shot recent," said the sheriff. It +was the final gram of evidence necessary to complete assurance of +Abner's guilt. + +Mary Ware was observed by many to walk directly from the jail window to +Scattergood Baines's hardware store, and there to stop and address +Scattergood, who sat barefooted, and therefore in deep thought, before +the door of his place of business. + +"Mr. Baines," said Mary, "you've helped other folks. Will you help me?" + +"Help you how, Mary? What kin I do for you?" + +"Abner isn't guilty, Mr. Baines" + +"Tell you so?... Abner tell you so?" + +"No." + +"Um!... 'F he was innocent, wouldn't he deny it, Mary?" He did not +permit her to reply, but asked another question. "What makes you say he +hain't guilty, Mary?" + +"Because I know it," she replied, simply. + +"How do you know it, Mary? It's mighty hard to _know_ anythin' on earth. +How d'you _know_?" + +"Because I know," said Mary. + +"'Twon't convince no jury." + +Mary stood in silence for a moment, and then turned away, not tearful, +not despairing. + +"Hold your hosses," said Scattergood. "Kin you think of anythin' that +might convince a _stranger_ that Abner is innocent?" + +Mary considered. "Asa was shot," she said. + +Scattergood nodded. + +"From behind," said Mary. + +Scattergood nodded again. + +"Asa never knew who shot him," said Mary, and again Scattergood moved +his head. "If Abner had killed Asa," she went on, "he would have done it +with his hands. He would have wanted Asa to know who was killing him." + +"Might convince them that knows Abner," said Scattergood, "but the +jury'll be strangers." He paused, and asked, suddenly, "Why did you let +Asa Levens come to court you?" + +"Because I hated him," said Mary. + +"Um!... Abner say anythin' to you?" + +"He said God had taken hold of matters and we'd better let him finish +them." + +"When God takes holt of human affairs he mostly uses human bein's to do +the rough work," said Scattergood. + +"Abner's innocent," said Mary, stubbornly. + +"Mebby so.... Mebby so." + +"Will you help me clear him, Mr. Baines?" + +"I'll help you find out the truth, Mary, if that'll keep you +satisfied. Calculate I'd like to know the truth myself. Had a look at +Asa's face a-layin' there by the road, and it interested me." + +"Did you see that?" Mary asked, with sudden excitement. + +"What?" asked Scattergood, curiously. + +"The mark.... Sometimes it showed plain. It was a mark put on Asa +Levens's face as a warning to folks that God mistrusted him." + +"When he was dead it was different," said Scattergood, with solemnity. +"It said he had r'iled God past endurance." + +Mary nodded. She comprehended. "The truth will do," she said, +confidently. + +"Did Abner mention last Tuesday to you?" Scattergood asked. + +"No." + +"Where was Asa Levens last Tuesday? Do you know, Mary?" + +"No." + +"Why did Abner say to Asa yesterday, 'It's not on account of her, it's +on account of _her_'?" + +"I don't know." + +"G'-by, Mary. G'-by." It was so Scattergood always ended a conversation, +abruptly, but as one became accustomed to it it was neither abrupt nor +discourteous. + +"Thank you," said Mary, and she went away obediently. + +As the afternoon was stretching toward evening, Scattergood sauntered +into Sheriff Ulysses Watts's barn. + +"Who's feedin' and waterin' Asa Levens's stock?" he asked. + +"Dummed if I didn't clean forgit 'em," confessed the sheriff. + +"Any objection if I look after 'em, Sheriff? Any logical objection? Hoss +might need exercisin'. Can't never tell. Want I should drive up and do +what's needed to be done?" + +"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts. + +Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the +stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare. +He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap," +he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out +of the gate and turned toward town. Scattergood let the reins lie, +attempting no guidance. At the next four corners the mare hesitated, +slowed, and, feeling no direction from her driver, turned to the left. +Scattergood nodded his head. + +The mare trotted on, following the slowly lifting mountain road for a +matter of two miles, and then turned again down a highway that was +little more than a tote road. Half a mile later she stopped with her +nose against the fence of a shabby farmhouse, and sagged down, as is the +custom of horses when they realize they are at their destination and +have a rest of duration before them. Scattergood alighted and fastened +her to the fence. + +As he swung open the gate a middle-aged man appeared in the door of the +house, and over his shoulder Scattergood could see the white face of a +woman--staring. + +"Evening Jed," said Scattergood. "Evening Mis' Briggs." + +"Howdy, Mr. Baines? Wa'n't expectin' to see _you_. What fetches you this +fur off'n the road?" + +"Sort of got here by accident, you might say. Didn't come of my own free +will, seems as though. Kind of tired, Jed. Mind if I set a spell?... +How's the cannin', Mis' Briggs?" + +"Done up thutty quarts to-day, Mr. Baines," said the young woman, who +was Jed Briggs's wife, a woman fifteen years his junior, comely, +desirable, vivid. + +"Um!... Got a hoss out here. Want you should both come and look her +over." He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and +his wife to the fence. + +"Likely mare," said Scattergood, blandly. + +Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman +laughs in great fear. + +"Gawd!" said Jed Briggs, "it's--" + +"Yes," said Scattergood, gently. "It's Asa Levens's mare. Was she here +last Tuesday?" + +"She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines," said Jed Briggs. "What's the +meanin' of this?" + +"I knowed she was somewheres Tuesday," Scattergood said, impersonally. +"Didn't know where, but I mistrusted she'd been to that place frequent. +Jest got in and give her her head. She brought me.... Asa Levens is +dead." + +"Dead!" said Jed Briggs in a hushed voice. + +"He deserved to die.... He deserved to die.... He deserved to die ..." +the young woman repeated shrilly, hysterically. + +"Was you in town to lodge Tuesday night, Jed?" + +"Yes." + +"Asa come every lodge night, Mis' Briggs?" + +"He always came--when Jed was here and when Jed was away.... When Jed +was here he'd jest set eyin' me and eyin' me ... and when Jed was gone +he--he talked...." + +"Asa owned the mortgage on the place," said Jed, as if that explained +something. Scattergood nodded comprehension. + +"Keep up your int'rest, Jed?" + +"Year behind. Asa was threatenin' foreclosure." + +"Threatened to throw us offn the place ... ag'in and ag'in he +threatened--and we'd 'a' starved, 'cause Jed hain't strong. It's me does +most of the work.... What we got into this place is all we got on +earth ... and he threatened to take it." + +"He come Tuesday night," said Scattergood, as a prompter speaks. + +"Hush, Lindy," said Jed. + +"I calculate you'd best both of you talk," said Scattergood. "You'd +better tell me, Jed, jest why you shot Asa Levens." + +Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs +stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes. + +"It'll be best for you to tell. I'm standin' your friend, Jed +Briggs.... Better tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here +Tuesday night...." + +"He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too, +laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come +home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly, +pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home, +and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I +coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me--and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause +he wa'n't fit to live." + +Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But +what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What +about Abner?" + +"Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday +when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his +hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and +then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he +was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one +of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin...." + +Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed. +That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix +up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and +there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin' +God's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you +punished f'r it...." + +Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest +over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy, +his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of +their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken. +The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words: + +"We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of God, and that there +are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter." + +And so it stands in the imperishable records of the township; legal +authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his +rougher sort of work. + +"I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and +unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself." + +Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by +accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated God meant to destroy +us Levenses, root and branch.... It was his business, not mine." + +"I've took note," said Scattergood, "that them that was most strict +about mindin' their own business was gen'ally most diligent about doin' +God's--all unbeknownst to themselves." + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HE INVESTS IN SALVATION + + +From Scattergood Baines's seat on the piazza of his hardware store he +could look across the river and through a side window of the bank. +Scattergood was availing himself of this privilege. As a member of the +finance committee of the bank Scattergood was naturally interested in +that enterprise, so important to the thrifty community, but his interest +at the moment was not exactly official. He was regarding, speculatively, +the back of young Ovid Nixon, the assistant cashier. + +His concern for young Ovid was sartorial. It is true that a shiny alpaca +office coat covered the excellent shoulders of the boy, but below that +alpaca and under Scattergood's line of vision were trousers--and +carefully stretched over a hanger on a closet hook was a coat! There was +also a waistcoat, recognized only by the name of _vest_ in Coldriver, +and that very morning Scattergood had seen the three, to say nothing of +a certain shirt and a necktie of sorts, making brave young Ovid's +figure. + +Ovid passed Scattergood's store on the way to his work. Baines had +regarded him with interest. + +"Mornin', Ovid" he said. + +"Morning, Mr. Baines." + +"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?" + +Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head. + +"Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said +Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?" + +"Got 'em in the city," said Ovid. + +"I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured +special fer you?" + +"Best tailor there was," said Ovid. + +"Must 'a' come to quite a figger, includin' the shirt and necktie." + +"Forty dollars for the suit," Ovid said, proudly, "and it busted a +five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie." + +Scattergood waggled his head admiringly. "Must be a satisfaction," he +said, "to be able to afford sich clothes." + +Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood's voice was so interested, +so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed. + +"How's your ma?" Scattergood asked. + +"Pert," answered Ovid. "Ma's spry. Barrin' a siege of neuralgy in the +face off and on, ma hain't complainin' of nothin'." + +"Has she took to patronizin' a city tailor, too?" Scattergood asked. + +"Mostly," said Ovid, "ma makes her own." + +Scattergood nodded. + +"Still does sewin' for other folks?" + +"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it passes the time." + +"Passes consid'able of it, don't it? Passes the time right up till she +gits into bed?" + +"Ma's industrious." + +"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to +Coldriver; credit to the bank." + +Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them. + +"Been spendin' Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, +hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around." + +"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently. + +"Girl?" said Scattergood--one might have noticed that it was hopefully. + +"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse +ourselves Sundays." + +"Um!... G'-by, Ovid." + +"Good-by, Mr. Baines." + +Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and +visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one +personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had +been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to +be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be +devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor +organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This denouement +had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those +who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you +could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and +hear all the organ music a body needed to hear. + +So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, +setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars +a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly +trips down the line on the "three-o'clock." + +Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver. +Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial +concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the +bank after Ovid's graduation from high school--and had watched him, with +some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position +which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a +young man to hold. To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings +Bank was to have achieved both social and business success. + +Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated +on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had +attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer. But latterly he had done a +deal of thinking. In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon +to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in +the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more +engrossed by himself and by interests "down the line." + +It was Scattergood's opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was +suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its +run ... if no serious complication set in. Scattergood was watching for +symptoms of the complication. + +Three weeks later Ovid took the "three-o'clock" down the line of a +Saturday afternoon and failed to return Sunday night. Indeed, he did not +appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him. Mrs. Nixon +could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of +a spell of neuralgia, was distracted. + +Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, +recalling in time that he was seated in a lady's parlor, restrained his +impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his +thoughts by wriggling his toes. + +"Likely," he said, "it's nothin' serious. Then, ag'in, you can't +tell.... You do two things, Mis' Nixon: go out to the farm and stay with +my wife--Mandy'll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet." + +"You'll find him, Mr. Baines?... You'll fetch him back to me?" + +"If I figger he's wuth it," said Scattergood. + +He went from Mrs. Nixon's to the bank, where the finance committee were +gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid's +disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable assets of +the institution. There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, +Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne--Scattergood made up the full committee. + +"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its +protest at the burden. + +"What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin' +suspicious?" + +"Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some +acidity. + +"You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood. + +"Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it--not yit. +Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the +cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault +an overhaulin'." + +Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of +the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be +discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by +an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a +caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his +progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination +that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he +had looted clumsily--and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose +the vault for his peculiar task. + +It is a comparatively easy task to count the cash reserve in the vault +of so small a bank. Even a matter of thirty-odd thousand dollars can be +checked by one man alone in half an hour, for the small silver is packed +away in rolls, each roll containing a stated sum; the larger silver is +bagged, each bag bearing a label stating the amount of its contents, and +the currency is wrapped in packages containing even sums.... +Scattergood went to work. He went over the cash carefully, and totaled +the sums he set down on a bit of paper.... He found the amount to be +inadequate by exactly three thousand dollars. + +"Huh!" said Scattergood to himself. "Ovid hain't no hawg." + +One might have thought the young man had dropped in Scattergood's +estimation. It would have been as easy to make away with twenty thousand +dollars as with three thousand, and the penalty would not have been +greater. + +"Kind of a childish sum," said Scattergood to himself. "'Tain't wuth +bustin' up a life over--not three thousand.... Calc'late Ovid hain't +_bad_--not at a figger of three thousand. Jest a dum fool--him and his +tailor-made clothes...." + +In the silence of the vault Scattergood removed his shoes and sat on a +pile of bagged silver. His pudgy toes worked busily while he reflected +upon the sum of three thousand dollars and what the theft of that amount +might indicate. "Looked big to Ovid," he said to himself. Then, "Jest a +dum young eediot...." + +He replaced the cash and, carrying his shoes in his hand, left the vault +and closed it behind him. His four fellow committeemen were sweating +over the books, but all looked up anxiously as Scattergood appeared. He +stood looking at them an instant, as if in doubt. + +"What d'you find?" asked Atwell. + +"She checks," said Scattergood. + +The four drew a breath of relief. Scattergood wished that he might have +joined them in the breath, but there was no relief for him. He had +joined his fortunes to those of Ovid Nixon--and to those of Ovid's +mother; had become _particeps criminis_, and the requirements of the +situation rested heavily upon him. + +It was past midnight before the laborious four finished their review of +the books and joined with Scattergood in giving Ovid a clean bill of +health. + +"Didn't think Ovid had it in him to steal," said Kettleman. + +"Hain't got no business stirrin' us up like this for nothin'," said +Atwell, acrimoniously. + +"Maybe," suggested Scattergood, "Ovid's come down with a fit of +suthin'." + +"Hope it's painful," said Lafe, "I'm a-goin' home to bed." + +"What'll we do?" asked Deacon Pettybone. + +"Nothin'," said Scattergood, "till some doin' is called fur. Calc'late I +better slip on my shoes. Might meet my wife." Mandy Scattergood was +doing her able best to break Scattergood of his shoeless ways. + +"Guess we'll let Ovid git through when he comes back," said Deacon +Pettybone, harshly, making use of the mountain term to denote discharge. +There no one is ever discharged, no one ever resigns. The single phrase +covers both actions--the individual "gets through." + +"I always figgered," said Scattergood, urbanely, "that it was allus +premature to git ahead of time.... I'm calc'latin' on runnin' down to +see what kind of a fit of ailment Ovid's come down with." + +Next morning, having in the meantime industriously allowed the rumor to +go abroad that Ovid was suddenly ill, Scattergood took the seven-o'clock +for points south. He did not know where he was going, but expected to +pick up information on that question en route. His method of reaching +for it was to take a seat on a trunk in the baggage car. + +The railroad, Scattergood's individual property and his greatest step +forward in his dream for the development of the Coldriver Valley, was +but a year old now. It was twenty-four miles long, but he regarded it +with an affection only second to his love for his hardware store--and +he dealt with it as an indulgent parent.... Pliny Pickett once stage +driver, was now conductor, and wore with ostentation a uniform suitable +to the dignity, speaking of "my railroad" largely. + +"Hear Ovid Nixon's sick down to town" said Pliny. + +"Sich a rumor's come to me." + +"Likely at the Mountain House?" ventured Pliny. + +"Shouldn't be s'prised." + +"That's where he mostly stopped," said Pliny. + +"Um!... Wonder what ailment Ovid was most open to git?" + +Scattergood and Pliny talked politics for the rest of the journey, and, +as usual, Pliny received directions to "talk up" certain matters to his +passengers. Pliny was one of Scattergood's main channels to public +opinion. At the junction Scattergood changed for the short ride to town, +and there he carried his ancient valise up to the Mountain House, where +he registered. + +"Young feller named Nixon--Ovid Nixon--stoppin' here?" he asked the +clerk. + +"Checked out Monday night." + +"Um!... Monday night, eh? Expect him back? I was calc'latin' on meetin' +him here to-day." + +"He usually gets in Saturday night.... You might ask Mr. Pillows, over +there by the cigar case. He and Nixon hang out together." + +Scattergood scrutinized Mr. Pillows and did not like the appearance of +that young man; not that he looked especially vicious, but there was a +sort of useless, lazy, sponging look to him. Baines set him down as the +sort of young man who would play Kelly pool with money his mother earned +by doing laundry, and, in addition, catalogued him as a "saphead." He +acted accordingly. + +Walking lightly across the lobby, he stopped just behind Pillows, and +then said, with startling sharpness, "Where's Ovid Nixon?" + +The agility with which Mr. Pillows leaped into the air and descended, +facing Scattergood, did some little to raise him in the estimation of +Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One +might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and +was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to +snatch at him. Scattergood grinned. + +"Figgered he'd be a mite skittish," he said to the girl behind the cigar +counter. + +"I _thought_ something sneaking was going on," said the young woman, as +if to herself. + +Scattergood gave her his attention. She had red hair, and his respect +for red hair was a notable characteristic. There was a freckle or two on +her nose, her eyes were steady, and her mouth was firm--but she was +pretty. Scattergood continued to regard her in silence, and she, not +disconcerted, studied him. + +"You and me is goin' to eat dinner together this noon," he said, +presently. + +"Business or pleasure?" Her rejoinder was tart. + +"Why?" + +"If it's business, we eat. If it's pleasure, you've stopped at the wrong +cigar counter." + +"I knowed I was goin' to take to you," said Scattergood. "You got +capable hair.... This here was to be business." + +"Twelve o'clock sharp, then," she said. + +He looked at the clock. It lacked half an hour of noon. + +"G'-by," he said, and went to a distant corner, where he seated himself +and stared out of the window, trying to imagine what he would do if he +were Ovid Nixon, and what would make him appropriate three thousand +dollars.... At twelve o'clock he lumbered over to the cigar case. "C'm +on," he said. "Hain't got no time to waste." + +The girl put on her hat and they walked out together. + +"What's your name?" Scattergood asked. + +"Pansy O'Toole.... You're Scattergood Baines--that's why I'm here.... I +don't eat with every man that oozes out of the woods." + +Scattergood said nothing. It was a fixed principle of his to let other +folks do the talking if they would. If not he talked himself--deviously. +Seldom did he ask a direct question regarding any matter of importance, +and so strong was habit that it was rare for him to put any query +directly. If he wanted to know what time it was he would lead up to the +subject by mentioning sun dials, or calendars, or lunar eclipses, and so +approach circuitously and by degrees, until his victim was led to +exhibit his watch. Pansy did not talk. + +"See lots of folks, standin' back of that counter like you do?" he +began. + +"Lots." + +"Um!... From lots of towns?... From Boston?" + +"Yes." + +"From Tupper Falls?" + +"Some." + +"From Coldriver?" + +"If you want to know if I know Ovid Nixon, why don't you ask right out?" + +Scattergood looked at her admiringly. + +"I know him," she said. + +"Like him?" + +"He's a nice boy." Scattergood liked the way she said "nice." It +conveyed a fine shade of meaning, and he thought more of Ovid in +consequence. "But he's awful young--and green." + +"Calc'late he is--calc'late he is." + +"He needs somebody to look after him," she said, sharply. + +"Thinkin' of undertakin' the work?... Favor undertakin' it?" + +She looked at him a moment speculatively. "I might do worse. He'd be +decent and kind--and I've got brains. I could make something of him...." + +"Um!... Ovid's up and made somethin' of himself." + +"What?" She spoke quickly, sharply. + +"A thief." + +Scattergood glanced sidewise to study the effect of this curt +announcement, but her face was expressionless, rather too +expressionless. + +"That's why you're looking for him?" + +"Yes." + +"To put him in jail?" + +"What would _you_ calc'late on doin' if you was me?" + +"Before I did anything," she said, slowly, "I'd make up my mind if he +was a thief, or if he just happened to take whatever it was he has +taken.... I'd be sure he was _bad_. If I made up my mind he'd just been +green and a fool--well, I'd see to it he never was that kind of a fool +again.... But not by jailing him." + +"Um!... Three thousand's a lot of money." + +"Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar +counter--and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon _could_ be is worth more than +that." + +"Mebby so.... Mebby so. But if I was investin' in Ovid, I'd want some +sort of a guarantee with him. Would you be willin' to furnish the +guarantee? And see it was kept good?" + +"If you mean what I think you do--yes," she said, steadily. "I'd marry +Ovid to-morrow." + +"Him bein' a thief?" + +"Girls that sell cigars aren't so select," she said, a trifle bitterly. + +"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that +was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and +married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've +kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein' +crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any +other woman you ever see. I call to mind a number.... Ovid some attached +to you, is he?" + +"He's never made love to me, if that's what you mean." + +"Think you could land him--for his good and yourn?" + +"I--why, I think I could," she said. + +"Is it a bargain?" + +"What?" + +"For, and in consideration of one dollar to you in hand paid, and the +further consideration of you undertakin' to keep an eye on him till +death do you part, I agree to keep him out of jail--and without nobody +knowin' he was ever anythin' but honest--and a dum fool." + +She held out her hand and Scattergood took it. + +"What's got Ovid into this here mess?" + +"Bucket shop," she said. + +"Um!... They been lettin' him make a mite of money--up to now, eh? So he +calc'lated on gittin' rich at one wallop. Kind of led him along, I +calc'late, till they got him to swaller hook, line, and sinker ... and +then they up and jerked him floppin' on to the bank.... Who owns this +here bucket shop?" + +"Tim Peaney." + +"Perty slick, is he?" + +"Slick enough to take care of Ovid and sheep like him--but I can't help +thinking he's a sheep himself." + +"He got Ovid's three thousand, or Ovid 'u'd 'a' come back Sunday +night.... Got to find Ovid--and got to git that money back." + +"I've an idea Ovid's right in town. If you're suspicious, and keep your +eyes open, you can tell when something's going on. That Pillows man you +scared knows, and Peaney acts like the man of mystery in one of the kind +of plays we get around here. It's breaking out all over them.... I'll +bet they've fleeced Ovid, and now they're hiding him--to save themselves +more than him." + +"And Ovid's the kind that would let himself be hid," said Scattergood. +"Do you and me work together on this job?" + +"If I can help--" + +"You bet you kin.... We'll jest let Ovid lie hid while we kind of +maneuver around Peaney some--commencin' right soon. Peaney ever aspire +to take you to dinner?" + +"Yes," she said, shortly. + +"Git organized to go with him to-night...." + + * * * * * + +It was in the neighborhood of five o'clock when Mr. Peaney came into the +Mountain House and stopped at the cigar counter for cigarettes. + +"Any more friendly to-day, sister?" he asked. + +Pansy smiled and leaned across the case. "The trouble with you," she +said, in a low tone, "is that you're a piker." + +"Piker--me?" + +"Always after small change." + +"Just show me some real money once," he said, flamboyantly. + +"It would scare you," she said. + +"Show me some--you'd see how it would scare me." + +"I wonder," she said, musingly, "if you have the nerve?" + +"For what?" he said, with quickened interest. + +"To go after a wad that I know of?" + +"Say," he said, his eyes narrowing, his face assuming a look of cupidity +and cunning, "do you know something? If you do, come on out where we can +eat and talk. If there's anything in it I'll split with you." + +"I know you will," she said, promptly. "Fifty-fifty.... In an hour, at +Case's restaurant." + +At the hour set Pansy and Mr. Peaney found a corner table in the little +restaurant, and when they had ordered Peaney asked, "Well, what you got +on your mind?" + +"A big farmer from the backwoods--with a trunkful of money. Don't know +how he got it. Must have sold the family wood lot, but he's got it with +him ... and he came down to invest it." + +"No." + +"Honest Injun." + +"How much?" + +"From what he said it's more than ten thousand dollars." + +"Lead me to him." + +"He'll need some playing with--thinks he's sharp.... But I've been +talking to him. Guess he took a liking to me. Wanted to take me to +dinner--and he did." + +"Say!" exclaimed Mr. Peaney, in admiration, "I had you sized all wrong." + +"It'll take nerve," Pansy said. + +"It's what I've got most of." + +"He's no Ovid Nixon." + +"Eh?... What d'you know about Ovid Nixon?" + +"I know he was too green to burn and that you and he were together a +lot.... Isn't that enough?" + +He smiled complacently, seeing a compliment. "He was easy--but he got to +be a nuisance." + +"Making trouble?" + +"No.... Scared." + +"I _see_," she nodded, wisely. "Lost more than he had, was that it? And +then helped himself to what he didn't have?" + +"I'm not supposed to know where it came from. None of my business." + +"Of course not"--her tone was rank flattery. "Wants you to take care of +him. Threatens to squeal. I know.... So you've got to hide him out." + +"You are a wise one. Where'd you get it?" + +"I didn't always sell cigars for a living.... He isn't apt to break +loose and spoil this thing, is he?" + +"Too scared to show his face.... If we can pull this across he can show +it whenever he wants to--I'll be gone." + +So Ovid Nixon was here--in town. It was as she had reasoned. If here, he +was somewhere in the building Mr. Peaney occupied as a bucket shop. + +"It's understood we divide--if I introduce my farmer to you--and show +you how to get it." + +"You bet, sister." + +"Have you any money? Nothing makes people so confident and trustful as +the sight of money?" + +"I've got it," he said, complacently. + +"Then you come to the hotel this evening.... Just do as I say. I'll +manage it. In a couple of days--if you have the nerve and do exactly +what I say--you can forget Ovid Nixon and take a long journey." + +Two hours later, when Peaney entered the lobby of the Mountain House, he +saw a very fat, uncouthly dressed backwoodsman talking to Pansy. She +signaled him and he walked over nonchalantly. + +"Mr. Baines," said Pansy, "here's the gentleman I was speaking about. He +can advise you. He's a broker, and everybody trusts him." She lowered +her voice. "He's very rich, himself. Made it in stocks. I guess he +knows what's going on right in Mr. Rockefeller's private office.... You +couldn't do better than to talk business with him.... Mr. Peaney, Mr. +Baines." + +"Very glad to meet you, sir," said Peaney, in his grandest manner. + +"Much obleeged, and the same to you," said Scattergood, beaming his +admiration. "Hear tell you're one of them stock brokers." + +"Yes, sir. That's my business." + +"Guess you and me had better talk some. I'm a-lookin' for somebody to +gimme advice about investin'. I got a sight of money to invest +some'eres--a sight of it. Railroad stocks, or suthin'. Calc'late on +makin' myself well off." + +"I'm not taking any new clients, Mr. Baines. I'm very busy indeed." He +glanced at Pansy. "But if you are a friend of Miss O'Toole's possibly I +can break my rule.... About how much do you wish to invest?" + +"Oh, say fifteen to twenty thousand. Figger on doublin' it up, or mebby +better 'n that. Folks does it. I've read about 'em." + +"To be sure they do--if they are properly advised. But one has to know +the stock market--like a book." + +"And Mr. Peaney knows it like a book," said Pansy. + +Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents--men in the offices of great +corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock +manipulation is coming off--and my clients profit by it." + +"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?" + +Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice. +"My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities +Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the +stock up five points." + +"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?" + +"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock +went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand +dollars besides." + +"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no +fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I +don't know this here girl very well--though I kinder took to her at the +first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is +to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust.... +Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree. +Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, +then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger +I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars." + +"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney. +"Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, +to-morrow--say for a thousand dollars?... If you--come out right, then +you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real +information you can jump right in and make a fortune." + +"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand--charge it up +to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars +jest by settin' down and takin' it." + +"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney. + +"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt. + +"Why, you'd _see_ it," said Pansy, with another grimace at Peaney. "You +put your thousand dollars on the counter, and Mr. Peaney puts five +thousand right beside it. You see it all the time. If you come out +right, you just pick up the money and walk off." + +"No!... _Say_! That's slick, hain't it? Wisht you'd come along when we +try, Miss O'Toole. Somehow I'd feel easier in my mind if you was +along.... See you early in the mornin'.... Got to git to bed, now. +Always aim to be in bed by nine.... G' night." + +"Say," expostulated Mr. Peaney, "do you expect me to hand over five +thousand to that hick? He might walk off with it." + +"He might walk off with the hotel.... I told you you hadn't any +nerve.... Why, give that fat man a taste of easy money and you couldn't +drive him away. Let him sleep all night with five thousand dollars that +came as easy as that, and you couldn't drive him away from your office +with a gun.... Besides, I'm here to take care of him ...or are you a +quitter?" + +"Twenty thousand dollars," Mr. Peaney said to himself. "Then I'll show +you how good my nerve is. Bring on your fat man...." + +Scattergood was up at his accustomed early hour, and before breakfast +had examined Mr. Peaney's premises from front and rear. The bucket shop +was in a small wooden building. The ground floor consisted of a large +office where was visible the big blackboard upon which stock quotations +were posted, and of a back room whose interior was invisible from the +street. A corner of the main office had been partitioned off as a +private retreat for Mr. Peaney. What was upstairs Scattergood could not +tell with accuracy, but he judged it to be a single room or perhaps two +small rooms.... It was here, he felt certain, Ovid was secreting +himself, and, with a certain grimness, he hoped the young man was not +happy in his surroundings. + +"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that Ovid, bein' shet up with his +own figgerin's and imaginin's, hain't in no jubilant frame of mind.... +Meanest punishment you kin give a feller is to lock him in for a spell +with himself, callin' himself names...." When the office opened, +Scattergood and Pansy were at the door, where Mr. Peaney welcomed them, +not without a certain uneasiness at the prospect of intrusting his money +to Scattergood. + +"Let's git started right off," Scattergood said. "I'd like to tell it to +the folks how I gained five thousand dollars in one mornin'--jest doin' +nothin' but settin'." + +"Very well," said Mr. Peaney. "You buy a thousand shares of +International Utilities on a one-point margin.... Sign this order slip." + +"And you set out five thousand dollars right where I kinn see it," said +Scattergood, with anxious fatuity. + +"Certainly.... Certainly." + +Mr. Peaney deposited on his desk a bundle of currency which Scattergood +counted meticulously, and then laid his own thousand beside it. + +"It's as good as yours, right now," said Pansy. + +"We'll stay right here in my private room," said Peaney. "We can watch +the board from here, and nobody will disturb us." + +"I'd kinder like to have folks see me makin' all this money," complained +Scattergood, but he acquiesced, and presently quotations commenced to be +posted on the board. International Utilities opened at seventy-six. +Presently they advanced half a point, lingered, and returned to their +original position. + +"Kind of slow, hain't it?" Scattergood said, a worried look beginning to +appear on his face. "Maybe them folks hain't goin' to do what you said." + +Mr. Peaney went out into the back room, and presently the ticker began +to click furiously. International Utilities leaped a whole point. In ten +minutes they ascended a half point, and at every advance Scattergood +figured his profit, and hesitated as to whether or not it would be best +to close the transaction then and there, but Pansy cajoled him +skillfully, making evident to Mr. Peaney the power of her influence over +the old fellow. + +Scattergood was the picture of the fatuous countryman. He was childlike +in his ignorance and in his delight. He exclaimed, he slapped his thigh, +he laughed aloud at each advance. "It's a-comin'. Next time she h'ists, +the money's mine.... And 'tain't been two hours. What'll the folks say +to that, eh? Me doin' nothin' but settin' here and makin' five thousand +dollars in two hours.... Nothin' short of a million's goin' to satisfy +me--and when I get that million, Mr. Peaney, I'm a-goin' to show you how +much obleeged I be. I'm a-goin' to git you a whole box of them cigars. +Pansy knows which ones. They come at a nickel apiece...." + +Then ...then International Utilities touched eighty-one. Scattergood +slapped Peaney on the back. He laughed. He acted like a boy with a new +jackknife. + +"It's all mine now, hain't it? Mine? Fair and square? It's my +money--every penny of it?" + +"It's yours, Mr. Baines. And I congratulate you. I myself have made a +matter of fifty thousand dollars." + +"Wisht I'd put up every cent I got.... But there'll be other chances, +won't they? I kin git in ag'in?" + +"Of course. To-morrow. Possibly this afternoon." + +"And I kin take this now?" Scattergood had his hands on the six thousand +dollars; was handling it greedily. + +"It's yours," said Mr. Peaney. + +"Calc'lated it was," said Scattergood. "Calc'lated it was.... Now +where's Ovid?" + +Mr. Peaney stared. Something had happened suddenly to this countryman. +He was no longer fatuous, futile. His face was no longer foolish and +good-natured; it was; granite--it was the face of a man with force, and +the skill to use that force. + +"Where's Ovid?" he demanded again. + +"Ovid ... Ovid who? I don't know any Ovid." + +He became suddenly alarmed and blocked the way to the door. +Scattergood's eyes twinkled. "If I was you I wouldn't git in the way to +any extent. Feelin' the way I do I sh'u'dn't be s'prised if I got a +certain amount of satisfaction out of tramplin' over you." + +"Hey, you put that money back ..." + +"Mine, hain't it? Gained it lawful, didn't I?" + +He walked slowly toward the door, and Mr. Peaney, still barring the way, +found himself sitting suddenly in an adjacent corner. Scattergood walked +calmly past and made for the back room. + +"Stop him!" shouted Mr. Peaney. "Don't let him go in there." + +But Scattergood proceeded methodically, leaving no less than three of +Mr. Peaney's employees in recumbent postures along his line of march.... +Pansy followed him closely, pale, but resolute. He ascended the stairs, +and, finding the door at the top fastened from within, he removed it +bodily by the application of a calk-studded boot.... Ovid Nixon was +disclosed cowering against the wall, pale, terrified. + +"Howdy, Ovid?" said Scattergood, as if he had met the young man casually +on the street. "How d'you find yourself?" + +Ovid remained mute. + +"Fetched a friend to see you, Ovid," said Scattergood. "This is her." He +pushed Pansy forward. "Find her better comp'ny than you been havin' +recent," he said. "She's got suthin' fer you.... When she gits through +visitin' with you, I calculate to have a word to say.... Here, Pansy, +you kin give this here to Ovid." He counted off three thousand dollars +before the young man's staring eyes. + +"I--I'm glad I'm found," Ovid said, tremulously. "I was making up my +mind to give myself up...." + +"What fer?" said Scattergood. + +"You know--you know I took three thousand dollars out of the vault." + +"Vault don't show nothin' short," said Scattergood, waggling his head. +"Counted it myself. Did look for a minute like they was three thousand +short, but I kind of put that amount in, and then counted ag'in, and, +sure enough, it was all there...." + +Ovid stared, took a step forward. "You mean.... What do you mean, Mr. +Baines?" + +"I'm goin' to step outside of what used to be the door," said +Scattergood, "and let Pansy do the explainin'.... What I do after that +depends a heap on ... Pansy...." + +Scattergood went outside and waited, his eyes on the stairs, but nobody +offered to ascend. He could hear the conversation within, but it was +only toward the end that it interested him. + +"Ovid," said Pansy, "you've been hanging around my counter a good +deal--and asking me to dinners, and to go driving on Sunday. What for?" + +"Because--because I liked you awful well, Pansy, but now--now that I've +done this--" + +"If you hadn't done this? If you had made money instead of losing it?" + +"I--oh, what's the use of talking about it? I wanted you should marry +me, Pansy." + +"But you don't want me any more?" + +"Nobody'd marry me--knowing what you know." + +"Ovid," said Pansy, sharply, "there's nothing wrong with you except +that--you haven't enough brains all by yourself. You need to be looked +after ...and I'm going to do it." + +"Looked after?" + +"Ovid Nixon, do you like me well enough to marry me?" + +"I--" + +"Do you? Yes or no ... quick!" + +"Yes." + +"Then ask me," said Pansy. + +Presently the three emerged into the street from the deserted offices of +Mr. Peaney. Scattergood Baines held in his hands two thousand dollars in +bills, representing net profit on the transaction. He regarded the money +with a frown. + +"Somethings got to be done to you to make you fit to tetch," he said to +it. + +Out of an adjoining store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a +tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. +"Salvation Army, hain't you?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Hold it out," he said, motioning to the tambourine. + +She obeyed, and he dropped into it the package of bills, and, looking +into her startled, almost frightened eyes, he said: "It come from fools +to sharpers.... I calculate nothin' but a leetle salvation'll kill the +cussedness in it.... Make it do all the salvagin' it kin...." + +Whereupon he passed on, leaving a bewildered woman to stare after him. + +Next morning, Scattergood, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Ovid Nixon, +alighted from the train in Coldriver. Deacon Pettybone happened to be +standing on the depot platform. + +"Make you acquainted with Mis' Nixon," said Scattergood, with gravity. +"She's what Ovid come down with.... Can't blame a young feller for +forgittin' work a day or two when he's got him sich a wife.... Deacon, +this here girl's performed a service for Coldriver. Increased our +population by two--her and Ovid. And, Deacon, Ovid hain't the fust man +that ever was made so's he was wuth countin' in the census by marryin' +him a wife...." + +"Dummed if she hain't got red hair," was the deacon's astonished +contribution. It was as near to congratulations as the deacon ever came. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SON THAT WAS DEAD + + +"The ox is dressed and hung," said Pliny Pickett, with the air of a man +announcing that the country has been saved from destruction. + +"Uh!... How much 'd he dress?" asked Scattergood Baines, moving in his +especially reinforced armchair until it creaked its protest. + +"Eight hunderd and forty-three--accordin' to Newt Patterson's scales." + +"Which hain't never been knowed to err on the side of overweight," said +Scattergood, dryly. + +"The boys has got the oven fixed for roastin' him, and the band gits in +on the mornin' train, failin' accidents, and the dec'rations is up in +the taown hall--'n' now we kin git ready for a week of stiddy rain." + +"They's wuss things than rain," said Scattergood, "though at the minnit +I don't call to mind what they be." + +"Deacon Pettybone's north mowin' is turned into a baseball grounds, and +everybody in town is buyin' buntin' to wrap their harnesses, and +Kittleman's fetched in more 'n five bushels of peanuts, and every young +un in taown'll be sick with the stummick ache." + +"Feelin' extry cheerful this mornin', hain't ye? Kind of more +hopeful-like than I call to mind seein' you fer some time." + +"Never knowed no big celebration to come off like it was planned, or +'thout somebody gittin' a leg busted, or the big speaker fergittin' what +day it was, or suthin'. Seems like the hull weight of this here falls +right on to me." + +"Responsibility," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in his eye, "is a +turrible thing to bear up under. But nothin' hain't happened yit, and +folks is dependin' on you, Pliny, to see 't nothin' mars the party." + +"It'll rain on to the _pe_-rade, and the ball game'll bust up in a +fight, and pickpockets'll most likely git wind of sich a big gatherin' +and come swarmin' in.... Scattergood," he lowered his voice +impressively, "it's rumored Mavin Newton's a-comin' back for this here +Old Home Week." + +"Um!... Mavin Newton.... Um!... Who up and la'nched that rumor?" + +"Everybody's a-talkin' it up. Folks says he's sure to come, and then +what in tunket'll we do? The sheriff's goin' to be busy handlin' the +crowds and the traffic and sich, and he won't have no time fer extry +miscreants, seems as though.... Folks is a-comin' from as fur 's Denver, +and we don't want no town criminal brought to justice in the middle of +it all. Though Mavin's father 'd be glad to see his son ketched, I +calc'late." + +"Hain't interviewed Mattie Strong as ree-gards _her_ feelin's, have ye?" + +"I wonder," said Pliny, with intense interest, "if Mattie's ever heard +from him? But she's that close-mouthed." + +"'Tain't a common failin' hereabouts," said Scattergood. "How long since +Mavin run off?" + +"Eight year come November." + +"The night before him and Mattie was goin' to be married." + +"Uh-huh! Takin' with him that there fund the Congo church raised fer a +new organ, and it's took them eight year to raise it over ag'in." + +"And in the meantime," said Scattergood, "I calc'late the tunes off of +the old organ has riz about as pleasin' to heaven as if 'twas new. +Squeaks some, I'm told, but I figger the squeaks gits kind of filtered +out, and nothin' but the true meanin' of the tunes ever gits up to Him." +Scattergood jerked a pudgy thumb skyward. + +"More 'n two hunderd dollars, it was--and Mavin treasurer of the church. +Old Man Newton he resigned as elder, and hain't never set foot in church +from that day to this." + +"Bein' moved," said Scattergood, "more by cantankerousness than grief." + +"I'll venture," said Pliny, "that there'll be more'n five hunderd old +residents a-comin' back, and where in tunket we're goin' to sleep 'em +all the committee don't know." + +"Um!... G'-by, Pliny," said Scattergood, suddenly, and Pliny, +recognizing the old hardware merchant's customary and inescapable +dismissal, got up off the step and cut across diagonally to the post +office, where he could air his importance as a committeeman before an +assemblage as ready to discuss the events of the week as he was himself. + +It was a momentous occasion in the life of Coldriver; a gathering of +prodigals and wanderers under home roofs; a week set aside for the +return of sons and daughters and grandchildren of Coldriver who had +ventured forth into the world to woo fortune and to seek adventure. +Preparations had been in the making for months, and the village was +resolved that its collateral relatives to the remotest generation should +be made aware that Coldriver was not deficient in the necessary "git up +and git" to wear down its visitors to the last point of exhaustion. +Pliny Pickett, chairman of numerous committees and marshal of the +parade, predicted it would "lay over" the Centennial in Philadelphia. + +The greased pig was to be greasier; the barbecued ox was to be larger; +the band was to be noisier; the speeches were to be longer and more +tiresome; the firemen's races and the ball games, and the fat men's +race, and the frog race, and the grand ball with its quadrilles and +Virginia reels and "Hull's Victory" and "Lady Washington's Reel" and its +"Portland Fancy," were all to be just a little superior to anything of +the sort ever attempted in the state. Numerous septuagenarians were +resorting to St. Jacob's oil and surreptitious prancing in the barn, to +"soople" up their legs for the dance. It was to be one of those +wholesome, generous, splendid outpourings of neighborliness and good +feeling and wonderful simplicity and kindliness, such as one can meet +with nowhere but in the remoter mountain communities of old New England, +where customs do not grow stale and no innovation mars. If any man would +discover the deep meaning of the word "welcome," let him attend such a +Home-coming! + +Though Coldriver did not realize it, the impetus toward the Home-coming +Week had been given by Scattergood Baines. He had seen in it a +subsidence of old grudges and the birth of universal better feeling. He +had set the idea in motion, and then, by methods of indirection, of +which he was a master, he had urged it on to fulfillment. + +Scattergood went inside the store and leaned upon the counter, taking no +small pleasure in a mental inventory of his heterogeneous stock. He had +completed one side, and arrived at the rear, given over to stoves and +garden tools, when a customer entered. Scattergood turned. + +"Mornin', Mattie," he said. "What kin I help ye to this time?" + +"I--I need a tack hammer, Mr. Baines." + +"Got three kinds: plain, with claws, and them patent ones that picks up +tacks by electricity. I hold by them and kin recommend 'em high." + +"I'll take one, then," said Mattie; but after Scattergood wrapped it up +and gave her change for her dollar bill, she remained, hesitating, +uncertain, embarrassed. + +"Was they suthin' besides a tack hammer you wanted, Mattie." Scattergood +asked, gently. + +"I--No, nothing." Her courage had failed her, and she moved toward the +door. + +"Mattie!" + +She stopped. + +"Jest a minute," said Scattergood. "Never walk off with suthin' on your +mind. Apt to give ye mental cramps. What was that there tack hammer an +excuse for comin' here fer?" + +"Is it true that _he's_ coming back, like the talk's goin' around?" + +"I calc'late ye mean Mavin. Mean Mavin Newton?" + +"Yes," she said, faintly. + +"What if he did?" said Scattergood. + +"I don't know.... Oh, I don't know." + +"Want he should come back?" + +"He--If he should come--" + +"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Calc'late I kin appreciate your feelin's. +Treated you mighty bad, didn't he?" + +"He treated himself worse," said Mattie, with a little awakening of +sharpness. + +"So he done. So he done.... Um!... Eight year he's been gone, and you +was twenty when he went, wa'n't ye? Twenty?" + +"Yes." + +"Hain't never had a feller since?" + +She shook her head. "I'm an old maid, Mr. Baines." + +"I've heard tell of older," he said, dryly. "Wisht you'd tell me why you +let sich a scalawag up and ruin your life fer ye?" + +"He wasn't a scalawag--till _then_." + +"You hain't thinkin' he was accused of suthin' he didn't do?" + +"He told me he took the money. He came to see me before he ran away." + +"Do tell!" This was news to Scattergood. Neither he nor any other was +aware that Mavin Newton had seen or been seen by a soul after the +commission of his crime. + +"He told me," she repeated, "and he said good-by.... But he never told +me why. That's what's been hurtin' me and troublin' me all these years. +He didn't tell me why he done it, and I hain't ever been able to figger +it out." + +"Um!... _Why_ he done it? Never occurred to me." + +"It never occurred to anybody. All they saw was that he took their organ +money and robbed the church. But why did he do it? Folks don't do them +things without reason, Mr. Baines." + +"He wouldn't tell you?" + +"I asked him--and I asked him to take me along with him. I'd 'a' gone +gladly, and folks could 'a' thought what they liked. But he wouldn't +tell, and he wouldn't have me, and I hain't heard a word from him from +that day to this.... But I've thought and figgered and figgered and +thought--and I jest can't see no reason at all." + +"Took it to run away with--fer expenses," said Scattergood. + +"There wasn't anything to run away from until _after_ he took it. I +_know_. Whatever 'twas, it come on him suddin. The night before we was +together--and--and he didn't have nothin' on his mind but plans for him +and me ... and he was that happy, Mr. Baines!... I wisht I could make +out what turned a good man into a thief--all in a minute, as you might +say. It's suthin', Mr. Baines, suthin' out of the ordinary, and always I +got a feelin' like I got a right to know." + +"Yes," said Scattergood, "seems as though you had a right to know." + +"Folks is passin' it about that he's comin' home. Is there any truth +into it?" + +"I calc'late it's jest talk," said Scattergood. "Nobody knows where he +is." + +"He'll come sometime," she said. + +"And you calc'late to keep on waitin' fer him to come?" + +"Until I'm dead--and after that, if it's allowed." + +"I wisht," said Scattergood, "there was suthin' I could do to mend it +all." + +"Nobody kin ever do anythin'," she said.... "But if he should venture +back, calc'latin' it had all blown over and been forgot!... His father'd +see him put in prison--and I--I couldn't bear that, it seems as though." + +"There's a bad thing about borrowin' trouble," said Scattergood. "No +matter how hard you try, you can't ever pay it back. Wait till he +croaks, and then do your worryin'." + +"I've got a feelin' he's goin' to come," she said, and turned away +wearily. "I thought maybe you'd know. That's why I came in, Mr. Baines." + +"G'-by, Mattie. G'-by. Come ag'in when you feel that way, and you +needn't to buy no tack hammer for an excuse." + +Scattergood slumped down in his chair on the store's piazza, and began +pulling his round cheeks as if he had taken up with some new method of +massage. It was a sign of inward disturbance. Presently a hand stole +downward to the laces of his shoes--a gesture purely automatic--and in a +moment, to the accompaniment of a sigh of relief, his broad feet were +released from bondage and his liberty-loving toes were wriggling with +delight. Any resident of Coldriver passing at that moment could have +told you Scattergood Baines was wrestling with some grave difficulty. + +"It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that ever'body has a reason +for ever'thing, except lunatics, and lunatics think they got a reason. +Now, Mavin he wa'n't no lunatic. He wouldn't have stole church money and +run off the night before his weddin' jest to exercise his feet. They +hain't no reason, as I recall it, why he needed two hunderd dollars. +Unless it was to git married on.... And instid of that, it busted up the +weddin'. I calc'late that matter wa'n't looked into sharp enough ... and +eight years has gone by. Lots of grass grows up to cover old paths in +eight year." + +A small boy was passing at the moment, giving an imitation of a cowboy +pursuing Indians. Scattergood called to him. + +"Hey, bub! Scurry around and see if ye kin find Marvin Preston. Uh-huh! +'F ye see him, tell him I'm a-settin' here on the piazza." + +The small boy dug his toes into the dust and disappeared up the street. +Presently Marvin Preston appeared in answer to the indirect summons. + +"How be ye, Marvin? Stock doin' well?" + +"Fust class. See the critter they're figgerin' on barbecuin'? He's a +sample." + +"Um!... Lived here quite a spell, hain't you, Marvin? Quite a spell?" + +"Born here, Scattergood." + +"Know lots of folks, don't ye? Got acquainted consid'able in town and +the surroundin' country?" + +"A feller 'u'd be apt to in fifty-five year." + +"Call to mind the Meggses that used to live here?" + +"Place next to the Newton farm. Recollect 'em well." + +"Lived next to Ol' Man Newton, eh? Forgot that." Scattergood had not +forgotten it, but quite the contrary. His interest in the Meggses was +negligible; his purpose in mentioning them was to approach the Newtons +circuitously and by stealth, as he always approached affairs of +importance to him. + +"Know 'em well? Know 'em as well's you knowed the Newtons?" + +"Not by no means. I've knowed Ol' Man Newton better 'n 'most anybody, +seems as though." + +"Um!... Le's see.... Had a son, didn't he?" + +"Run off with the organ money," said Marvin, shortly. + +"Remembered suthin' about him. Quite a while back." + +"Eight year. Allus recall the date on account of sellin' a Holstein +heifer to Avery Sutphin the mornin' follerin' ... fer cash." + +"Him that was dep'ty sheriff?" + +"That's the feller." + +"Um!... Ever git a notion what young Mavin up and stole that money fer?" + +"Inborn cussedness, I calc'late." + +"Allus seemed to me like Ol' Man Newton might 'a' made restitution of +that there money," said Scattergood, tentatively. + +"H'm!" Marvin cleared his throat and glanced up the street. "Seein's how +it's you, I dunno but what I kin tell you suthin' you hain't heard, nor +nobody else. Young Mavin sent that there money back to his father in a +letter to be give to the church--and the ol' man _burned_ it. That's +what he up and done. Two hunderd good dollars went up in smoke. Said +they was crimes that was beyond restitution or forgiveness, and robbin' +the House of God was one of 'em." + +"Um!... Now, Marvin, I'd be mighty curious to learn if the ol' man got +that information from God himself or if it come out of his own head.... +No matter, I calc'late. 'Twan't credit with the church young Mavin was +after when he sent back the money, and the Lord _he_ knows the money +come, if the organ fund never did find it out." + +"Guess I'll take a walk down to Spackles's and look over the steer. They +tell me he dressed clost to nine hunderd. Hope they contrive to cook him +through and through. Never see a barbecued critter yit that was done.... +Folks is beginnin' to git here. Guess they won't be a spare bedroom in +town that hain't full up." + +Scattergood pulled on his shoes and, leaving his store to take care of +itself, walked up the road, turned across the mowing which had been +metamorphosed into an athletic field, trusted his weight to the +temporary bridge across the brook, and scrambled up the bank to the +great oven where the steer was to be baked, and where the potato hole +was ready to receive twenty bushels of potatoes and the arch was ready +to receive the sugar vat in which two thousand ears of corn were to be +steamed. Pliny Pickett was in charge, with Ulysses Watts, sheriff, and +Coroner Bogle as assistants. They had fired up already, and were sitting +blissfully by in the blistering heat, bragging about the sort of meal +they were going to purvey, and speculating on whether the imported band +would play enough, and how the ball games would come out, and naming +over the folks who were expected to arrive from distant parts. + +"This here town team hain't what it was ten year ago," said the sheriff. +"In them days the boys knowed how to play ball. There was me 'n' Will +Pratt and Pliny here 'n' Avery Sutphin, that was sheriff 'fore I +was...." + +"What ever become of Avery?" Pliny asked. + +"Went West. Heard suthin' about him a spell back, but don't call to mind +what it was. Wonder if he'll be comin' back with the rest?" + +"Dunno. Think there's anythin' in the rumor that Mavin Newton's comin'?" +"Hope not," said the sheriff, assuming an official look and feeling of +the suspender to which was affixed his badge of office. "Don't want to +have no arrestin' to do durin' Old Home Week." + +"Calc'late to take him in if he comes?" + +"Duty," said Sheriff Watts, "is duty." + +"When it hain't a pleasure," said Scattergood. "Recall what place Avery +Sutphin went to?" + +"Seems like it was Oswego. Some'eres out West like that." + +"Wisht all the town 'u'd quit traipsin' over here," said Pliny. "Never +see sich curiosity. They needn't to think they're goin' to git a look at +the critter while he's a-cookin'. No, siree. Nobody but this here +committee sees him till he's took out final, ready fer eatin'." + +All that day visitors arrived in town. They drove in, came by train and +by stage--and walked. There was no house whose ready hospitality was not +taxed to its capacity, and the ladies in charge of the restaurant in +Masonic Hall became frantic and sent out hysterical messengers for more +food and more help. Every house was dressed in flags and bunting. Even +Deacon Pettybone, reputed to be the "nearest" inhabitant of the village, +flew one small cotton flag, reputed to have cost fifteen cents, from his +front stoop. The bridge was so covered with red, white, and blue as to +quite lose its identity as a bridge and to become one of the wonders of +the world, to be talked about for a decade. As one looked up the street +a similarity of motion, almost machinelike, was apparent. It was an +endless shaking of hands as old friend met old friend joyously. + +"Bet ye don't know who I be?" + +"I'd 'a' know'd you in Chiny. You're Mort Whittaker's wife--her that was +Ida Janes. Hair hain't so red as what it was." + +"You've took on flesh some, but otherwise--'Member the time you took me +to the dance at Tupper Falls--" + +"An' we got mired crossin'--" + +"An' Sam Kettleman come in a plug hat." + +This conversation, or its counterpart, was repeated wherever resident +and visitor met. Old days lived again. Ancient men became middle-aged, +and middle-aged women became girls. The past was brought to life and +lived again. Sometimes it was brought to life a bit tediously, as when +old Jethro Hammond, postmaster of Coldriver twenty years ago, made a +speech seventy minutes long, which consisted in naming and locating +every house that existed in his day, and describing with minute detail +who lived in it and what part they played in the affairs of the +community. But the audience forgave him, because it knew what a good +time he was having.... Houses were invaded by perfect strangers who +insisted in pointing out the rooms in which they were born and in which +they had been married, and in telling the present proprietors how +fortunate they were to live in dwellings thus blessed. + +The band arrived and met with universal satisfaction, though Lafe Atwell +complained that he hadn't ever see a snare drummer with whiskers. But +their coats were red, with gorgeous frogs, and their trousers were sky +blue, with gold stripes, and the drum major could whirl his baton in a +manner every boy in town would be imitating with the handle of the +ancestral broom for months to come.... Through it all Scattergood Baines +sat on the piazza and beamed upon the world, and rejoiced in the +goodness thereof. + +Only one resident took no part in the holiday making, and that was Old +Man Newton, who had closed his house, drawn the blinds, and refused to +make himself visible while the celebration lasted. He took a savage +pleasure in thus making himself conspicuous, knowing well how his +conduct would be discussed, and viewing himself as a righteous man +suffering for the sins of another. + +In the darkness of the evening street Mattie Strong accosted Scattergood +that evening, clinging to his arm tremulously. + +"Mr. Baines," she whispered, affrightedly, "he's come!" + +"Who's come?" + +"Mavin Newton--he's here, in town." + +Scattergood frowned. "See him?" + +"Hain't seen him, but he's here. I kin feel him. I knowed it the minute +he come." + +"Calc'late I've seen everybody here, and _I_ hain't seen him." + +"He's here, jest the same. I'm a-lookin' fer him. Whatever name he come +under, or however he looks, I'll know him. I couldn't make no mistake +about Mavin." + +"Mattie, I hope 'tain't so.... I hope you're mistook." + +"I--I don't know whether I hope so or not. I--Oh, Mr. Baines, I'd rather +be with him, a-comfortin' him and standin' by him, no matter what he +done--" + +Scattergood patted her arm. "I calc'late," he said, softly, "that God +hain't never invented no institution that beats the love of a good +woman.... I'll look around, Mattie.... I'll look around." + +It was the next morning, at the ball game, when Mattie spoke to +Scattergood again. + +"I've seen him," she whispered, and there was a note of happiness in her +voice and a look of renewed youth in her eyes. "He's here, like I said." + +"Where?" + +Mattie lowered her voice farther still. "Look at the band," she said. + +"Nobody resembles him there," said Scattergood, after a minute. + +"Wait till they stop playin'--and then see if they hain't somebody +there that takes holt of the fingers of his right hand, one after the +other, and kind of twists 'em.... Look sharp. Mavin he allus done that +when he was nervous--allus. I'd know him by it, anywheres." + +Scattergood watched. Presently the "piece" ended and the musicians laid +down their instruments and eased back in their chairs. + +"Look," said Mattie. + +The bearded snare drummer was performing a queer antic. It was as if his +fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he +drummed. No, he was tightening them so they wouldn't fall off. One +finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to +make certain they were secure. + +"I--knowed he'd come," Mattie said, happily. + +"Um!... This here's kind of untoward. You keep your mouth shet, Mattie +Strong. Don't you go near that feller till I tell you. We don't want a +rumpus to spoil this here week." + +"But he's here.... He's here." + +"So's trouble," said Scattergood, succinctly. + +The rest of that day Scattergood busied himself in searching out old +friends and neighbors of the Newtons. Nothing seemed to interest him +which happened later than eight years before, but no event of that +period was too slight or inconsequential to receive his attention and to +be filed away in his shrewd old brain. He was looking for the answer to +a question, and the answer was piled under the rubbish of eight years of +human activities--a hopeless quest to any but Scattergood. + +Comedy and tragedy were alike interesting to him. Just as he lost no +detail of the old man's conduct when his boy disappeared, so he listened +and laughed when Martin Banks recalled to a group how Old Man Newton had +fallen under the suspicion of bootlegging and how the town had seethed +with the downfall of an elder of the church--and all because the old man +had imported two cases, each of a dozen bottles of the Siwash Indian +Stomach Bitters recommended to cure his dyspepsia. There had been a +moment, said Banks, when the town expected to see Newton shut up in the +calaboose under the post office--until the true contents of those cases +was revealed. + +During the afternoon Scattergood sent six telegrams to as many different +cities. Late that night he received replies, and sent one long message +to an individual high in office in the state. It was an urgent message, +amounting to a command, for in his own commonwealth Scattergood Baines +was able to command when the need required. + +"It's an off chance," he said to himself, "but it's what might 'a' +happened, and if it might 'a' happened, maybe it did happen...." + +Wednesday afternoon the band was thrown into consternation, and the town +into a paroxysm of excitement and speculation, when Sheriff Watts +ascended the platform of the musicians and, placing a heavy hand on the +shoulder of the snare drummer, said, loudly, "Mavin Newton, I arrest ye +in the name of the law." + +Not a soul in that breathless crowd was there who failed to see Mattie +Strong point her finger in the face of Scattergood Baines, and to hear +her utter the one word, "_Shame!_" Nor did any fail to see her take her +place at the side of the bearded drummer, with her fingers clutching his +arm, and walk to the door of the jail under the post office with the +prisoner. + +Then the word was passed about that the hearing would take place before +Justice of the Peace Bender that very evening. So great was the public +clamor that the justice agreed to hold court in the town hall instead of +in his office; and it was rumored that Johnnie Bones, Scattergood +Baines's own lawyer, had been appointed special prosecutor by the +Governor of the state. + +Opinion ran against Scattergood. It was free and outspoken. Townsfolk +and visitors alike felt that Scattergood had done ill in bringing the +young man to justice--especially at such a time. He should have let +sleeping dogs lie.... And when it heard that Sheriff Watts had carried a +subpoena to Mavin Newton's father, compelling his presence as a witness +against his own son, there arose a wind of disapproval which quite swept +Scattergood from the esteem of the community. + +But the town came to the hearing. In the beginning it was a +cut-and-dried affair. The facts of the crime were established with dry +precision. Then Johnnie Bones called the name of a witness, and the +audience stiffened to attention. Even Old Man Newton, sitting with bowed +head and scowling brow, lifted his eyes to the face of the young lawyer. + +"Avery Sutphin," said Johnnie Bones, and the former sheriff, wearing +such a haircut as Coldriver seldom saw within its corporate limits, and +clothed in such clothing as it had never seen there, was brought through +the door by two strangers of official look. He seated himself in the +witness chair. + +"You are Avery Sutphin, former sheriff of this town?" + +"Yes." + +"Where do you reside?" + +"In the state penitentiary," said Avery, seeking to hide his face. + +"Do you know Mavin Newton?" + +"Yes." + +"When did you last see him?" + +"It was the night of June twelfth, eight year ago." + +"Where?" + +"In his father's barn." + +"What was he doing?" + +"Milkin'," said Avery. + +"You went to see him?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"To git some money out of him." + +"Did he owe you money?" + +"No." + +"How much money did you go to get?" + +"Two hunderd dollars." + +"Did you get it?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you know what money it was?" + +"Church-organ money. He told me." + +"Why did he give it to you?" + +"I made him." + +"How?" + +"Lemme tell it my own way--if I got to tell it.... He'd took my girl, +and I never liked him, anyhow.... There'd been rumors his old man was +bootleggin'. Nothin' to it, of course, and I knowed that. And I needed +some money. Bought a beef critter off'n Marvin Preston next day. So I +went to Mavin and says I was goin' to arrest his old man because I'd +ketched him sellin' liquor, and Mavin he begged me I shouldn't. I told +him the old man would git ten year, anyhow." + +"What did Mavin say to that?" + +"He jest bowed his head and kind of leaned against the stall." + +"Then what?" + +"I let on I needed money, and told him if he'd gimme two hunderd dollars +I'd destroy the evidence and let the old man go. He says he didn't have +the money, and I says he had the organ money. He didn't say nothin' for +a spell, and then he says, kind of low, and wonderin', 'Which 'u'd be +the worst? Which 'u'd be the worst?' Then I says, 'Worst what?' And he +says for his father to be ketched for a bootlegger or for him to be a +thief.... I jest let him think about it, and didn't say nothin', because +I knowed how he looked up to his old man. + +"Pretty soon he says: 'I'd be a thief, 'cause I couldn't explain. I'd +have to run off--and leave Mattie, that I'm a-goin' to marry +to-morrer.... I could pay it back, but that wouldn't do no good.... But +for father to be arrested, him an elder, and all, would kill him. I +couldn't bear for father to be shamed 'fore all the world or to be +thought guilty of sich a thing.... He's wuth a heap more 'n I be, and he +won't never do it ag'in.' Then he asks if I'll give a letter to his old +man, and I says yes. He walked up and down for maybe a quarter of an +hour, talkin' to himself, and kind of fightin' it out, but I knowed what +he'd do, right along. At the end he come over and says: 'This here means +ruinin' my life and breakin' Mattie's heart ... but I calc'late that's +better 'n holdin' father up to scorn and seein' him in jail.... If they +was only some other way!' His voice was stiddylike, but he was right +pale and his eyes was a-shinin'. I remember how they was a-shinin'. 'I +calc'late,' he says, 'that I kin bear it fer father's sake.' Then he +says to me, kind of fierce, 'If ever you let on to anybody why I done +this, if it's in a hunderd years, I'll come back and kill you.' For a +while he kept still again, and then he went in the house and got the +money, and wrote a letter to his old man, and I promised to give it to +him--but I tore it up." + +"What did the letter say?" + +"It just said somethin' to the effect that he was willin' to do what he +done if his old man would give over breakin' the law and go to livin' +upright like he always done, and that he hoped maybe God seen a +difference in stealin' on account of the reasons folks had for doin' +it--but if God didn't make no difference, why, he'd rather bear it than +have it fall on his old man." + +"And then?" + +"I took the money and come away. And he run away. And that's all." + +The town hall was very still. The stillness of it seemed to pierce and +hurt.... Then it was broken by a cry, a hoarse cry, wrenched from the +soul of a man. "My boy!... My boy!..." Old Elder Newton was on his +feet, tottering toward his son, and before his son he sank upon his +knees and buried his hard, weathered old face upon Mavin's knees. + +Justice of the Peace Bender cleared his throat. + +"This here," he said, "looks to me to be suthin' the folks of this town, +the friends and neighbors of this here father and son, ought to settle, +instid of the law. Maybe it hain't legal, but I dunno who's to +interfere.... Folks, what ought to be done to this here boy that done a +crime and suffered the consequences of it, jest to save his father from +another crime the old man never done a-tall?" + +Neither Mavin nor his father heard. The old elder was muttering over and +over, "My boy that was dead and is alive again...." + +Scattergood arose silently and pointed to the door, and the crowd +withdrew silently, withdrew to group about the entrance outside and to +wait. They were patient. It was an hour before Elder Newton descended, +his son on one side and Mattie Strong on the other.... The band, with a +volunteer drummer, lifted its joyous voice, and, looking up, the trio +faced a banner upon which Scattergood had caused to be painted, "Welcome +Home, Mavin Newton." + +Coldriver had taken judicial action and thus voiced its decision. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT + + +Jason Locker, who was Sam Kettleman's rival in Coldriver's grocery +industry, was a trifle too amenable to modern ideas at times. He took +notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could +do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and +make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade +he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two +parades. + +Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed +Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference +was as to when and exactly _how_ Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They +were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to +sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the +counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of +olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and +pronounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which +Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew +accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was +rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered. + +But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably +pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current +fashions, made her appearance in a space cleared in the middle of the +store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new +brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far. + +It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being +demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It +came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the +young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner +of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country +making coffee for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wearing a smile for +everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore +observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her +frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger +women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the +advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from +their midst. + +But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette +Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped +about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no +pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst. + +"Looks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon +Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' _as_ well _as_ proper +follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be +expected to ensue." + +"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say +it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette--that way. Looks like +French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for +seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask +her." + +"Names don't count," said Old Man Bogle, oracularly. "She hain't to +blame for pickin' her name. Her ma gave it to her out of a book, seems +as though. Nevertheless, 'tain't no fit name for a woman, and, so fur's +I kin see, she fits her name like Ovid Nixon's tailor pants fits his +laigs." + +"She's light," said the elder. + +"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she +was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly +wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't +nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her." + +"While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup," +said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to +me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders. + +"Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John +the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a +deacon of the church." + +"She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was +willin'." + +"I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes, +"that she hain't no stranger to wearin' _tights._" + +"Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the +deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty +satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite +different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a +clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em." + +"My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle, +tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly. + +"How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with +the wiles of it?" + +"He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the +path." + +"You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle, +waggling his head. + +"Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon. +"Look.... Comin' acrost the bridge. There's Locker's boy and that there +Wife-ette, and him lookin' like he'd enjoy divin' down her throat." + +"Poor Jason," said the elder, "he's reapin' the whirlwind." + +"Kin he be blind?" + +"Somebody ought to take Jason off to one side and give him warnin'." + +The deacon considered, puckering his thin lips and cocking a hard old +eye. "'Tain't fer us to meddle," he said, righteously. "They's a divine +plan in ever'thing, and we hain't able to see what's behind all this +here. We'll jest set and wait the outcome." + +That is what all Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with +ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or +gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went +undiscussed. Nobody in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the +coffee demonstrator--with the one exception of Homer's father, who was +too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice anything +else. + +On the fourth evening of Yvette's stay in Coldriver there was a dance in +the town hall. Especial interest immediately attached to this affair +because of the speculations as to whether Homer would be so rash as to +invite Yvette as his partner. The village refused to believe the young +man would fail them and remain away. That would be a calamity not easily +endured, so it set itself to plan its actions in case she made her +appearance. It wondered, how she would dress and how she would behave. + +Every girl in the village who possessed clear title to a young man knew +exactly how _she_ would deport herself. The night before the dance no +less than a score of young men were informed with finality that they +were not to dance with the stranger, nor to be seen in her vicinity. +Norma Grainger expressed the will of all when she told Will Peasley that +if he danced one dance with that coffee girl she would up and go home +alone. In the beginning there was no definite concerted action; it was +assured, however, that Yvette would have few partners. + +Homer did not disappoint his friends. During the first dance he entered +the hall with Yvette, and the music all but stopped to stare. Undeniably +she was pretty. It was not her prettiness the women resented, however, +but her air and her clothes. Actually she wore a dress cut low at the +neck, and sleeveless. Coldriver had heard of such garments, and there +were those who actually believed them to exist and to be worn by certain +women in European society among kings and dukes and other frightfully +immoral people. But that one should ever make its appearance in +Coldriver, under their very eyes, was a thing so startling, so +outrageous, as almost to demand the spontaneous formation of a vigilance +committee. + +Even yet there was no concerted action, but sentiment was crystallizing. +Homer and Yvette danced three dances, and Homer's face began to wear a +scowl. No less than five young men approached by him with the purpose of +securing them as partners for Yvette declined with brevity. + +"What's the matter with you??" he demanded, belligerently. "There hain't +no pertier girl nor no better dancer on the floor." + +"Mebby so. Hain't noticed. Got all _my_ dances took." + +"Me too. My girl she says--" + +"She says what?" snapped Homer. + +"She says she'll go home if I dance with yourn." + +"And _I_ say," said Homer, with set jaw, "that you fellers is goin' to +dance with Yvette, or there's goin' to be more fights in Coldriver 'n +Coldriver ever see before. That's _my_ say." + +He announced he would be back after the next dance, and that _somebody_ +would dance with Yvette. "The feller that refuses," said he, "goes +outside with me." + +He went back to Yvette, who, not lacking in shrewdness, sensed something +of the situation. + +"I wish I hadn't come," she said, uneasily. + +"I don't ... if you hain't got no objection to dancin' jest with me." + +"It'll look queer if I dance all of them with you." + +"Jest ask me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd +want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I +wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with +you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille." + +Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the +floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two +couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there. +All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in the middle." + +Homer and Yvette approached that square where three couples awaited the +fourth to complete their set. They took their places, to the manifest +embarrassment of the other six. Suddenly Norma Grainger whispered +something to her young man and tugged at his arm. He looked sidewise, +sheepishly, at Homer, and hung back. + +"You come right along," said Norma. "I hain't goin' to have it said of +me that I danced in no set with her." + +"Nor me," said Marion Towne, also tugging at her escort. + +The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast +glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and +walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left +standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes. + +Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then--for in his ungainly +body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without +which none may be called a gentleman--he offered his arm to Yvette. "I +guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful +shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood +Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from +the room. + +"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say." + +"It--it's not your fault," she said, tremulously. + +"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered. + +"I shouldn't have gone." + +"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the +pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with _me_, be you?" + +"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I--I ought to be used to it. I--" +She began to cry. + +It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but +he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a +pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to +press her to him none too gently. + +"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he +kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash +all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that +task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he +said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to +marry me, hain't you?" + +"I--I don't know.... You--you don't know anything about me." + +"Calc'late I know enough," he said. + +"Your folks wouldn't put up with it." + +"Huh!" + +There was a silence. Then she said, brokenly: "I must go away. I can't +ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and +talking about me.... I want to go away to-night." + +"You sha'n't. Nor no other time, neither." + +And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines's voice. +"Hain't calc'latin' to bust the gal, be you?... Jest happened along to +say the deacon's been talkin' to your pa about you 'n' her, and your +pa's het up consid'able. He's startin' out to look fer you. Lucky I come +along, wa'n't it?" + +"I'm of age," said Homer, aggressively. + +"Lots is," said Scattergood. "'Tain't nothin' to take special pride +in.... Homer, I've watched you raised from a colt, hain't I? Be you +willin' to kind of leave this here to me a spell? I sort of want to look +into things. You go along about your business and leave me talk to +Wife-ette here.... Made up your mind you want her?" + +"Yes." + +"She want you?" + +"I--What business is it of yours?" Yvette demanded, angrily. "Who are +you? What are you interfering for?" + +"Kind of a habit with me," said Scattergood, "and my wife hain't ever +been able to cure me, even puttin' things in my coffee on the sly.... +G'-by, Homer. And don't go lickin' nobody. G'-by." + +The habit of obedience to Scattergood's customary dismissal was strong +in Coldriver. For more than a generation the town had been trained to +heed it and to trust its affairs to the old hardware merchant. Homer +hesitated, coughed, mumbled good night to Yvette, and slouched away. + +"There," said Scattergood, "now you and me kin talk. We'll go up to your +room, where nobody kin disturb us." The conventions nor the tongue of +gossip was non-existent to Scattergood Baines, and Yvette, not reared in +a school where trust in men is easily learned, was shrewd enough to +recognize Scattergood's purpose and her own safety. + +"I s'pose you're the local Mr. Fix-it," she said, with sarcasm. + +"I s'pose," said Scattergood, "that I've knowed Homer sence he was knee +high to a mouse's kitten, and I don't know nothin' about you a-tall. I +gather you're calc'latin' on marryin' Homer.... Mebby you be and mebby +you hain't.... Depends. Come along." + +He led the way to the hotel and allowed Yvette to precede him up the +stairs to her room, which she unlocked and stood aside for him to enter. +He looked about him in the sharp-eyed way characteristic of him, not +omitting to include in his survey the toilet articles on the dresser. + +"Hain't you perty enough without them?" he asked, indicating the lip +stick and rice powder. "Us folks hain't used to 'em, much.... Wunst we +give a home-talent play here, and there come a feller from Boston to +help out. Mis' Blossom was into it, and he come around to paint her up. +She jest give him one look, and says, says she, 'I hain't never painted +my face yit, and I don't calc'late to start in now.' ... I got to admit +she looked kind of pale and peeked amongst the rest, but she stuck to +her principles." + +Yvette stared at Scattergood, nonplused for the first time. What did he +mean? How was she to take him? His face was serene and there was no +glint of humor in his eye.... Yet, somehow, she gathered the idea he was +chuckling inwardly and that there resided in him a broad and tender +toleration for the little antics and makeshifts of mankind. Possibly he +was holding Mrs. Blossom up to her as a model of rectitude; perhaps he +was asking her to laugh with him at a foible of one of his own people. +She wished she knew which. + +"Calc'late on marryin' Homer?" he asked. + +"I--" + +"Yes or no--quick." + +"Yes," she said, lifting her chin bravely. + +"Um!... Knowed him four days, hain't you? Think it's long enough? Plenty +of time to figger it all out?" + +She sat down on the bed, drooping wearily. "I'm tired," she said, "awful +tired. I can't stand this life any longer. I've got to have a place to +rest." + +"Hain't goin' to have Homer used for no sanitorium," said Scattergood. + +"I like him," said Yvette. + +"'Tain't enough. Up this way folks mostly loves when they git +married--or owns adjoinin' timber." + +Again she was at a loss. What did he mean? If he would only smile! + +"I--I've got a feeling I could _trust_ him," she said, "and he'd be good +to me." + +"_He_ would," said Scattergood. "I hain't worritin' about his dealin' +with you; it's your dealin' with him I'm questionin' into." + +"I'd--. He wouldn't be sorry." + +"Um!... Nate Weaver, back country a spell, is lookin' fer a wife. Hain't +young. Got lots of money, and the right woman could weasel it out of +him. Lots of it.... He'd like you fine. Homer won't have much, and if +his pa keeps on feelin' like he does, he won't have none.... If you're +lookin' fer a restin' place, you might consider Nate. I could fix it." +Her eyes flashed. "I haven't come to that yet," she said, sharply, and +then began to cry quietly. + +"Um!..." Scattergood gripped his pudgy hands together so that each might +restrain the other from patting her head comfortingly. "Um!... What's +your name?" + +"My name?" + +"Yes.... 'Tain't Wife-ette Hinchbrooke. They hain't no sich name. +'Tain't human.... What's your real one?" + +"Eva Hopkins." + +"How'd you come to change?" + +"A girl's got a right to call herself anything she wants to," she said, +defensively. + +"Except Mrs. Homer Locker," said Scattergood, dryly. "Now jest come +off'n your high hoss, and we'll talk. When we git through, we'll +_do_.... Either you'll take the mornin' train out of Coldriver, or +you'll stay and we'll see. Depends on what I hear." + +"I could lie," she said. + +"Folks don't gen'ally lie to _me_," said Scattergood, gently. "They +found out it didn't pay--and I hain't much give to believin' nothin' but +the truth. We deal in it a lot up this here way." + +"I hate your people and their dealings." + +"Don't wonder at it. I seen what they done to you to-night.... But you +don't know 'em like I do. They's times when they act cold and ha'sh and +nigh to cruel, but that hain't when they're real. Them times they're +jest makin' b'lieve, 'cause they hain't got no idee what they ought to +do.... I've knowed 'em these thirty year--right down _knowed_ 'em. Lemme +tell you they hain't a finer folks on earth, bar nobody. They don't show +much outside, but the insides is right. You kin find more kindness and +charity and long-sufferin' and tenderness and goodness right here +amongst the cantankerous-seemin' of Coldriver 'n you kin find anywheres +else on earth.... They're narrer, Eva, and they got sot notions, but +they got a power to do kindness, once you git 'em started at it, that +hain't to be beat.... I kind of calculate God hain't so disapp'inted +with the folks of Coldriver as a stranger might git the idee he is.... +Now we'll go ahead." + +When Scattergood had done asking questions and receiving answers, he sat +silent for a matter of moments. Automatically his hands strayed to the +lacing of his shoes, for his pudgy toes itched for freedom to wiggle. He +dealt with a problem whose complex elements were human emotions and +prejudices, and at such times he found his brain to act more clearly and +efficiently with shoes removed. He detected himself, however, in the act +of untying the laces, and sat upright with ludicrous suddenness. + +"Um!..." he said, in some confusion. "Mandy says I hain't never to do it +when wimmin is around. Dunno why.... Now they's some p'ints I got to +impress on you." + +"Yes, Mr. Baines," said Yvette, who had reached a condition of respect +and confidence in Scattergood--as most people did upon meeting him face +to face. + +"Fust, Homer hain't no sanitorium for weary wimmin. When you kin come +and say, meanin' it from your heart, 'I love Homer,' then we'll see." + +She nodded acquiescence. + +"Second, it won't never and noways be possible fer you and Homer to live +here onless the folks takes to you. You got to win yourself a welcome in +Coldriver." + +"That means," she said, dully, "that I'd better go." + +"Huh!... Hain't you got no backbone? You do like you're told. You stay +where you be. 'Tain't possible fer you to go back to Locker's store, and +that puts you out of a job, don't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Hard up?" + +"I can live a few days--but--" + +"Hain't no buts. You kin live as long as I say so. You stay hitched to +this here hitchin' post, and I'll 'tend to the money. Jest don't do +nothin' but be where you be--and be makin' up your mind if Homer's the +boy you kin love and cherish, or if he's nothin' but a sort of shady +restin' place.... G'-by." + +He got up abruptly and went out. On the bridge he encountered three dark +figures, which, upon inspection, resolved themselves into Old Man Bogle, +Deacon Pettybone, and Elder Hooper. + +"Scattergood," said the elder, "somethin's happened." + +"Somethin' 'most allus does." + +"This here's special and horrifyin'." + +"Havin' to do with what?" + +"That coffee gal, that baggage, that hussy!" + +"Um!... Sich as?" + +"Recall that show Bogle was took to in Boston?" + +"Where the wimmin wore tights--that's been on his mind ever since? +Calc'late I do. Kind of a high spot in Bogle's life. Come nigh bein' the +makin' of him." + +"He claims he recognizes this here gal as one of them dancin' wimmin +that stood in a row with less on to them than any woman ever ought to +have with the lights turned on." + +"No!" exclaimed Scattergood. + +"Yep!" said all three of them in chorus. + +"Stood right in front, as I recall it, a-makin' eyes and kickin' up her +heels that immodest you wouldn't b'lieve. Looked right at me, too. I +seen her." + +"Got your money's wuth, then, didn't ye? Wa-al?" + +"Suthin's got to be done." + +"Sich as?" + +"Riddin' the town of her." + +"Go ahead and rid it, then.... G'-by." + +"But we want you sh'u'd help us." + +"G'-by," said Scattergood again, as he moved off ponderously into the +darkness. + +The elder moved nearer Bogle and endeavored to peer into his face. "Be +you sure she's the same one?" he asked, in a confidential whisper. + +"Wa-al--they was about the same heft," said Bogle, "and if this hain't +her, it ought to be. I kin b'lieve it, can't I? Got a right to b'lieve +it, hain't I? Good fer the town to b'lieve it, hain't it?" + +"Calc'late 'tis." + +"All right, then. I aim to keep on b'lievin' it." + +Next day Homer Locker abandoned his work and with the utmost brazenness +hired a rig at the livery and drove to the hotel. A group of notables +assembled upon the bridge to watch the event. They saw him emerge from +the inn with Yvette, help her into the buggy with great solicitude, and +drive away. They did not return until supper time was long past. + +"I'm determined to git this settled one way or t'other," said Homer, +after a long pause. "Be you goin' to marry me?" + +"Why do you want me?" Yvette asked, fixing her eyes on his face. "Is it +just because you think I'm pretty?" + +He considered. It was a hard question for a young man not adept in the +use of words to answer. "'Tain't jest that," he said, finally. "I like +you bein' perty. But it's somethin' else. I hain't able to explain it, +exceptin' that I want you more'n I ever wanted anythin' in my life." + +"Maybe, when I tell you about myself, you won't want me at all." + +He paused again, while she studied his face anxiously. + +"I dunno.... I--. Tell ye what. I want you like I know you. I'm +satisfied. I don't want you to tell me nothin'. I don't want to know +nothin'." He turned and looked with clumsy gravity into her eyes, which +did not waver. "Besides," he said, "I don't believe you got anythin' +discreditable to tell." + +"I want to tell you." + +"I don't want to hear," he said, simply. "I'd rather take you, jest +trustin' you and knowin' in my heart that you're good. Somehow I _know_ +it." + +She bit her lip, her eyes were moist, and she sat very still for a long +time; then she said, softly: "I didn't know men like that lived.... I +didn't know." + +Then again, after the passage of minutes: "I was going to marry you, +Homer, just for a home and a good man and to get peace.... But I sha'n't +do it now. I can't come between you and all your folks--and they +wouldn't have me." + +"You're more to me than everybody else throwed together." + +"No, Homer. Before I didn't think I cared.... I do care, Homer. I--I +love you. I don't mind saying it now.... I'm going away in the morning." + +It was a point they argued all the day, but Yvette was not to be moved, +and Homer was in despair. As he drove into the village that evening, +glum and unhappy, Yvette said: "Stop at Mr. Baines's, please, Homer. I +want to speak to him." + +Scattergood was in his accustomed place before his store, shoes on the +piazza beside him, and his feet, guiltless of socks, reveling in their +liberty. + +"Mr. Baines," said Yvette, "I've made up my mind to go away to-morrow." + +"Um!... To-morrer, eh? Made up your mind you don't want Homer, have ye? +Don't blame ye. He's a mighty humble critter." + +"He's the best man in the world," said Yvette, softly, "and I love +him ... and that--that's why I'm going. I can't stay and make him +miserable." + +Scattergood studied her face a moment, and cleared his throat noisily. +"Hum!... I swan to man! Goin', be ye?... Mebby that's best.... But they +hain't no sich hurry. Be out of a job, won't ye? Uh-huh! Wa-al, you stay +till Thursday mornin' and kind of visit with Homer, and say good-by, and +then you kin go. Thursday mornin'.... Not a minute before." + +"But--" + +"Thursday mornin's the time, I said.... G'-by." + +Next morning Scattergood was absent. He had taken the early train out of +town, as Pliny Pickett reported, on a "whoppin' big deal that come up +suddin in the night." It appeared that for once Scattergood had allowed +business to distract him wholly from his favorite occupation of meddling +in other folks' affairs.... Nobody saw him return, for he drove into +town late Wednesday afternoon and went directly to his home. + +For forty-eight hours during his absence rumor had spread and increased +its girth to astounding dimensions. Old Man Bogle had released his +story. He now recollected Yvette perfectly, and when not restrained by +the modesty of some person of the opposite sex, he described her costume +in the play with minute detail. Hourly he remembered more and more, and +the mouth-to-ear repetitions of his tale embellished it with details +even Old Man Bogle's imagination could not have encompassed.... Before +Wednesday night Yvette had arisen in the estimation of the village to an +eminence of evil never before attained by any visitor to Coldriver. + +Jason Locker forbade his son his home if ever he were seen in the +hussy's company again, and Homer left by the front door.... He announced +his purpose of journeying to the South Seas or New York, or some other +equally strange and dangerous shore. The town seethed. It had been +years since any local sensation approached this high moment.... At half +past six Pliny Pickett, Scattergood's right-hand man and general errand +boy, was seen to approach Homer on the street and to whisper to him. +Pliny always enshrouded his most matter-of-fact errands with voluminous +mystery. "Scattergood wants you sh'u'd see him right off," he said, and +tiptoed away. + +Another sensation occurred that evening. Scattergood Baines went to +prayer meeting in the Methodist church. When word of this was passed +about, the Baptists and Congos deserted their places of worship in +whispering groups and invaded the rival edifice until it was crowded as +it had seldom been before. Scattergood in prayer meeting! Scattergood, +who had never been inside a church since the day of his arrival in +Coldriver, forty years before.... Even Yvette Hinchbrooke and her +affairs sank into insignificance. + +But the amazing presence of Scattergood in church was as nothing to the +epochal fact that, after the prayer and hymn, he was seen slowly to get +to his feet. Scattergood Baines was going to lift up his voice in +meeting! + +"Folks," he said, "I've knowed Coldriver for quite a spell. I've knowed +its good and its bad, but the good outweighs the bad by a darn sight." +The congregation gasped. + +"I run on to a case to-day," he said, and then paused, apparently +thinking better of what he was going to say and taking another course. +"They's one great way to reach folks's hearts and that's through their +sympathy. All of you give up to furrin missions to rescue naked fellers +with rings in their noses. That's sympathy, hain't it? Mebby they hain't +needin' sympathy and cast-off pants, but that's neither here nor there. +You _think_ they do.... Coldriver's great on sympathy, and it's a +doggone upstandin' quality." Again the audience sucked in its breath at +this approach to the language of everyday life. + +"If I was wantin' to stir up your sympathy, I'd tell you about a leetle +feller I seen yestiddy. Mebby I will. He wa'n't no naked heathen, and he +didn't have no ring into his nose. He was jest a boy. Uh-huh! Calculate +he might 'a' been ten year old. Couldn't walk a step. Suthin' ailed his +laigs, and he had to lay around in a chair in one of these here kind of +cheap horspittles. Alone he was. Didn't have no pa nor ma.... But he had +to be looked after by somebody, didn't he? Somebody had to pay them +bills." + +Scattergood blew his nose gustily. "Mebby he could 'a' been cured if +they was money to pay for costly doctorin', but they wa'n't. It took all +that could be got jest to pay for his food and keep.... Patient leetle +feller, too, and gentlelike and cheerful. Kind of took to him, I did." + +He paused, turned slowly, and surveyed the congregation, and frowned at +the door of the church. He coughed. He waited. The congregation turned, +following his eyes, and saw Mandy, Scattergood's ample-bosomed wife, +enter, bearing in her arms the form of a child. She walked to +Scattergood's pew and handed the boy to him. Scattergood held the child +high, so all could see. + +He was a red-haired little fellow, white and thin of face, with +pipe-stem legs that dangled pitifully. + +"I fetched him along," said Scattergood. "I wisht you'd look him over." + +The audience craned its neck, exclaiming, dropping tears. The heart of +Coldriver was well protected, it fancied, by an exterior of harshness +and suspicion, but Coldriver was wrong. Its heart lay near the surface, +easy of access, warm, tender, sympathetic. "This is him," said +Scattergood. + +He turned his face to the child. "Sonny," he said, kindly, "you hain't +got no pa nor ma?" "No, sir," said the little fellow. + +"And you live in one of them horspittles?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"It costs money?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"How do you git it, sonny? Tell the folks." + +"Sister," said the child. "She's awful good to me. When she kin, she +stays whole days with me, but she can't stay much on account of havin' +to earn money to pay for me. It takes 'most all she earns.... She's had +to do kinds of work she don't like, on account of it earnin' more money +than nice jobs. We're savin' to have me cured, and then I'm goin' to go +to work and keep _her._ I got it all planned out while I was layin' +there." + +"Is your sister a bad woman?" + +"Nobody dast say that, even if I hain't got legs. I'd grab somethin' and +throw it at 'em." + +"Was this here sister ever one of them actoresses?" + +"Once, when I was sicker 'n usual ... it was awful costly. That time she +was in a show, 'cause she got more money there. She got enough to pay +for what I needed." + +"Wear tights, sonny? Calc'late she wore tights?" + +"Sure. She told me. She said to me it wasn't wearin' tights that done +harm, and she could be jest as good in tights as wearin' a fur coat if +her heart wasn't bad. That's what she said. Yes, sir, she said she +wouldn't wear nothin' if it had to be done to git me medicine." + +"Um!... What's this here sister's name?" + +"Eva Hopkins." + +Scattergood turned again toward the door. "Homer," he called, and Homer +Locker entered, almost dragging Yvette by the arm.... The congregation +heard one sound. It was a glad, childish cry. "Eva!... Eva!... Here I +am." + +Then it saw Yvette Hinchbrooke wrench free from Homer and run down the +aisle to snatch the child from Scattergood's arms into her own. + +Scattergood stood erect, looking from face to face in silence. It was a +full minute before he spoke. + +"There ..." he said. "You kin see the evil of passin' jedgments. You kin +see the evil of old coots traffickin' in rumors.... What you've heard +the boy tell is all true.... That's the girl you was ready to tar and +feather and run out of town.... Now what you think of yourselves?" + +It was Deacon Pettybone, blinking a mist from his watery blue eyes, who +arose to the moment. "Folks," he said, huskily, "I'm goin' to pass among +you directly, carryin' the collection plate. 'Tain't fer furrin +missions. It's fer that child yonder--to git them legs fixed.... And +standin' here I want to acknowledge to sin in public. I been hard, and +lackin' in charity. I been passin' jedgments, contrairy to God's word. I +been stiff-backed and obdurate, and I calc'late they's others a-sittin' +here that needs prayers for forgiveness.... Now I'm a-comin' with the +plate. Them that hain't prepared to give to-night kin whisper to me what +they'll give to-morrer--and have no fear of my forgittin' the amounts +they pledge.... And I'm askin' forgiveness of the young woman and hopin' +she won't hold it ag'in' an old man--when she settles down here amongst +us, like I hope she'll do." + +"Like she's a-goin' to do," said Jason Locker, with a voice and air of +pride. "Why, folks, that there gal is goin' to be my daughter-in-law!" + +Scattergood patted Yvette on the back heavily, but jubilantly. "I've +diskivered," he said, "that if you can't crack a hick'ry nut with a pad +of butter, you better use a hammer.... Sometimes Coldriver's a nut +needin' a sledge--but when it cracks it's full of meat." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE + + +Scattergood Baines lounged back in his armchair, reinforced by iron +crosspieces to sustain his weight, and basked in the warmth from the +Round Oak stove, heated to redness by the clean, dry maple within. He +was drowsy. For the time he had ceased even to search for a scheme +whereby he could rid his hardware stock of one dozen sixteen-pound +sledge hammers acquired by him at a recent auction down in Tupper Falls. +His eyes were closed and his soul was at peace. + +Somebody rattled the door knob and then rapped on the door. This was so +unusual a method of seeking entrance to a hardware store that +Scattergood sat up abruptly, blinking. + +"Wa-al," he said, tartly, "be you comin' in, or be you goin' to stand +out there wagglin' that door knob all day?" + +"I'm coming in, Mr. Baines, as soon as I can contrive to open the door," +replied a male voice, a voice that appeared incapable of expressing +impatience; a gentle voice; the voice of a man who would dream dreams +but perform few actions. + +"Um!... It's you, hey? What d'you allus carry books under your arm for? +How d'you calculate to be able to open doors, with both hands full?" + +The knob turned at last, and Nahum Pound, long schoolmaster in the +little district school on Hiper Hill, came in hesitatingly, clutching +with each arm half a dozen books which struggled to escape with the +ingenuity of inanimate objects. Nahum's hair was white; his face was +vague--lovably vague.... A man of considerable, if confused, learning, +he was. + +"Well?" said Scattergood. "Got suthin' on to your mind? Commence +unloadin' it before it busts your back." + +"It's Sarah," said Nahum, helplessly. + +"Um!... Sairy, eh? What's Sairy up to?" + +"I don't seem to gather, Mr. Baines. She's--she's difficult. Something +seems to be working in her head." + +"Twenty-two, hain't she? Twenty-two?... Prob'ly a number of things +a-workin' in her head. Got any special symptoms?" + +"She--she wants to leave home, Mr. Baines." Nahum said this with mild +amazement. His amazement would have been no greater--and not a whit less +mild--had his daughter announced her intention to swim from New York to +Liverpool, or to marry the chef of the Czar of Russia. + +"Um!... Can't say's that's onnatural--so's to require callin' in a +doctor. Live five mile from town, don't you? Nearest neighbor nigh on to +a mile. Sairy gits to see company only about so often or not so seldom +as that, eh?" Scattergood shut his eyes until there appeared at the +corners of them a network of little wrinkles. "I'm a-goin' to astonish +you, Nahum. This here hain't the first girl that ever come down with the +complaint Sairy's got!... They's been sev'ral. Complaint's older 'n you +or me.... Dum near as old as Deacon Pettybone. Uh-huh!... She's got a +attack of life, Nahum, and the only cure for it ever discovered is to +let her live.... Sairy's woke up out of childhood, Nahum. She's jest +openin' her eyes. Perty soon she'll be stirrin' around brisk.... When +you goin' to drive her in, Nahum? To-morrer?" + +"You--you advise letting her do this thing?" + +"When you goin' to fetch her in, Nahum?" Scattergood repeated. + +"She said she was coming Monday." + +"Um!... G'-by, Nahum." This was Scattergood's invariable phrase of +dismissal, given to friend or enemy alike. It was characteristic of him +that when he was through with a conversation he ended it--and left no +doubt in anybody's mind that it _was_ ended. Nahum withdrew +apologetically. Scattergood called after him, "Fetch her here--to me," +he said, and, automatically, it seemed, reached for the laces of his +shoes. A problem had been presented to him which required a deal of +solving, and Scattergood could not concentrate with toes imprisoned in +leather. He even removed the white woolen socks which Mandy, his wife, +compelled him to wear in the winter season. Presently he was twiddling +his pudgy toes and concentrating on Sarah Pound. He waggled his head. +"After livin' out there," he said to himself, "she'll think Coldriver's +livin'--and so 'tis, so 'tis.... More sometimes 'n 'tis others. +Calculate this is like to be one of 'em...." + +Scattergood was just thinking about dinner on Monday when Nahum Pound +brought his daughter Sarah into the store. One glance at Sarah's face +taught Scattergood that she was in suspicious, if not defiant, mood. If +he had a doubt of the correctness of his observation, Sarah removed it +efficiently. + +"Scattergood Baines," she said, "if you think you're going to boss me +like you do father, and everybody else in this town, you're mistaken. I +won't have it.... Understand that, I won't have it." + +Scattergood rubbed his chin and puffed out his fat cheeks, and smiled +with deceiving mildness. "Sairy," he said, "you needn't to be scairt of +my interferin' with you in your goin's and comin's. I'd sooner stick my +hand into a kittle of b'ilin' pitch than to meddle with a young woman +in your state of mind.... I hain't hankerin' to raise no blisters." + +"I won't stay penned up 'way out there in the country another day. I've +got a right to live. I've got a right to see folks and to go places, +and--to--to live!" + +"To be sure.... To be sure. Jest itchin' to kick the top bar off'n the +pasture fence. Most certain you got a right to live, and nobody hain't +goin' to hender you ... least of all me. But there's jest one +observation I'd sort of like to let loose of, and that's this: Your +life's a whole lot like one of your arms and legs--easy busted. To be +sure, it kin be put in splints and mended up ag'in, but maybe you'll go +limpy or knit crooked so's nothin' kin keep the busted place from +showin'. Bearin' that in mind, if I was you, I wouldn't be too careless +about scramblin' up into places where you was apt to git a fall.... I +calc'late, Sairy, that it's better to miss the view than to fall out of +the tree...." + +"I'm going to see the view if I fall out of every tree I climb," Sarah +said, hotly. + +"Don't object if I find you a boardin' house?" + +"I'm going to board with Grandma Penny that was--Mrs. Spackles." + +Scattergood nodded. "G'-by, Sairy.... G'-by, Nahum." He watched father +and daughter leave the store with a twinkle in his eyes, not a twinkle +of humor, but the twinkle that always came when his interest in life, +always keen, was aroused to a point where it tingled. "Calc'late to be +kep' busy--more 'n ordinary busy," he offered as an opinion to be +digested by the Round Oak stove. Presently he added: "She's perty ... +and bein' perty is kind of a remarkable thing ... bein' perty and +young.... Don't seem like God ought to hold folks accountable fer bein' +young, nor yet fer bein' good to look at ... but they's times when it +seems like He does...." On his way back to the store after dinner, +Scattergood stopped at the bank corner, hesitated a moment, and then +mounted the stairs to the offices above. A door bearing the legend, +"Robert Allen, Attorney at Law," admitted him to a large, bare office, +such as one finds in such towns as Coldriver. + +"Howdy, Bob?" said Scattergood. + +"Good day, Mr. Baines," said the young man behind the desk, who had +suddenly pretended to be very much occupied with important matters as +his door opened. + +"Um!... Busy time, eh? Better come back later." + +"No. No, indeed. Take this chair right here, Mr. Baines. What can I do +for you?" + +"Depends. Uh-huh! Depends.... Calc'late to make a perty good livin', +Bob?" + +"No complaints." + +"Studied it yourself, didn't you--out of books? No college?" + +"Yes." + +"Hard work, wasn't it? Mighty hard work?" + +"It might have been easier," said Bob, wondering what Scattergood was +getting at. + +"Like to be prosecutin' attorney for this county, Bob?" + +Prosecuting attorney! With a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a +year--and the prestige! Bob strove valiantly to maintain a look of +dignified interest, but with ill success. + +"I--I might consider it. Yes, I would consider it." + +"Um!... Figgered you would," said Scattergood, dryly. "Hain't got no +help in the office," he observed. "Need some, don't you? Somebody to +write letters and sort of look after things, eh?" + +"Why--er--I've never thought about it." + +"If you was to think about it, you'd calc'late on payin' about six +dollars a week, wouldn't you?" Bob swallowed hard. Six dollars a week +was a great deal of money to this young man, just embarking on the +practice of his profession. "Guess that would be about right," he said. + +"Got anybody in mind, Bob? Thinkin' of anybody specific for the place?" + +Bob shook his head. + +"Um!... Nahum Pound's daughter's boardin' with Grandma Penny, that's now +Mis' Spackles. All-fired perty girl, Bob. Don't call to mind no pertier. +Sairy's her name.... G'-by, Bob. G'-by." + +He walked to the door, but paused. "About that six dollars, Bob--I was +figgerin' on payin' that out of my own pocket." + +Bob Allen was not accustomed to the oversight of employees--least of all +to an employee who was very satisfying to look at, who was winsomely +young, whose mere presence distracted his thoughts from that rigorous +concentration upon the logical principles of the law.... He did not know +what to do with Sarah once he had hired her, and it required so much of +his time and brain power to think up something for her to do that it is +fortunate his practice was neither large nor arduous. It is no mean +tribute to the young man that he kept Sarah so busy with apparently +necessary matters that she had no occasion to doubt the authenticity of +her employment. + +Bob faced a second difficulty, due to his inexperience, and that was +that he was at a loss how to comport himself toward Sarah, as to how +friendly he should be, and as to how much he should maintain a certain +grave dignity and reserve in his dealings with her. This was a matter +which need not have troubled him, for Nature has a way of taking into +her own keeping the bearing of young men toward young women when the two +are thrown much into each other's company. Propinquity is a tremendous +force in the life of humanity. It has caused as many love affairs as +the kicking of other men's dogs has caused street fights--which numbers +into infinity. Consequently, while Bob worried much and selected a +number of widely differing attitudes--a thing which caused Sarah some +uneasiness and no little speculation as to what sort of disposition her +employer possessed--the solution lay not with him at all. It took care +of itself. + +Scattergood noted the significance of symptoms. He made a mental +memorandum of the fact that Bob Allen was seldom to be seen among the +post-office loafers; that Bob preferred his office to any other spot; +that Bob had ordered a new suit from a city tailor; that Bob wore a +constant air of anxiety and excitement, and--most expressive symptom of +all for a Coldriver young man--he became interested in residence +property, in lots, and in the cost of erecting dwellings.... Scattergood +looked in vain for reciprocal symptoms to be shown by Sarah. But Sarah +was a woman. What symptoms she exhibited were meaningless even to +Scattergood. + +"Bob," said Scattergood, one auspicious day, "got any pref'rence for +prosecutin' attorneys--married or single?" + +"It depends," said Bob, cautiously. + +"Um!... How's Sairy behavin', Bob?" + +"She's--she's--" Bob became incoherent, and then speechless. + +"Calc'late I foller you, Bob.... Git your point of view exact.... About +prosecutin' attorneys, Bob, I prefer 'em married." + +"Mr. Baines," said Bob, "if I could get Sarah Pound to marry me, I +wouldn't give a tinker's dam who was prosecutor." + +"Mishandlin' of fact sim'lar to that," said Scattergood, dryly, "has +been done nigh on to a billion times.... Any idee how Sairy stands on +sich a proposition?" + +"She's about equally fond of me and the letter press," said Bob, +dolefully. + +"Good sign," said Scattergood. Then after a short pause: "Say, Bob, +still rent out drivin' hosses at the livery?... G'-by, Bob." + +Bob was astonished to find how easy it is to ask a girl to go driving +the second time--after you have spent an anxious, dubious, fearsome day +screwing up your courage to ask her the first time. He was delighted, +too, because he even fancied Sarah now discriminated between him and the +letter press--in his favor. Bob came fresh and unsophisticated to the +business in hand, which was courtship. Sarah had never before been +courted, but she recognized a courtship when she saw it at such close +range, and found it delightfully exciting. Bob did his clumsy, earnest, +honest best, and Sarah, somewhat to her surprise, became more satisfied +with the universe and with her share in its destinies.... In short, +matters were progressing as nature intended they should progress, and +Scattergood felt almost that they might be trusted to go forward to a +satisfactory denouement without his interference. + +Then old Solon Beatty died! + +This solved one of Bob Allen's problems; it furnished plenty of +authentic work for Sarah Pound--for Bob was retained as attorney for old +Solon's estate, which he found to be in an amazing state of confusion. +Old Solon left behind him, reluctantly, property of divers kinds, and in +numerous localities, valued at upward of a hundred thousand dollars, +split and invested into as many enterprises and mortgages and savings +accounts as there were dollars! This made work. There were papers to +sort and list, to file and to schedule--clerical work in abundance. It +interfered with the more important business of courtship, but even in +this respect it was not without a certain value. + +"Who's going to get all this money?" Sarah asked, one morning after she +had been listing mortgages until her head ached with the sight of +figures and descriptions. "Does Mary Beatty get it all?" + +"Not unless we find a will somewhere. Everybody thought Solon's +niece--which is Mary Beatty--would get the whole estate. Solon intended +it should go that way, and the Lord knows she's worked for him and +nursed him and coddled him enough to deserve it. Gave her whole life up +to the old codger ... But we can't find a will, and so she won't get but +half. The rest goes to Solon's nephew, Farley Curtis ... under the +statute of descent and distribution, you know," he finished, learnedly. + +"Farley Curtis.... I never heard of him." + +"He's never been here--at least not for years. But he'll be along now. +We're due to see him soon." + +"Correct," said a voice from the door, which had opened silently. In it +stood a young man of dress and demeanor not indigenous to Coldriver. +"You're due to see Farley Curtis--so you behold him. Look me over +carefully. I was due--therefore I arrive." The young man laughed +pleasantly, as if he intended his words to be regarded as whimsical, +yet, somehow, Bob felt the whimsicality to be surface deep; that Curtis +was a young man with much confidence in himself, who felt that if he +were due he would inevitably arrive. + +"Mr. Allen, I suppose," said Curtis, extending his hand. "I am told you +are handling the legal affairs of my late uncle's estate." + +Sarah Pound eyed the newcomer, and as the young men shook hands compared +them, to Bob Allen's disadvantage. To inexperience any comparison must +be to Bob's disadvantage, for Curtis was handsome, dressed with taste, +and gifted with a worldly certainty of manner and an undeniable charm. +Sarah had never encountered all these attributes in a single individual. +She drew on her reading of fiction and knew at once that she was in the +presence of that wonderful creature she had seen described so +frequently--a gentleman. As for Bob Allen, he was big, rugged, careless +of dress, kindly, without pretense of polish.... And besides, to +Curtis's advantage there attached to him a certain literary glamour--of +heirship--and a mystery due to his sudden appearance out of the great +unknown that lay beyond the confines of Coldriver. + +"I am in the dark," said Curtis. "All I know is that Uncle Solon is +dead. It is proper I should come to you for information, is it not? For +instance, there is no harm in asking if there is a will?" + +"None has been found," said Bob, not graciously. He had taken a dislike +to this stranger instinctively, a dislike which increased at an amazing +pace as he noted Curtis's eyes cast admiring glances upon Sarah Pound. + +"In which case," said the young man, "I suppose I may regard myself as +an interested party." + +"Yourself and Miss Beatty are the heirs--so far as has been determined." + +"You have searched all my uncle's papers?" + +"We have gone through them, but not so thoroughly as to reach a final +conclusion. He was a peculiar old man." + +"And no will has been found? No--other papers--" Curtis smiled +deprecatingly. "It is only natural I should be interested," he said, and +smiled at Sarah. + +"Was there anything special you wanted to ask?" + +"Only if there was a will--or other paper." There was a curious +hesitation in Farley Curtis's voice as he spoke the last two words. "I'm +glad, of course, there's not.... Thank you. Think I'll stay in town till +the thing is settled up. Probably see you often. Pleased to have met +you." He included Sarah in the bow with which he took his leave. + +For a few days Farley Curtis lived at the Coldriver House, then moved +to Grandmother Penny's, where Sarah Pound boarded. Secretly Bob Allen +was furious, without apparent cause. He had no reason to draw +conclusions, for boarding houses were scarce in Coldriver. What Sarah +thought of the event was not so easily discovered. + +Bob would naturally have discussed immediately the significance of +Farley Curtis's arrival in Coldriver, with Scattergood, for everybody in +Coldriver went to Scattergood with whatever important occurrence that +befell, but Scattergood was absent on a political mission. When he +returned Bob lost no time in laying the matter before him. + +"Um!... Calculated he'd turn up. Natural.... Acted kind of anxious, eh? +What was it he said about a will--or somethin'?" + +Bob repeated Curtis's conversation minutely. + +"Um!... That young man didn't suspect--he _knew_," said Scattergood, +reaching automatically for his shoes. "What he wanted to know was--has +it been found?... Um!... Not a will. Somethin'. Somethin' he's afraid of +bein' found.... Hain't the kind of feller I'd like to see spendin' old +Solon's money.... Guess you and me'll go through them papers ag'in." + +So with minute care Bob and Scattergood examined the documents and +memoranda and receipts and accounts of Solon Beatty, but no will, no +minute reference to Farley Curtis, was discovered. They went again to +Solon's house to question Mary and to rummage there with the hope of +falling upon some such hiding place as the queer old man might have +chosen as the safe depository of his will. Mary Beatty was not helpful; +middle-aged, with wasted youth behind her; she was even resentful that +her meticulous housekeeping should be disturbed. + +Scattergood and Bob sat down in the parlor, discouraged. It was evident +there was no will. Solon had neglected to attend to that matter until +it was too late.... Scattergood wiggled his feet uneasily and stared at +the motto over the door. + +"Solon didn't run much to religion," he observed. + +"No," said Mary Beatty. + +"Um!... Have a Bible, maybe? One of them big ones?" + +"Up in his room, Mr. Baines. It always laid on the table +there--unopened." + +"Opened it yourself lately, Mary? Been readin' the Scriptures out of +that p'tic'lar book?" + +"No." + +"Um!... Got a kind of a hankerin' to read a verse or two," said +Scattergood. "Come on, Bob. You 'n' me'll peruse Solon's Bible some." + +The huge Bible with its Dore illustrations lay on the marble-topped +table in old Solon's bedroom. Scattergood opened it--found it stiff with +lack of use, its pages clinging together as if their gilt edging had +never been broken.... Bob leaned over Scattergood while the old man +rapidly thumbed the pages.... He brought to light a pressed flower, and +shrugged his shoulders. What moment of softness in the life of a hard +old man did this flower commemorate?... A letter whose ink was faded to +illegibility! Even Solon Beatty had once known the rose-leaf scent of +romance. + +"Nothing there," said Bob. + +"The reason folks seldom find things," said Scattergood, "is that they +say 'Nothin' there' before they've half looked.... They might be any +quantity of things in this Bible that we hain't overhauled yet." The old +man stood a moment frowning down at the book. "Births and deaths," he +said to himself. "Births and deaths--and marryin's...." Rapidly he +turned to the illumined pages on which were set down the family records +of the Beattys. "Um!... Jest sich a place as he'd pick out.... What you +make of this, Bob?" + +Scattergood loosened a sheet of paper which had been lightly glued to +the page. "Hain't got my specs, Bob." + +The young lawyer read it, re-read it aloud. "I, Farley Curtis, one of +the two legal heirs of Solon Beatty, of Coldriver Township, do hereby +acknowledge the receipt of ten thousand dollars, the same to be +considered an advance of my share of the said Solon Beatty's estate. +For, and in consideration of the said ten thousand dollars I hereby +waive all claims to any further participation in the said estate, and +agree that I will not, whether the said Solon Beatty dies testate or +intestate, make any claim against the said estate, nor upon Mary Beatty, +who, by this advance to me, becomes sole heir to the said estate.'" + +Bob drew a long breath. Scattergood stared owlishly at Mary Beatty. + +"Now, what d'you think of that, eh? Shouldn't be s'prised if that was +the i-dentical paper that was weighin' on the mind of young Mr. Curtis. +Shouldn't be a mite s'prised if 'twas." + +"What is it, Mr. Baines?" asked Mary Beatty. "A will?" + +"Wa-al, offhand I'd say it was consid'able better 'n a will. Ya-as.... +Wills kin be busted, but this here docyment--I calc'late it would take +mighty powerful hammerin' to knock it apart." + +"And, Mary," said Bob, "if I were you I shouldn't mention the finding of +it." + +"Not to a soul," said Scattergood. "We'll take it mighty soft and spry +and shet it up in Bob's safe.... Anybody know the combination to it +besides you, Bob?" + +"Nobody but you, Mr. Baines." + +"Oh, me!... To be sure, me." + +"And Miss Pound." "Um!... Sairy, eh? Course.... Sairy." + +Within twenty-four hours everybody in Coldriver knew a paper of great +significance had been discovered affecting the heirs to Solon Beatty's +estate, and that the paper was locked in Bob Allen's safe. Bob had not +talked; Scattergood certainly had been silent, and Mary Beatty solemnly +averred that no word had passed her lips. Yet the fact was there for all +to contemplate.... Farley Curtis devoted an entire day to the +contemplation of it in his room at Grandmother Penny's.... That evening +he invited Sarah Pound to drive with him. She found him a delightful and +entertaining companion. + +Sunday was still two days away when Bob looked up from his desk to say +to Sarah: "This Beatty matter has kept us so busy there hasn't been any +time for pleasure. You must be tired out, Miss Pound. Wouldn't you like +to start early Sunday and drive over to White Pine for dinner--and come +back after the sun goes down? It's a beautiful drive." + +"I'm sorry," said Sarah, flushing with a feeling that was akin to guilt, +"but I am engaged Sunday." + +Bob turned again to his work, cast into sudden gloom, and wondering +jealously what was Sarah's engagement. Sarah, not altogether easy in her +mind, nor wholly pleased with herself, endeavored to justify herself for +being so lightly off with the old and on with the new.... She compared +Bob to Farley Curtis, and found the comparison not in Bob's favor. Not +that this was exactly a justification, but it was a salve. Sarah was in +the shopping period of her life--shopping for a husband, so to speak. +She was entitled to the best she could get ... and Bob did not seem to +be the best. Farley was sprightly, interesting, with the manners of a +more effete world than Coldriver; Bob was awkward, ofttimes silent, +lacking polish. Farley was solicitous in small matters that Bob failed +utterly to perceive; Farley was always skilled in minute points of +decorum, whose very existence was unknown to Bob. In short, Farley was +altogether fascinating, while Bob, at best, was commonplace. Yet, not in +her objective mind, but deep in her centers of intuition, she was +conscious of a hesitancy, conscious of something that urged her toward +Bob and warned her against Farley Curtis. + +On Sunday Bob saw Sarah drive away with Curtis--and spent a black day of +jealousy and heartburning. During the succeeding two weeks he spent many +black days and sleepless nights, for Curtis monopolized Sarah's leisure, +and Sarah seemed to have thrown discretion to the winds and clothed +herself against fear of Coldriver's gossip, for she seemed to give her +company almost eagerly to the stranger.... And Coldriver talked. + +Bob spoke bitterly of the matter to Scattergood. + +"Um!..." grunted Scattergood, "don't seem to recall any statute +forbiddin' any young feller to git him any gal he kin. Eh?" + +"No. But this Curtis--there's something wrong there. He isn't intending +to play fair.... I--He's got some kind of a purpose, Mr. Baines." + +"Think so, eh? What kind of a purpose?" Scattergood had his own ideas on +this subject, but did not disclose them. It was in his mind that Curtis +cultivated Sarah because of Sarah's propinquity of a certain paper which +the man had reason to believe was in Bob Allen's safe. + +Bob's face was set and stern, granite as the hills among which he had +been born and which had become a part of his nature. "If he doesn't play +fair ... if he should--hurt her ... I'd take him apart, Mr. Baines." + +"Calc'late you would," said Scattergood, tranquilly, "but there's a law +in sich case, made and pervided, callin' that kind of amusement +murder ..." + +It was not Scattergood's custom to publish his emotions; nevertheless +he was worried. He appreciated the state of mind which had brought Sarah +to Coldriver--the spirit of restless, resentful youth, demanding the +world for its plaything. He knew Sarah's high temper, her eagerness for +adventure.... He knew that thousands of girls before her had been +fascinated by well-told tales of the life to be lived out in the world +of cities, of wealth, of artificial gayeties ... the lure of travel, of +excitement.... And Scattergood did not covet the duty of carrying a +woeful story to old Nahum Pound, the gentle schoolmaster. + +His uneasiness was not decreased by a bit of unpremeditated +eavesdropping that fell in his way the next evening.... Farley Curtis +was talking, Sarah Pound was listening--eagerly. + +"You can't understand what living is," the man was saying, "How could +you? You haven't lived. Here in this backwater you will never live.... +You move around in a fog of monotony. Every day the same. But out +there.... Everything! Everything you want and can imagine is there for +the taking. A beautiful woman can take what she wants--that's what it's +all for--for her to help herself to. Life and excitement and +pleasure--and love ... they are all out there waiting." + +Sarah sighed. + +"Did you ever try to imagine Paris, London, Madrid, Rome?" he went on. +"You can't do it.... But you can see them. I--I would take you if you +would let me ... if things fall out right. I'm poor ...but with this +Beatty money I could take you anywhere. It would give us everything we +want.... Half of that money belongs to me rightfully, doesn't it?" + +"I suppose so." + +"But I may not get it." + +She was silent. + +"There is a paper," he said, "and that paper may stand between you and +me--and Paris and Rome and the world...." He paused, and then said, +carelessly: "Won't you go with me, Sarah--away from this? Won't you let +me take you, to love and to make happy?" + +Presently she spoke, so low her voice was scarcely audible to +Scattergood. "I don't know.... I don't know," she said. + +Scattergood had heard enough. He stole away silently. The time had come +to act, if he were going to act ... if no woeful story were to be +carried to old Nahum Pound concerning his daughter. He might even be too +late.... The lure of great cities and foreign shores might have done its +work, and Farley Curtis's eloquence have served its purpose. + +In the morning Bob Allen was early at his office. His first act was to +open the safe to take out a packet of papers he had been laboring over +the afternoon before.... The packet was not where he had placed it the +night before. He remembered distinctly how he had shoved it into a +certain pigeonhole.... It was not there. He found it in the compartment +below.... Bob was not easily startled or frightened, so now he paused +and took his memory to account. No.... The fault was not with his +memory. He had done exactly as he remembered doing.... Somebody had +opened that safe since he closed it; somebody had fingered its +contents.... He caught his breath, not at the fear of loss, but in +sudden terror of the means by which that loss had been brought about, +the person who might have been the instrument.... Furiously he began +going over the contents of the safe--money, securities, papers. +Everything seemed intact. But one thing remained--the little drawer. He +had put off opening that, because he dreaded to open it, for it +contained the paper that excluded Farley Curtis from a share in his +uncle's estate.... Bob compelled himself to turn the little key, to +open the drawer.... It was empty!... + +Bob walked slowly to his desk and sat down, his eyes fixed upon the safe +as if it fascinated him.... Facts, facts! His soul demanded facts. Those +at hand were few, simple. First, the safe had been opened by some one +who knew the combination. Three persons existed who might have opened +it--or betrayed its combination: Scattergood, himself, Sarah Pound.... +Second, he knew he had not opened it nor betrayed the combination. +Third, he was equally certain Scattergood had not done so.... Fourth--he +groaned!... + +Bob comprehended what had happened; why Farley Curtis had wooed so +persistently Sarah Pound. It was not out of love nor desire, but for a +more sordid purpose ... it was to win her love, to blind her to honor, +to make a tool of her, and through her to secure possession of that bit +of paper which stood between him and riches. + +Presently Sarah Pound entered. Bob could not force himself to look at +her; did not speak. She gazed at him curiously, and when she saw the +grayness of his face, the lines about his mouth, and eyes that advanced +his age by twenty years, she felt a little catch at her heart, a +breathlessness, a sudden alarm. + +"Miss Pound," he said, in a voice which he himself could not recognize +as his own, "you needn't take off your hat.... You--you actually came +back here! You were bold enough to come again to this office.... I +fancied you would be gone--from Coldriver." His voice broke queerly. "I +suppose you realize what you have done--and are satisfied with the +price--the price of forfeiting the respect of every honest man and woman +you know! That is a great deal to give up. It ought to command a high +price--treachery.... I hope you are getting a sufficient return.... It +means nothing to you, of course, but--I loved you. I thought about you +as a man thinks about the woman he hopes will be his wife ... and his +children's mother ... so it--pains--to find you despicable...." + +Sarah's little fists clenched, her eyes glinted. + +"How dare you?" she cried. "What affair is it of yours what I do?... +You're a silly, jealous idiot." With which childish invective she flung +out of the office. + +In an hour Bob Allen was calmer, and so the more unhappy. His mind +cleared, and, being cleared, it directed him to carry his trouble to +Scattergood Baines. + +"Um!... Gone, eh?" said Scattergood. "Sure it's gone?... Um!..." + +"Yes, and Sarah Pound will be gone, too. How dared she come back to my +office?... Now she'll go with Curtis." + +"Shouldn't be s'prised," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "I heard +Farley a-pointin' out to her the _dee_-sirability of Paris and Rome and +sich European p'ints last night.... You calculate Sairy took the paper?" + +"What else can I think?" + +"To be sure.... Um!... Paris, Rome, London--might be argued into +stealin' it myself, if I was a gal. Um!... Ever see a toad ketch flies, +Bob? Does it with his tongue. There's toad men, Bob, that goes huntin' +wimmin the same way--with their tongues. Su'prisin' the number and +quality they ketch, too. What was you plannin' on doin', Bob? Goin' back +to your office, wasn't you? And keepin' your mouth shet? Was that the +idee? Eh?" + +"I don't know what to do, Mr. Baines." + +"Didn't figger on droppin' around to Grandma Penny's boardin' house +about eight sharp, did you? Eight sharp.... And kind of settin' down +quiet on the front porch? Jest settin'? Eh?... G'-by, Bob." + +After Bob left the store Scattergood sat half an hour staring at the +stove; then he left the store to its own devices and wandered up the +street toward Grandmother Penny's. He encountered Sarah Pound as she +came out through the gate. + +"Howdy, Sairy?" he said, cheerfully. "Havin' consid'able amusement with +life--eh?" + +"I've been enjoying myself, Mr. Baines," Sarah said, making an effort at +coldness and dignity. + +"Bet you hain't enjoyin' yourself enough to warrant your doin' a favor +for an old feller like me, eh?... This evenin', for instance?" + +"I--I'm going away this evening." + +"Um!... Goin' away, eh? Alone? Or along with somebody?" + +"That's my own affair." + +"To be sure.... To be sure, but the train don't leave till nine, does +it? Couldn't manage to do me a favor at eight?" + +"What is the favor, Mr. Baines?" + +"'Tain't much. Sca'cely anythin' a-tall. I calc'late to be a-settin' in +Grandma Penny's parlor at eight sharp. I won't keep you waitin' more 'n +a second--unless somebody happens to be with me a-talkin' my arm off. If +they hain't nobody with me, why, you walk right in. If they is somebody, +why, you jest stand outside of the door a second, and they'll be gone. +Then you come in. But don't come rompin' in if you hear voices. It's a +mite of business, and 'twon't take but a second. Calc'late you kin +manage that, eh?" + +"Yes," she said, shortly. + +"Promise?" + +"Yes." + +"G'-by, Sairy." + +At five minutes before eight Scattergood Baines rapped at Grandmother +Penny's door and asked to speak to Farley Curtis, "Tell him it's +somethin' p'tic'lar reegardin' the Beatty estate," he said, and stepped +into the parlor. Farley appeared almost instantly; dapper, his usual +courteous, self-possessed self. Scattergood began a peculiar and +roundabout conversation after the manner of a man who fears to broach a +subject plainly. Farley showed his irritation. + +"Mr. Baines," he said, "suppose you get down to business. I'm going away +this evening." + +"To be sure.... To be sure. It's overlappin' eight now, hain't it?" +Scattergood paused, listening. He fancied he heard some one approach and +halt just outside the door. He was certain that a chair creaked on the +porch outside the window.... He cleared his throat and drew a big yellow +envelope from his pocket. + +"Calculate I'm ready for business, if you be.... Which d'you calc'late +is most desirable--havin' half a loaf, or no bread?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"You come to Coldriver on business, didn't you? Money business?" + +"Why I came is my own affair." + +"Certain.... Certain.... But things gets noised about. Things has got +noised about concernin' a paper that stands betwixt you and half of the +Beatty estate. Heard 'em myself." Scattergood waggled the envelope. "I +hain't exactly objectin' to makin' a leetle quick money +myself--supposin' it kin be done safe, and the blame, if they is any, +throwed somewheres else.... Now, Mr. Curtis, what kind of a course would +you foller if that paper we been talkin' about was to fall into the +hands of a feller that felt like I do about makin' money?" + +"What do you mean?" Farley demanded, moving forward eagerly in his +chair. + +"Hain't good at guessin', be you?" + +"That paper doesn't worry me," said Farley. "Calc'lated on havin' it +before you took the train to-night, eh?" + +Farley scowled. + +"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I wasn't seein' sich a chance to make a dollar slip +by. The way you was figgerin' on gittin' that paper, Mr. Curtis, won't +work. I know. Uh-huh! I know, because I got ahead of you. I got that +paper myself.... And we kin deal if I kin be made to feel safe.... Most +things leaks out through wimmin.... Hain't mixin' any wimmin into this, +be you?" + +"No." + +"Um!... How about Sairy Pound?" + +Curtis shrugged his shoulders. + +"Calc'latin' on takin' her away with you to-night?" + +"Not now," said Farley. + +"Seein's how you can't use her to git this paper for you, eh? That it?" + +"Yes." + +"Calc'lated on marryin' her, didn't you?" + +"Fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Curtis, harshly. + +"Understand me, I hain't takin' chances.... If this gal's mixed up in +this, I don't deal." + +"Do I look like a man who would let a silly, backwoods idiot of a girl +stand between me and money? I'm through with her. She's no use to me +now. You've said that yourself.... She's nothing to me." + +"Good.... I got the paper right here, and I'm a-listenin' to your offer +for it...." + +"Ten thous--" began Farley, but a swift, furious thrusting open of the +parlor door interrupted, as Sarah Pound flung herself into the room. For +a moment she was speechless with rage.... Shame would come later.... +"You contemptible--contemptible--contemptible--" she cried, +breathlessly. "It was a thing like you I--I could choose!... I could +throw away a man for you!... For a suit of clothes, and manners, and a +lying tongue.... I could compare Bob Allen with you--and choose you!... +Oh!..." + +"Sairy," said Scattergood. + +"But I never would have done it--not that. I'd never have taken that +paper.... You know I wouldn't, Mr. Baines. Say you know that...." + +"Wa-al," said Scattergood, dryly, "they hain't no tellin' how fur a +woman'll go when she's bein' bamboozled by a scamp--so I kind of insured +ag'in' your takin' it by takin' it myself.... Er--Mr. Curtis, if I was +you, I'd sort of slip out soft by the back door. Bob Allen's a-waitin' +for you on the front porch.... There's a train at nine." + +Scattergood put a clumsy arm about Sarah, who, the moment her wrathful +energy ebbed away, sobbed and sobbed and sobbed with shame and fear. + +"Hey, out there," shouted Scattergood, "git a move on you!" + +Bob Allen needed no urging. His arm was substituted for Scattergood's, +his breast for Scattergood's--and Sarah made no complaint. "I +wouldn't.... I wouldn't.... You thought I did," she murmured. + +"I thought that," said Bob, brokenly. "How can you ever forgive me?... +I--But I love you, Sarah. Won't that make up for it?" + +"You--believed it," she repeated, and Scattergood grinned. + +"Dummed if she hain't managed to put him in the wrong.... You can't beat +wimmin.... She's put him in the wrong." + +Scattergood peered at them a moment, saw what filled him with perfect +satisfaction, and discreetly withdrew. He went out and sat on the porch +and beamed up at the stars.... He sat there a long, long time, and +nobody called him in. He got up, pressed his nose against the window, +and rapped on the glass. + +"Everybody forgiv' and fixed up," he called, "so's I kin git to bed with +an easy mind?" + +There was no answer. He had not been heard--but what he saw was answer +sufficient for any man. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Scattergood Baines, by Clarence Budington Kelland + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13307 *** diff --git a/13307-h/13307-h.htm b/13307-h/13307-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a3c085 --- /dev/null +++ b/13307-h/13307-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11567 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= + "text/html; charset=UTF-8"> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Scattergood Baines, by Clarence Budington Kelland. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13307 ***</div> + +<h1>SCATTERGOOD BAINES</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> +<h2>CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND</h2> + +<h6>Author of</h6> +<h5>"<i>The High Flyers</i>," "<i>The Little Moment of Happiness</i>,"<br /> +"<i>Sudden Jim</i>," "<i>Youth Challenges</i>," etc.</h5> +<br /> + +<center> +<img src="images/001.jpg" height="462" width="300" alt="Frontispiece"> +</center> +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I. HE INVADES COLDRIVER</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II. SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III. THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV. HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V. HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI. INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII. HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII. HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX. HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X. HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI. HE INVESTS IN SALVATION</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII. THE SON THAT WAS DEAD</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII. HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV. HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE</b></a><br> +</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a><h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>HE INVADES COLDRIVER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner +of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear +past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the +grocery—he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat.</p> + +<p>It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the +railroad, subsisting on the country, as it were, and sagged down on the +porch of Locker's grocery just before sundown. It is not implied that he +walked all of the twenty-four miles in that single day. Huge bodies move +deliberately.</p> + +<p>He sagged down on Locker's porch, and it is reported the corner of the +porch sagged with him. George Peddie has it from his grandfather, who +was an eyewitness, that Scattergood did not so much as turn his head to +look at the assembled manhood of the vicinity, but with infinite pains +and audible grunts, succeeded in bringing first one foot, then the +other, within reach of his hands, and removed his shoes. Following this +he sighed with a great contentment and twiddled his bare toes openly and +flagrantly in the eyes of all Coldriver. He is said now to have uttered +the first words to fall from his mouth in the town where were to lie his +life's unfoldings and fulfillments. They were significant—in the light +of subsequent activities.</p> + +<p>"One of them railroads runnin' up here," said he to the mountain just +across the road from him, "would have spared me close to a dozen +blisters."</p> + +<p>Conversation had expired on Scattergood's arrival, and the group on the +porch converted itself into an audience. It was an audience that got its +money's worth. Not for an instant did the attention of a single member +of it stray away from this Godsend come to furnish them with their first +real topic of conversation since Crazy French stole a box of Paris +green, mistaking it for a new sort of pancake flour.</p> + +<p>Scattergood arose ponderously and limped out into the middle of the +dusty road. From this vantage point he slowly and conscientiously +studied the village.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" he said. "'Twouldn't pay to do all that walkin' just for a +visit. Calc'late I'll have to settle."</p> + +<p>He walked directly back to the absorbed group of leading citizens, his +shoes dangling, one in each hand, and addressed them genially.</p> + +<p>"Your town," said he, "is growin'. Its population jest increased by me."</p> + +<p>"Sizable growth," said Old Man Penny, dryly, letting his eye rove over +Scattergood's bulk.</p> + +<p>"My line," said Scattergood, "is anythin' needful. Outside of a +railroad, what you figger you need most?"</p> + +<p>Nobody answered.</p> + +<p>"Is it a grocery store?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Locker stiffened in his chair. "Me and Sam Kittleman calc'lates to sell +all the groceries this town needs," he said.</p> + +<p>"How about dry goods?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Old Man Penny and Wade Lumley stirred to life at this.</p> + +<p>"Lumley and me takes care of the dry goods," said the old man.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh! How about a clothin' store?"</p> + +<p>"We got all the clothin' stores there's room for," said Lafe Atwell. "I +run it."</p> + +<p>"Kind of got the business of this town sewed up, hain't you?" +Scattergood asked, admiringly. "Wouldn't look with favor on any more +stores?"</p> + +<p>"We calculate to keep what business we got," said Old Man Penny. "A +outsider would have a hard time makin' a go of it here."</p> + +<p>"Quite likely," said Scattergood. "Still, you never can tell. Let some +feller come in here with a gen'ral store, sellin' for cash—and cuttin' +prices, eh? How would an outsider git along if he done that? Up-to-date +store. Fresh goods. Low prices. Eh? Calc'late some of you fellers would +have to discharge a clerk."</p> + +<p>"You hain't got money enough to start a store," Old Man Penny squawked. +"Why, you hain't even got a satchel! You come walkin' in like a tramp."</p> + +<p>"There's tramps—and tramps," said Scattergood, placidly. He reached far +down into a trousers pocket and tugged to the light of day a roll that +his fingers could not encircle. He looked at it fondly, tossed it up in +the air a couple of times and caught it, and then held it between thumb +and forefinger until the eyes of his audience had assured themselves +that the outside bill was yellow and its denomination twenty dollars.... +The audience gulped.</p> + +<p>"Meals to the tavern perty good?" Coldriver's new citizen asked.</p> + +<p>"Say," demanded Locker, "be you really thinkin' about startin' a cash +store here?"</p> + +<p>"Neighbor," said Scattergood, "never give up valuable information +without gittin' somethin' for it. How much money would a complete and +careful account of my intentions be worth to you?"</p> + +<p>Locker snorted. "Bet that wad of bills is a dummy with a counterfeit +twenty outside of it," he said.</p> + +<p>Scattergood smiled tantalizingly. Locker had not, fortunately for +Scattergood, the least idea how close to the truth he had been. On one +point only had he been mistaken. The twenty outside was <i>not</i> +counterfeit. However, except for three fives, four twos, and ninety +cents in silver, it represented Scattergood's total cash capital.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin'," said Scattergood, "to order me <i>two</i> suppers. Two! From +bean soup to apple pie. It's my birthday. Twenty-six to-day, and I +always eat two suppers on my birthdays.... Glad you leadin' citizens see +fit to give me such a hearty welcome to your town. Right kind and +generous of you."</p> + +<p>He turned and ambled down the road toward the tavern, planting his bare +feet with evident pleasure in the deepest of the warm sand, and flirting +up little clouds of it behind him. The audience saw him seat himself on +the tavern steps and pull on his shoes. They were too far to hear him +say speculatively to himself: "I never heard tell of a man gittin' a +start in life jest that way—but <i>that</i> hain't any reason it can't be +done. I'm goin' to do this town good, and this valley. Hain't no more 'n +fair them leadin' citizens should give me what help they feel they kin."</p> + +<p>Scattergood ate with ease and pleasure two complete suppers—to the +openly expressed admiration of Emma, the waitress. Very shortly +afterward he retired to his room, where, not trusting to the sturdiness +of the bed-slats provided, he dragged mattress and bedding to the floor +and was soon emitting snores that Landlord Coombs assured his wife was +the beat of anybody ever slept in the house not countin' that travelin' +man from Boston. Next morning Scattergood was about early, padding +slowly up and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was +studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had +been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for +purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in +Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a +permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really +was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and after reflection.</p> + +<p>True, he had but a moment's glimpse of Coldriver before he decided he +had moved there, but the glimpse showed him the location was the one he +had been searching for.... Scattergood's specialty, his hobby, was +valleys. Valleys down which splashed and roared sizable streams, whose +mountain sides were covered with timber, and whose flats were +comfortable farms—such valleys interested him with an especial +interest. But the valley he had been looking for was one with but a +single possible <i>outlet</i>. He wanted a valley whose timber and produce +and products could not go climbing off across the hills, over a number +of easy roads, to market. His valley must be hemmed in. The only way to +market must lie <i>down</i> the valley, with the river. And the river that +flowed down his valley must be swift, with sufficient volume all twelve +months of the year to turn possible mill wheels.... As yet he thought +only of the direct application of power. He had not dreamed yet of great +turbine generators which should transport thousands of horse power, +written in terms of electricity, hundreds of miles across country, there +to light cities and turn the wheels of huge manufactories....</p> + +<p>Coldriver Valley was that valley! He felt it as soon as he turned into +it; certainty increased as he progressed between those gigantic walls +black with tall, straight, beautiful spruce. So, when he sat shoeless, +resting his blistered feet on Locker's porch, he was ready to make his +decision. The mere making of it was a negligible detail.</p> + +<p>So Scattergood Baines found his valley. He entered it consciously as an +invader, determined to conquer. Pitiful as were the resources of Cortez +as he adventured against the power of Montezuma, or of Pizarro as he +clambered over the Peruvian Andes, they were gigantic compared with +Scattergood's. He was starting to make <i>his</i> conquest backed by one +twenty, three fives, four twos, and ninety cents in silver. It was +obvious to him the country to be conquered must supply the sinews of war +for its own conquest.</p> + +<p>Every village has its ramshackle, disused store building. Coldriver had +one, especially well located, and not so ramshackle as it might have +been. It was big; its front was crossed by a broad porch; its show +windows were not show windows at all, but were put there solely to give +light. Coldriver did not know there was such a thing as inviting +patronage by skillful display.</p> + +<p>"Sonny," said Scattergood to a boy digging worms in the shade of the +building, "who owns this here ruin?"</p> + +<p>"Old Tom Plummer," said the boy, and was even able to disclose where old +Tom was to be found. Scattergood found him feeding a dozen White +Orpingtons.</p> + +<p>"Best layers a man can keep," said Scattergood, sincerely. "Man's got to +have brains to even raise chickens."</p> + +<p>"I git more eggs to the hen than anybody else in town," said old Tom, +"but nobody listens to me."</p> + +<p>"Own a store buildin' downtown, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to."</p> + +<p>"If you was to git a chance to rent it, how much would it be a month?"</p> + +<p>"Repairs or no repairs?"</p> + +<p>"No repairs."</p> + +<p>"Twenty dollars."</p> + +<p>"G'mornin'," said Scattergood, and turned toward the gate.</p> + +<p>"What's your hurry, mister?"</p> + +<p>"Can't bear to stay near a man that mentions so much money in a breath," +said Scattergood, with his most ingratiating grin.</p> + +<p>"How much could you stay and hear?"</p> + +<p>"Not over ten."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Seein' the buildin's in poor shape, I'll call it fifteen."</p> + +<p>"Twelve-fifty's as far's I'll go—on a five-year lease," said +Scattergood. It will be seen he fully intended to become permanent.</p> + +<p>"What you figger on usin' it fur?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe a opry house, maybe a dime museum, maybe a carpenter shop, and +maybe somethin' else. I hain't mentionin' jest what, but it's +law-abidin' and respectable."</p> + +<p>"Five-year lease, eh? Twelve-fifty."</p> + +<p>"Two months' rent in advance," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Squire Hastings'll draw the papers," said old Tom, heading for the +gate. Scattergood followed, and in half an hour was the lessee of a +store building, bound to pay rent for five years, with more than half +his capital vanished—with no stock of goods or wherewith to procure +one, with not even a day's experience in any sort of merchandising to +his credit.</p> + +<p>His next step was to buy ten yards of white cloth, a small paint brush, +and a can of paint. Ostentatiously he borrowed a stepladder and +stretched the cloth across the front of his store, from post to post. +Then, equally ostentatiously, he mounted the stepladder and began to +paint a sign. He was not unskilled in the business of lettering. The +sign, when completed, read:</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>CASH AND CUT PRICES IS MY MOTTO</span><br /> + +<p>Having completed this, he bought a pail, a mop, and a broom, and +proceeded to a thorough housecleaning of his premises.</p> + +<p>Old Man Penny and Locker and the rest of the merchants were far from +oblivious to Scattergood's movements. No sooner had his sign appeared +than every merchant in town—excepting Junkin, the druggist, who sold +wall paper and farm machinery as side lines—went into executive session +in the back room of Locker's store.</p> + +<p>"He means business," said Locker.</p> + +<p>"Leased that store for five year," said Old Man Penny.</p> + +<p>"Cash, and Cut Prices," quoted Atwell, "and you fellers know our folks +would pass by their own brothers to save a penny. He'll force us to cut, +too."</p> + +<p>"Me—I won't do it," asserted Kettleman.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll eat your stock," growled Locker.</p> + +<p>"Fellers," said Atwell, "if this man gits started it's goin' to cost all +of us money. He'll draw some trade, even if he don't cut prices. Safe to +figger he'll git a sixth of it. And a sixth of the business in this +region is a pretty fair livin'. If he goes slashin' right and left, +nobody kin tell how much trade he'll draw."</p> + +<p>"We should 'a' leased that store between us. Then nobody could 'a' come +in."</p> + +<p>"But we didn't. And it's goin' to cost us money. If he puts in clothing +it'll cost me five hundred dollars a year in profits, anyhow. Maybe +more. And you other fellers clost to as much."</p> + +<p>"But we can't do nothin'."</p> + +<p>"We can buy him off," said Atwell.</p> + +<p>The meeting at that moment became noisy. Epithets were applied with +freedom to Scattergood, and even to Atwell, for these were not men who +loved to part with their money. However, Atwell showed them the economy +of it. It was either for them to suffer one sharp pang now, or to endure +a greater dragging misery. They went in a body to call upon Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, neighbors!" Scattergood said, genially.</p> + +<p>"We're the merchants of this town," said Old Man Penny, shortly.</p> + +<p>"So I judged," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"There's merchants enough here," the old man roared on. "Too many. We +don't want any more. We don't want you should start up any business +here."</p> + +<p>"You're too late. It's started. I've leased these premises."</p> + +<p>"But you hain't no stock in."</p> + +<p>"I calc'late on havin' one shortly," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in +his eye, whose meaning was kindly concealed from the five.</p> + +<p>"What'll you take not to order any stock?" asked Atwell, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Figger on buyin' me off, eh? Now, neighbors, I've been lookin' for a +place like this, and I calc'late on stayin'. I'm goin' to become +all-fired permanent here."</p> + +<p>"Give you a hundred dollars," said Old Man Penny.</p> + +<p>"Apiece?" asked Scattergood, and laughed jovially. "It's my busy day, +neighbors. Better call in again."</p> + +<p>"What's your figger to pull out now—'fore you're started?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no figger, but if I had I calc'late it would be about a +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Give you two hundred," said Old Man Penny.</p> + +<p>Scattergood picked up his mop. "If you fellers really mean business, +talk business. I've figgered my profits in this store, countin' in low +prices, wouldn't be a cent under a couple of thousand the first +year.... And you know it. That's what you're fussin' around here for. +Now fish or git to bait cuttin'."</p> + +<p>"Five hundred dollars," said Atwell, and Old Man Penny moaned.</p> + +<p>"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "You men git back here inside +of an hour with seven hundred and fifty <i>cash</i>, and lay it in my hand, +and I'll agree not to sell groceries, dry goods, notions, millinery, or +men or women's clothes in this town for a term of twenty year."</p> + +<p>They drew off and scolded one another, and glowered at Scattergood, but +came to scratch. "It's jest like robbery," said Old Man Penny, +tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Keep your money," retorted Scattergood. "I'm satisfied the way things +is at present."</p> + +<p>Within the hour they were back with seven hundred and fifty dollars in +bills, a lawyer, and an agreement, which Scattergood read with minute +attention. It bound him not to sell, barter, trade, exchange, deal, or +in any way to derive a profit from the handling of groceries, dry goods, +notions, millinery, clothing, and gent's furnishings. It contained no +hidden pitfalls, and Scattergood was satisfied. He signed his name and +thrust the roll of bills into his pocket.... Then he picked up his mop +and went to work as hard as ever.</p> + +<p>"Say," Old Man Penny said, "what you goin' ahead for? You jest agreed +not to."</p> + +<p>"There wasn't nothin' said about moppin'," grinned Scattergood, "and +there wasn't nothin' said about hardware and harness and farm +implements, neither. If you don't b'lieve me, jest read the agreement. +What I'm doin', neighbors, is git this place cleaned out to put in the +finest cash, cut-price, up-to-date hardware store in the state. And +thank you, neighbors. You've done right kindly by a stranger...."</p> + +<p>To this point the history of Scattergood Baines has been for the most +part legendary; now we begin to encounter him in the public records, for +deeds, mortgages, and the like begin to appear with his name upon them. +His history becomes authentic.</p> + +<p>Seven hundred and fifty dollars is not much when put into hardware, but +Scattergood had no intention of putting even that into a stock of goods. +He had a notion that the right kind of man, with five hundred dollars, +could get credit to twice that amount, and as for farm machinery, he +could sell by catalogue or on commission. His suspicion was proven to be +fact.</p> + +<p>But it was not in Scattergood to sit idle while he waited for his stock +to arrive. Coldriver doubtless thought him idle, but he was studying the +locality and the river with the eye of a commander who knew this was to +be his battlefield. What Scattergood wanted now was to place himself +astride Coldriver Valley, somewhere below the village, so that he could +control the upper reaches of the stream. It was not difficult to find +such a location. It lay three miles below town, at the junction of the +north and south branches of Coldriver. The juncture was in a big, +marshy, untillable flat, from which hills rose abruptly. From the +easterly end of the flat the augmented river squeezed in a roaring +rapids through a sort of bottle neck.</p> + +<p>Scattergood stood on the hillside and looked upon this with satisfied +eye.</p> + +<p>"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that +flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy, +maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build. +And," he scratched his head as a sort of congratulation to it for its +efficiency, "I can't study out how anybody's agoin' to git logs past +here without dickerin' with the man who owns the dam...." Plenty of +water twelve months a year to give free power; a flat made to order for +reservoir or log pond; a complete and effective blockade of both +branches of the river which came down from a country richly timbered! It +was one of the spots Scattergood had dreamed of.</p> + +<p>Scattergood knew perfectly well he could not stop a log from passing his +dam. Nor could he shut off the stream. Any dam he built must have a +sluice which could be opened for the passage of timber, and all timber +was entitled to "natural water." But, as he well knew, "natural water" +was not always enough. A dam at this point would raise the level on the +bars of the flat so that logs would not jam, and a log which used the +high water caused by the dam must pay for it. What Scattergood had in +mind was a dam and boom company. It was his project to improve the +river, to boom backwaters, to dynamite ledges, to make the river +passable to logs in spring and fall. It was his idea that such a +company, in addition to demanding pay for the use of "improvements," +could contract with lumbermen up the river to drive their logs.... And a +mill at this point! Scattergood fairly licked his lips as he thought of +the millions upon millions of feet of spruce to be sawed into lumber.</p> + +<p>The firm foundation that Scattergood's strategy rested upon was that +lumbering had not really started in the valley. The valley had not +opened up, but lay undeveloped, waiting to be stirred to life. +Scattergood's strength lay in that he could see ahead of to-day, and was +patient to wait for the developments that to-morrow must bring. To-day +his foresight could get for him what would be impossible to-morrow. If +he stepped softly he could obtain a charter from the state to develop +that river, which, when lumbering interests became actually engaged, +would be fought by them to the last penny.... And he felt in his bones +that day would not long be delayed.</p> + +<p>The land Scattergood required was owned by three individuals. All of it +was worthless—except to a man of vision—so, treading lightly, +Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not +direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to +sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the +river, he tried to sell the newest development in mowing machines, and +his manner of doing so was to hitch to the newly arrived machine, haul +it to Landers's meadow—where the owner was haying—drag it through +the gate, and unhitch.</p> + +<p>"Here," he said, "try this here machine. Won't cost you nothin' to try +it, and I'm curious to see if it works as good as they say."</p> + +<p>Landers was willing. It worked better. Landers regarded the machine +longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers.</p> + +<p>"Might afford a swap?"</p> + +<p>"Might. What you got in mind?"</p> + +<p>"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that +marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good +medder."</p> + +<p>Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to +you for this here mowin' machine."</p> + +<p>"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by +accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers. +Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something +like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the +hardware merchant of a machine.</p> + +<p>One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen +stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a +keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve +dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the +deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with +pitying scorn.</p> + +<p>Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to +the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was +often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of +this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the +legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a +state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard +of that charter they held their sides and roared.</p> + +<p>Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he +would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied +he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would +hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty +thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly +lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and +operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had +acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come +when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley.</p> + +<p>Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them +took train to Coldriver.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling +hardware in his own way—and selling a good deal of it. His store had a +new front, his stock was augmented. It was his business to sell goods, +and he sold them.</p> + +<p>For instance, Lem Jones stopped and hitched his team before the store, +one chilly day. His horses he covered with old burlap, lacking blankets. +While Lem was buying groceries, Scattergood selected two excellent +blankets, carried them out, and put them on the horses. Then he went +back into the store to attend to other matters. Presently Lem came in.</p> + +<p>"Where'd them blankets come from?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Hosses looked a mite chilly," said Scattergood, without interest, "so I +covered 'em."</p> + +<p>"Bleeged," said Lem. Then, awkwardly, "I calc'late I need a pair of +blankets, but I can't afford 'em this year. Wife's been sick—"</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Scattergood, "I know. If you want them blankets take 'em +along. Pay me when you kin.... Jest give me a sort of note for a +memorandum. Glad to accommodate you."</p> + +<p>So Scattergood marketed his blankets, taking in exchange a perfectly +good, interest-bearing note. Also, he made a friend, for Lem could not +be convinced but Scattergood had done him a notable favor.</p> + +<p>Scattergood now had money in the bank. No longer did he have to stretch +his credit for stock. He was established—and all in less than a year. +Hardware, it seemed, had been a commodity much needed in that locality, +yet no one had handled it in sufficient stock because of the +twenty-four-mile haul. That had been too costly. It cost Scattergood +just as much, but his customers paid for it.... The difference between +him and the other merchants was that he sold goods while they allowed +folks to buy.</p> + +<p>So, wisely, he kept on building up in a small way, while waiting for +bigger things to develop. And as he waited he studied the valley until +he could recite every inch of it, and he studied the future until he +knew what the future would require of that valley. He knew it before the +future knew it and before the valley knew it, and was laying his plans +to be ready with pails to catch the sap when others, taken by surprise, +would be running wildly about seeking for buckets.</p> + +<p>Then Crane and Keith arrived in Coldriver.... That day marked +Scattergood's emergence from the ranks of country merchants, though he +retained his hardware store to the last. That day marked distinctly +Scattergood's launching on a greater body of water. For forty years he +sailed it with varying success, meeting failures sometimes, scoring +victories; but interesting, characteristic in every phase—a genius in +his way and a man who never took the commonplace course when the unusual +was open to him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you've looked this man Baines up," said Crane to Keith when +they met in the Coldriver tavern.</p> + +<p>"I know how much he weighs and how many teeth he's had filled," Keith +replied.</p> + +<p>"He ought not to be so difficult to handle. He hasn't capital enough to +put this company of his through and his business experience don't amount +to much."</p> + +<p>"For monkeying with our buzz saw," said Keith, "we ought to let him lose +a couple of fingers."</p> + +<p>"How's this for an idea, then?" Crane said, and for fifteen minutes he +outlined his theory of how best to eliminate Scattergood Baines from +being an obstruction to the free flowage of their schemes for Coldriver +Valley.</p> + +<p>"It's got others by the hundred, in one form or another," agreed Keith. +"This jayhawker'll welcome it with tears of joy."</p> + +<p>Whereupon they went gladly on their way to Scattergood's store, not as +enemies, but as business men who recognized his abilities and preferred +to have him with them from the start, that they might profit by his +canniness and energy, rather than to array themselves against him in an +effort to take away from him what he had obtained.</p> + +<p>Only by the exercise of notable will power could Crane keep his face +straight as he shook hands with ungainly Scattergood and saw with his +own eyes what a perfect bumpkin he had to deal with.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you thought we fellows would be sore," he said, genially.</p> + +<p>"Dunno's I thought about you at all," said Scattergood. "I was thinkin' +mainly about me."</p> + +<p>"Well, we're not. You caught us napping, of course. We should have +grabbed off that dam location long ago—but we weren't expecting +anybody to stray in with his eyes open—like yourself.... Of course your +property and charter aren't worth a great deal till we start lumbering."</p> + +<p>"Not to anybody but me," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Well, we expect to begin operations in a year or so. We'll build a mill +on the railroad, and drive our logs down the river."</p> + +<p>"Givin' my company the drivin' contracts?"</p> + +<p>"Looks like we'd <i>have</i> to—if you get in your dam and improvements. +But that'll take money. We've looked you up, of course, and we know you +haven't it—nor any backing.... That's why we've come to see you."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Goin' to drive 'way to the railroad, +eh? How if there was a mill right at my dam? Shorten your drive twenty +mile, wouldn't it, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Keith, laughing at Scattergood's ignorance; "but how about +transportation from your mill to the railroad? We can't drive cut +lumber."</p> + +<p>"Course not," said Scattergood, "but this valley's goin' to open up. +It's startin'. There's only one way to open a valley, and that's to run +a railroad up it.... Narrow-gauge 'u'd do here. Carry mostly lumber, but +passengers, too."</p> + +<p>"Thinking of building one?" asked Crane, almost laughing in +Scattergood's face.</p> + +<p>"Thinkin' don't cost nobody anythin'," said Scattergood. "Ever take a +look at that charter of mine?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I'll let you read it over a bit. Maybe you'll git a idea from it."</p> + +<p>He extracted the parchment from his safe, and spread it before them. +"Kind of look careful along toward the end—in the tail feathers of it, +so to speak," he advised.</p> + +<p>They did so, and Crane looked up at the fat hardware man with eyes that +were not quite so contemptuous. "By George!" he said, "this thing's a +charter for a railroad down the valley, too."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Dunno's the boys quite see what it was all +about, but they calculated to please me, so they put it through jest as +it stood. Mighty nice fellers up to the legislature."</p> + +<p>"Pretty far in the future," said Keith, "and mighty expensive."</p> + +<p>"Maybe not so far," said Scattergood, "and I could make a darn good +start narrow-gaugin' it with a hunderd thousand."</p> + +<p>"Which you've got handy for use," said Crane.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> that much money," said Scattergood, "and if there is, why, +it kin be got."</p> + +<p>"Let's get back to the river, now," said Keith. "If we're going to start +lumbering in a year, say, we've got to have the river in shape. Take +quite some time to get it cleared and dammed and boomed."</p> + +<p>"Six months," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Cost a right smart pile."</p> + +<p>"The work I'm figgerin' on would come to about thirty-odd thousand."</p> + +<p>"Which you haven't got."</p> + +<p>"Somebody has," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"<i>We</i> have," said Crane. "That's why we came to you—and with a +proposition. You've grabbed this thing off, but you can't hog it, +because you haven't the money to put it through. Our offer is this: You +put in your locations and your charter against our money. We'll finance +it. Your enterprise entitles you to control. We won't dispute that. You +can have fifty-one per cent of the stock for what you've contributed. We +take the rest for financing. We're known, and can get money."</p> + +<p>"How you figger to work it?"</p> + +<p>"We'll bond for forty thousand dollars. Keith and I can place the bonds. +That'll give us money to go ahead."</p> + +<p>Scattergood reached down and took off a huge shoe. Usually he thought +more accurately when his feet were unconfined. "That means we'd sort of +mortgage the whole thing, eh?"</p> + +<p>"That's the idea."</p> + +<p>"And if we didn't pay interest on the bonds, why, the fellers that had +'em could foreclose?"</p> + +<p>"But we needn't worry about that."</p> + +<p>"Not," said Scattergood, "if you fellers sign a contract with the dam +and boom company to give them the exclusive job of drivin' all your +timber at, say, sixty cents a thousand feet of logs. And if you'd stick +a clause in that contract that you'd begin cuttin' within twelve months +from date."</p> + +<p>"Sure we'd do that," said Keith. "To our advantage as much as to yours."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"It's a deal, then?"</p> + +<p>"Far's I'm concerned," said Scattergood, slipping his foot inside his +shoe, "it is."</p> + +<p>That afternoon, the papers having been signed and the deal consummated, +Scattergood sat cogitating.</p> + +<p>"I've been done," he said to himself, solemnly, "accordin' to them +fellers' notion. They come and seen me, and done me. They planned out +how they'd do it, and I didn't never suspect a thing. Uh-huh! Seems like +I was unfortunate, just gettin' a start in life like I be.... Bonds, +says they. Uh-huh! They'll place 'em, and place 'em handy. First +int'rest day there won't be no int'rest, and them bonds'll be +foreclosed—and where'll I be? Mighty ingenious fellers, Crane and +Keith.... And I up and walked right into it like a fly into a molasses +barrel. Them fellers," he said, even more somberly, "come here +calc'latin' to cheat me out of my river.... Me bein' jest a fat man +without no brains...."</p> + +<p>Crane and Keith had left Scattergood the executive head of the new dam +and boom company, and had confided to him the task of building the dam +and improving the river. He approached it sadly.</p> + +<p>"Might as well save what I kin out of the wreck," he said to himself, +and quietly manufactured a dummy contracting company to whom he let the +entire job for a lump sum of thirty-eight thousand seven hundred +dollars. The dummy contractor was Scattergood Baines.</p> + +<p>The dam was completed, booms and cribbing placed, ledges blasted out +well within the six months' period set for those operations. Every +thirty days Scattergood, in the name of the dummy contractor, was paid +eighty per cent of his estimates, and at the completion of the work he +received the remainder of the whole sum.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't 'a' done it to them boys," he said, as he surveyed a deposit +of upward of seven thousand dollars, his profit on the transaction, "if +it hadn't 'a' been they organized to cheat me out of my river. I +calc'late in the circumstances, though, I'm most entitled to what I kin +salvage out of the wreck."</p> + +<p>Now the Coldriver Dam and Boom Company, Scattergood Baines president and +manager, was ready for business, which was to take the logs of Messrs. +Crane and Keith and drive them down the river at the rate of sixty cents +per thousand feet. It was ready and eager, and so expressed itself in +quaintly worded communications from Baines to those gentlemen. But no +logs appeared to be driven.</p> + +<p>"Jest like I said," Scattergood told himself, and, the day being hot and +the road dusty, he removed his shoes and rested his sweltering bulk in +the shade to consider it.</p> + +<p>"It's a nice river," he said, audibly. "I hate to git done out of it."</p> + +<p>After long delays Crane and Keith made pretense of building camps and +starting to log. But one difficulty after another descended on their +operations. In the spring, when each of them should have had several +millions of feet of spruce ready to roll into the water, not a log was +on rollways. Not a man was in the camps, for, owing to reasons not to be +comprehended by the public, the woodsmen of both operators had struck +simultaneously and left the woods.</p> + +<p>Presently the first interest day arrived, with not even a hope of being +able to meet the required payment at a future date. Bondholders—dummies, +just as Scattergood's contractor was a dummy—met. Their deliberations +were brief. Foreclose with all promptitude was their word, and foreclose +they did. With the result that legal notices were published to the effect +that on the sixteenth day of June the dam, booms, cribbing, improvements, +charter, contracts, and property of whatsoever nature belonging to the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company were to be sold at public auction on the +steps of the county courthouse. Scattergood had lost his river....</p> + +<p>"Terms of the sale are cash with the bid," said Crane to Keith. "I saw +to that."</p> + +<p>"Good. Wasn't necessary, I guess. There hasn't been even a wriggle out +of Baines."</p> + +<p>"Won't be. We'll have to send somebody up to bid it in. It's just taking +money out of one pocket to put it into the other, but we've got to go +through the motions."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, let's get credit for grabbing a bargain," said Keith. "Bid her +in cheap. No use taking a big wad of money out of circulation even for a +few days."</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand'll be enough. Say ten thousand six hundred, just to make +it sound better. Have to have two bidders there."</p> + +<p>"Sure," agreed Keith. "I guess this'll teach our fat dreamer of dreams +not to get in the way of the cars."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's stock had gone down in Coldriver. True, his hardware store +was thriving. In the two years his stock had increased from what his +seven hundred and fifty dollars, with credit added, would buy, to an +inventory of better than five thousand dollars, free of debt. It is true +also that with the last winter coming on he had looked about for a +chance to keep his small surplus at work for him, and his eyes had +fallen upon the item of firewood. In Coldriver were a matter of sixty +houses and a hotel, all of which derived their heat from hardwood +chunks, and cooked their meals on range fires with sixteen-inch split +wood. The houses were mostly of that large, comfortable, country variety +which could not be kept warm with one fire. Scattergood figured they +would burn on an average of fifteen cords of wood.</p> + +<p>Now stove wood, to be really useful, must have seasoned a year. It is +not pleasant to build fires with green wood. Appreciating this, +Scattergood ambled about the countryside and bought up every available +stick of wood at prices of the day—and under, for he was a good buyer. +He secured a matter of a thousand cords—and then waited hopefully.</p> + +<p>It was a small transaction, promising no great profits, but Scattergood +Baines was never, even when a rich man, one to scorn a small deal.... +Within sixty days he turned over his corner in wood, realizing a profit +of something over four hundred dollars.... This is merely to illustrate +how Scattergood's capital grew.</p> + +<p>On June 16th Scattergood drove to the county seat. He now owned a horse, +and a buggy whose seat he more than comfortably filled. In the county +seat Scattergood was not unknown, for various county officers had been +helped to their place by his growing influence in his town—notably the +sheriff.</p> + +<p>There was little interest in the sale, and what interest there was +Scattergood caused by his unexpected appearance. Nobody had imagined he +would be present. Now that he was there, nobody could imagine why. He +did not enlighten them, though he was delighted to sit in the sun on the +courthouse steps, waiting for the hour of the sale, and to chat. He +loved to chat, especially if he could get off his shoes and wriggle his +toes in the sunshine. And so he sat, bare of foot, when the sheriff +appeared and made his announcement of the approaching sale. Scattergood +chatted on, apparently not interested.</p> + +<p>"All the dams, booms, cribbings, improvements, and property of the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company ..." the sheriff read.</p> + +<p>"Including contracts and charter," amended Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Including contracts and charter," agreed the sheriff, and Scattergood +continued his chat.</p> + +<p>Bidding began. It was not brisk or exciting. Five thousand was the first +offer, from a young man appertaining to Crane. Keith's young man raised +him five hundred. Back and forth they tossed it, carrying on the +pretense, until Keith's young man reached the sum of ten thousand six +hundred dollars.... A silence followed.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand six hundred I'm offered," said the sheriff, loudly, and +repeated it. He had been a licensed auctioneer in his day. "Do I hear +seven hundred? Seven hundred ... Six fifty ..." A portentous pause. +"Going at ten thousand six hundred, once. Going at ten thousand six +hundred, twice ..."</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand seven hunderd," said Scattergood, casually.</p> + +<p>Crane's young man looked at Keith's young man in a panic. They had only +the sum they had bid upon them.... Cash with bid were the terms of +sale. Scattergood, out of the corner of his eye, saw them rush together +and confer frenziedly. His eye glinted.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand eight hundred," Crane's youth bid, desperately.</p> + +<p>"Cash with bid is terms of sale," said Scattergood. "I object to +listenin' to that bid without the young man perduces." He smiled at the +sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines is right," said the sheriff. "Protect your bid with the cash +or I cannot receive it."</p> + +<p>"Make <i>him</i> protect his bid!" shouted Crane's young man.</p> + +<p>"Certain," said Scattergood, approaching the sheriff and drawing a huge +roll of bills from his sagging trousers pocket. "Calc'late you'll find +her there, Mr. Sheriff, and some besides. Make your change and gimme +back the rest."</p> + +<p>"I'm waitin' on you, young feller," said the sheriff, eying the young +men.... "Ten thousand seven hundred I hear. Going at ten thousand seven +hundred—once.... Twice.... Three times!... Sold to Mr. Baines for +ten thousand seven hundred dollars...."</p> + +<p>So ends the first epoch of Scattergood Baines's career in Coldriver +Valley. Here he emerges as a personage. From this point his fame began +to spread, and legend grew. Had he not, in two brief years, after +arriving with less than fifty dollars as a total capital, acquired a +profitable hardware store—donated in the beginning by competitors? Had +he not now, for the most part with money wrenched from Crane and Keith +by his dummy contracting, been enabled to bid in for ten thousand seven +hundred dollars a new property worth nearly four times that much? He was +a man into whose band wagon all were eager to clamber.</p> + +<p>But Scattergood did not change. He went back to his hardware store and +waited—waited for Crane and Keith to start their inevitable logging +operations. For in his safe reposed ironclad contracts with those +gentlemen, covering the future for a decade, compelling them to pay him +sixty cents for every thousand feet of timber that floated down his +river. It was a good two years' work. He could well afford to wait....</p> + +<p>Scattergood sat on the porch of his store, in the sunniest spot, +twiddling his bare toes.</p> + +<p>"The way to make money," he said to the mountain opposite, "is to let +smarter folks 'n you be make it for you ... like I done."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a><h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines sat on the porch of his hardware store and looked +down Coldriver Valley. It was very beautiful, even under the hot summer +sun of the second anniversary of Scattergood's arrival in that part of +the world, but he was not seeing it as it was—mountainous, green, +with untouched forests, quickened to life and sound by the swift, +rushing, splashing downrush of a tireless mountain river. Scattergood +saw the valley as he was going to make it, for he was a specialist in +valleys.</p> + +<p>For years he had searched for an undeveloped valley—for the sort of +valley it would be worth his while to take in hand, and two years ago he +had found it and invaded it. His equipment for its conquest had been +meager—some fifty dollars in money and a head filled from ear to ear +and from eyebrows to scalp lock with shrewdness. His progress in +twenty-four months had been notable, for he was sole proprietor of a +profitable hardware store in Coldriver village, and controlled the upper +stretches of Coldriver by virtue of a certain dam and boom company built +with other men's capital for Scattergood's benefit and behoof.</p> + +<p>Now, in the eye of his mind, he could see the whole twenty-odd miles of +his valley. Along the left bank, hanging perilously to the slope of the +mountain, he saw the rails of a narrow-gauge railroad reaching from +Coldriver Valley to the main line that passed the valley's mouth. He saw +sturdy, snorting little engines drawing logs to sawmills of a magnitude +not dreamed of by any other man in the locality, and he saw other +engines hauling out lumber to the southward. He saw villages where no +villages existed that day, and villages meaning more traffic for his +railroad, more trade for the stores he had it in his thought to +establish. Something else he saw, but more dimly. This vision took the +shape of a gigantic dam far back in the mountains, behind which should +be stored the waters from the melting snows and from the spring rains, +so that they might be released at will to insure a uniform flow +throughout the year, wet months and dry months, as he desired. He saw +this water pouring over other dams, turning water wheels, giving power +to mills and factories. More than that, in the remotest and dimmest +recess of his brain he saw not sharply, not with full comprehension, +this tremendous water power converted into electricity and transported +mile upon mile over far-reaching wires, to give light and energy to +distant communities.</p> + +<p>But all that was remote; it lay in the years to come. For the present +smaller affairs must content him. Even the matter of the narrow-gauge +railroad was beyond his grasp.</p> + +<p>Scattergood reached down mechanically and removed his huge shoes; then, +stretching out his fat legs gratefully, he twiddled his toes in the +sunlight and gave himself up to practical thought. He controlled the +tail of the valley with his dam and boom company; he must control its +mouth. He must have command over the exit from the valley so that every +individual, every log, every article of merchandise that entered or left +the valley, should pass through his hands. That was to be the next step. +He must straddle the mouth of the valley like the fat colossus he was.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was placid and patient. He knew what he wanted to do with +his valley, and had perfect confidence he should accomplish it. But he +had no disposition to hasten matters unwisely. It was better, as he told +Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "to let an apple fall in your lap instead of +skinnin' your shins goin' up the tree after it—and then findin' it was +green."</p> + +<p>So, though he wanted the mouth of his river, and wanted it badly, he did +not rush off, advertising his need, and try brashly to grab the forty or +fifty acres of granite and scrub and steep mountain wall that his heart +desired. Instead, he basked in the sunshine, twiddling his bare toes +ecstatically, and let the huge bulk of him sink more contentedly into +the well-reinforced armchair which creaked under his slightest motion.</p> + +<p>Scattergood glanced across the dusty square to the post office. The mail +was in, and possibly there were letters there for him. He thought it +very likely, and he wanted to see them—but movement was repulsive to +his bulging body. He sighed and closed his eyes. A shrill whistle +attempting the national anthem, with certain liberties of variation, +caused him to open them again, and he saw, passing him, a small boy, +apparently without an object in life.</p> + +<p>"A-hum!" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The boy stopped and looked inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"If I knew," said Scattergood to his bare feet, "where there was a boy +that could find his way across to the post office and back without +gittin' sunstroke or stone bruise, I dunno but I'd give him a penny to +fetch my mail."</p> + +<p>"It's worth a nickel," said the boy.</p> + +<p>"Give you two cents," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Nickel or nothin'," said the boy.</p> + +<p>Scattergood scrutinized the boy a moment, then surrendered.</p> + +<p>"Bargain," said he, but as the boy hustled across the square +Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. +He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from +a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned +to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight +suddenly might have resulted in disaster.</p> + +<p>The boy was returning. Scattergood placed the tin object to his lips and +puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of +Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it +rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in +front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his +hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm +that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's +existence, he applied himself again to the whistle.</p> + +<p>"Say," said the boy, "what's that?"</p> + +<p>"Patent whistle," said Scattergood, without interest.</p> + +<p>"Is it your'n, or is it for sale?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate I might sell."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Nickel."</p> + +<p>"Gimme it," said the boy, and Scattergood gravely received back his +coin.</p> + +<p>"Might tell the kids I got more," said Scattergood, and watched the boy +trot down the street, entranced by the horrid sound he was fathering.</p> + +<p>This transaction from beginning to end was eloquent of Scattergood +Baines's character. He had been obliged to pay more than he regarded a +service as worth, but had not protested vainly. Instead he had set about +recouping himself as best he could. The whistle cost him two cents and a +half. Therefore the boy had come closer to working for Scattergood's +figure than for his own demanded price. In addition, Scattergood's wares +were to receive free and valuable advertising, as was proven by the +fact that before night he had sold ten more whistles at a profit of +twenty-five cents! No deal was too small to receive Scattergood's best +and most skillful attention.</p> + +<p>Now he opened his letters, one of which was worthy of attention, for it +was from a friend in the office of the Secretary of State for that +commonwealth—a friend who owed his position there in great measure to +Scattergood's influence. The letter gave the information that two +gentlemen named Crane and Keith had pooled their timber holdings on the +east and west branches of Coldriver, and had filed papers for the +incorporation of the Coldriver Lumber Company.</p> + +<p>This was important. First, the gentlemen named were no friends of +Scattergood's by reason of having underestimated that fleshy individual +to their financial detriment in the matter of a certain dam and boom +company, of which Scattergood was now sole owner. Second, because it +presaged active lumbering operations. Third, because, in Scattergood's +safe were ironclad contracts with both of them whereby the said dam and +boom company should receive sixty cents a thousand feet for driving +their logs down the improved river.</p> + +<p>And fourth—the fourth brought Scattergood's active toes to a rest. +Fourth, it meant that Crane and Keith would be building the largest +sawmill—the only sawmill of consequence—that the valley had seen.</p> + +<p>It was an attribute of Scattergood's peculiar genius that even after you +had encountered him once, and come out the worse for it, you still rated +him as a fatuous, guileless mound of flesh. You did not credit his +successes to astuteness, but to blundering luck. Another point also +should be noted: If Scattergood were hunting bear he gave it out that +his game was partridge. He would hunt partridge industriously and +conspicuously until men's minds were turned quite away from the subject +of bear. Then suddenly he would shift shotgun for rifle and come home +with a bearskin in the wagon. Probably he would bring partridge, too, +for he never neglected by-products.</p> + +<p>"Them fellows," said he to himself, referring to Messrs. Crane and +Keith, "hain't aimin' nor wishin' to pay me no sixty cents a thousand +for drivin' their logs.... I figger they calculate to cut about ten +million feet. That'll be six thousand dollars. Profit maybe two +thousand. Don't see as I kin afford to lose it, seems as though."</p> + +<p>On the river below Coldriver village were three hamlets each consisting +of a general store, a church, and a few scattered dwellings. These +villages were the supply centers for the mountain farms that lay behind +them. Necessity had located them, for nowhere else along the valley was +there flat land upon which even the tiniest village could find a resting +place. These were Bailey, Tupper Falls, and Higgins's Bridge. In common +with Coldriver village their communication with the world was by means +of a stage line consisting of two so-called stages, one of which left +Coldriver in the morning on the downward trip, the other of which left +the mouth of the valley on the upward trip. There was also one freight +wagon.</p> + +<p>The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he +boarded the stage, occupying so much space therein that a single fare +failed utterly to show a profit to the stage line, and alighted at +Bailey. He went directly to the store, where no one was to be found save +sharp-featured Mrs. Bailey, wife of the proprietor.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', ma'am," said Scattergood, politely. "Husband hain't in?"</p> + +<p>"Up the brook, catchin' a mess of trout," she responded, shortly. "He's +always catchin' a mess of trout, or huntin' a deer or a partridge or +somethin'. If you're ever aimin' to see Jim Bailey here, you want to +git around afore daylight or after dark."</p> + +<p>"Hain't it lucky," said Scattergood, "that some men manages to marry +wimmin that kin look after their business?"</p> + +<p>"Not for the wimmin," said Mrs. Bailey, shortly.</p> + +<p>"My name's Baines," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I calculate to know <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Like livin' here, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"Not so but what I could bear a change."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Mis' Bailey, I calc'late you'd hate to see Jim make a little +money so's to be able to git away from here if he wanted to."</p> + +<p>"Him? Only way hell ever make money is to ketch a solid-gold trout."</p> + +<p>"Maybe I'm the solid-gold trout you're speakin' about," said +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>She regarded him sharply a moment. "Set," she said. "Looks like you got +somethin' on your mind."</p> + +<p>There were times when Scattergood could be direct and succinct. He +perceived it was best to be so with this woman.</p> + +<p>"I might want to buy this here store—under certain conditions."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Inventory, and a share in the profits of a deal I got in mind."</p> + +<p>"What's them conditions you mentioned?"</p> + +<p>"That you and Jim don't mention the sale to anybody, and keep on runnin' +the place—for wages—until I'm ready for you to quit."</p> + +<p>"What's the deal them profits is comin' from, and how much you figger +they'll be?"</p> + +<p>"The deal's feedin' about five hunderd men, and the profits'll be +plenty. I furnish the capital and show you how it's to be done. All +Jim'll have to do is foller directions."</p> + +<p>Then, lowering his voice, Scattergood went farther into particulars. +Suddenly Mrs. Bailey arose, and screamed shrilly to an urchin playing in +the road, "You, Jimmy, go up the brook and fetch your pa." Scattergood +knew his deal was as good as closed. Before the up-bound stage arrived +it was closed. The Baileys had cash in hand for their store and +Scattergood carried away a duly executed bill of sale.</p> + +<p>The following day, for fifteen hundred dollars cash, he acquired all the +property of the stage line—and when the news became public it was +believed that Scattergood had departed from his wits, for the line was +notoriously unprofitable and an aching worry to its owners. But the +commotion the transfer of the stage line created was as nothing to the +news that Scattergood had bought a strip of land along the railroad at +the mouth of the river, and was erecting a large wooden building upon +it. When asked concerning this and its purpose, Scattergood replied that +he wasn't made up in his mind what he would use it for, but likely it +would be an "opry" house.</p> + +<p>Following this, Scattergood went to the city, where he spent much +valuable time interviewing gentlemen in wholesale grocery and provision +houses....</p> + +<p>Jim Bailey liked to fish—which is not an attribute to create scandal. +He was not ambitious, nor was he endowed with a full reservoir of +initiative, but he was a shrewd customer and seldom got the worst of it. +One virtue he possessed, and that was an ability to follow +directions—and to keep his mouth shut.</p> + +<p>Not many days after Scattergood became the owner of the store at Bailey, +Jim was a caller at the new offices of the lumber company, formed when +Crane and Keith pooled their interests.</p> + +<p>"I come to see you," he told Crane, "because it seemed like you got to +feed your lumberjacks, and I want to git the contract for furnishin' and +deliverin' the provisions."</p> + +<p>"We've sure got to feed 'em," said Crane. "But five hundred men eat a +lot of grub. Can you swing it if we give you a chance at it?"</p> + +<p>Bailey produced a letter from the Coldriver bank which stated the bank +was willing to stand behind any contract made by the Bailey Provision +Company, up to a certain substantial amount.</p> + +<p>"Who's the Bailey Provision Company?"</p> + +<p>"Me 'n' my wife mostly holds the stock."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... You'll handle the stuff, deliver it, and all that? What's your +proposition?"</p> + +<p>"Well, havin' been in business twenty-odd year, I kin buy mighty +favorable. More so 'n you fellers. All I want's a livin' profit. Tell +you what I'll do. I'll take this here contract like this: Goods to be +delivered in your camps at actual cost of the stuff and freighting plus +ten per cent. We'll keep stock on hand in depots, and deliver as needed. +It'll save you all the trouble of handlin'. We'll carry the stock, and +you pay once a month for what's delivered."</p> + +<p>Crane called in Keith, and they discussed the proposition. It presented +distinct advantages; might, indeed, save them money in addition to +trouble. Bailey clinched the thing by showing an agreement with the +stage line to transport the provisions at a price per hundred pounds +notably lower than Crane and Keith imagined could be obtained, and went +home carrying the contract Scattergood had sent him to get.</p> + +<p>Scattergood put the paper away in his safe and sat back in his +reinforced armchair, with placid satisfaction making benignant his face. +"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that this here dicker'll keep Crane +and Keith gropin' and wonderin' and scrutinizin' more or less—when it +gits to their ears. Shouldn't be s'prised if it come to worry 'em a +mite."</p> + +<p>So, having created a diversion to conceal the movements of his main +attack, Scattergood got out his maps and began scientifically to plan +his fall and winter campaign.</p> + +<p>Timber was his objective. Not a hundred acres of it, nor a thousand, but +tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand acres of spruce-covered hills +was the goal he had set. To control his valley he must have money; to +get money for his developments he must have timber. Also, ownership of +vast limits of growing spruce was necessary to the control of the +valley. He must own more timber thereabouts than anybody else. He must +dominate the timber situation. To a man whose total resources totaled a +matter of fifty thousand dollars—the bulk of which was tied up in a dam +and boom company as yet unproductive—this looked like a mouthful beyond +his capacity to bite off. Even with timber in the back reaches selling +at sixty-six cents an acre, a hundred thousand acres meant an investment +of sixty-six thousand dollars. True, Scattergood could look forward to +the day when that same timberland would be worth ten dollars an acre—a +million dollars—but looking ahead would not produce a cent to-day.</p> + +<p>Of timberlands, whose cut logs must go down Coldriver Valley to reach a +market, Scattergood's maps showed him there were probably a quarter of a +million acres—mostly spruce. Estimating with rigid conservatism, this +would run eight thousand feet to the acre, or twenty billion feet of +timber—and this did not take into consideration hardwood. In +Scattergood's secret heart he wanted it <i>all</i>. All he might not be able +to get, but he must have more than half—and that half distributed +strategically.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that Scattergood was content to wait. His motto was, +"Grab a dollar to-day—but don't meddle with it if it interferes with a +thousand dollars in ten years."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's maps had been the work of two years. That they were +accurate he knew, because he had set down on them most of the facts they +showed. They were valuable, for, in Scattergood's rude printing, one +could read upon them the owner of every piece of timber, every farm, the +acreage in each piece of timber, with a careful estimate of the amount +of timber to the acre—also its proportions of spruce, beech, birch, +maple, ash.</p> + +<p>Toward the head of the valley, where good timber was thickest, +Scattergood's map showed how it spread out like a fan, with the two main +branches of Coldriver and numerous brooks as the ribs. Then, down the +length of the stream, were parallel bands of it. On the map one could +see what this timber could be bought for; prices ranging from two +dollars and a half an acre down the main river to sixty-six cents at the +extremity of the fan.</p> + +<p>As Scattergood studied his maps he saw, far in the future, perhaps, but +clearly and distinctly and certainly, two parallel lines running up the +river to his village; he saw, branching off from a spot below the +village, where East and West Branches joined to pour over a certain dam +owned by him, other narrower parallel lines following river and brooks +back and back into the mountains, the spruce-clad mountains. These +parallel lines were rails. The ones which ran close together were +narrow-gauge—logging roads to bring logs to the big mill which +Scattergood planned to build beside his dam. The broader lines were a +standard-gauge road to carry the cut lumber to the outside world, and +not only the cut lumber, but all the traffic of the valley, all the +freight, the manufactured products of other mills and factories which +were to come along the banks of his river. Here, in black and white, was +set down Scattergood's life plan. When it was accomplished he would be +through. He would be willing to have his maps rolled up and himself to +be laid on the shelf, for he would have done the thing he set out to +do.... For, strange as it may seem, Scattergood was not pursuing money +for money itself—his objective was achievement.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and +Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale.</p> + +<p>"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch—thirty +thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch—close to thirty +thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere."</p> + +<p>"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up +here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of +mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as +ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out +our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead +with it. Pretty sweet for us—with sixty thousand acres in the palm of +our hand and not a cent invested in it."</p> + +<p>"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?"</p> + +<p>"Who'll grab?"</p> + +<p>"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we +could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or +else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole +thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled—and leave +the rest till things develop."</p> + +<p>"It's safe. And we can make it mighty unpleasant for anybody who comes +ramming into this region in a small way. Which reminds me of that +Baines—our friend Scattergood. Are we going to let him get away with +that dam and boom company we made him a present of?"</p> + +<p>"I can't see ourselves digging down for sixty cents a thousand for +driving our logs—contracts or no contracts."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we can buy him off."</p> + +<p>"Hanged if I'll do that—we'll chase him off. Look here—he's got to +handle our logs. If he can't handle them we've got a right to put on our +own crew and drive them down—and charge back to him what it costs us. +Get the idea?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly."</p> + +<p>"We deliver the logs as specified in the spring. Let him start his +drive. Then, I figure, he'll have some trouble with his men, and most +likely men he don't have trouble with will get into a row with +lumberjacks going out of camp. See? Men of his that we can't handle +we'll pitch into the river. Then we'll take charge with our men and make +the drive. On top of that we'll sue Scattergood for thirty or forty +cents a thousand—extra cost we've been put to by his inability to +handle the drive. That'll put a crimp in him—and if we keep after him +hot and heavy it won't take long to drive him out of the valley."</p> + +<p>"Don't believe he's dangerous, anyhow. That last deal was bullhead +luck."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but he's stirring around. We don't want anybody poking in. There's +a heap of money in this valley for us, if we can keep it to ourselves, +and the sooner the idea gets abroad that it isn't healthful to butt in, +the better."</p> + +<p>"Guess you're right."</p> + +<p>If Scattergood could have heard this conversation perhaps he would not +have been so gayly partaking of the softer joys of life. For that is +what Scattergood was doing. He had polished up his buggy, put his new +harness on his horse, and was driving out to make a social call. Not +only that, but it was a social call upon a lady!</p> + +<p>Scattergood was lonely sometimes. In one of his moments of loneliness +it had occurred to him that a great many men had wives, and that wives +were, undoubtedly, a remarkably effective insurance against that +ailment.</p> + +<p>"I gather," he said, in the course of a casual conversation with Sam +Kettleman, the grocer, "that wives is sometimes inconvenient and +sometimes tryin' on the temper, but on the whole they're returnin' +income on the investment."</p> + +<p>"Some does and some doesn't," said Kettleman, lugubriously.</p> + +<p>"Hotel grub," said Scattergood, "gets mighty similar. Roast beef and +roast pork! Roast pork and roast beef! Then cold roast pork and beef for +supper.... And me obliged, by the way I'm built, to pay extry board. +Sundays I always order me two dinners. Seems like a wife 'u'd act as a +benefit there."</p> + +<p>"But there's drawbacks," said Sam, "and there's mother-in-laws, and +there's lendin' a dollar to your brother-in-law."</p> + +<p>"The thing to do," said Scattergood, "is to pick one without them +impediments. I also figger," he added, wriggling his bare toes, "that a +feller ought to pick one that could lend a dollar to <i>your</i> brother in +case he needed one."</p> + +<p>"Hain't none sich to be found," said Sam.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late to look," Scattergood replied.</p> + +<p>He had already done his looking. The lady of his choice, tradition says, +was older than he, but this is a base libel. She was not older. She had +not yet reached thirty. Scattergood had first encountered her when she +came to his hardware store to buy a plow. On that occasion her excellent +business judgment and her powers of barter had attracted him strongly. +As a matter of fact, he was a bit in doubt if she hadn't the best of him +on the deal.... Her name was Amanda Randle.</p> + +<p>Scattergood gave the matter his best thought, then polished the buggy +as aforesaid, and called.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Miss Randle?" said he, tying to her hitching post.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"I calculated," said he, "that, bein' as it's a hot night, a buggy ride +might sort of cool you off, after a way of speakin'."</p> + +<p>Amanda blushed, for the proffer of a buggy ride was not without definite +significance in that region.</p> + +<p>"I'll git my shawl and bonnet," she said.</p> + +<p>To the casual eye it would have appeared that Scattergood's summer was +devoted wholly to running his hardware store and to paying court to +Mandy Randle.... But this would not have been so. He was making ready +for the winter—and for the spring that came after it. For in the spring +came the drive, and with the coming of the drive Scattergood foresaw the +coming of trouble. He was not a man to dodge trouble that might bring +profit dangling to the fringe of her skirt.</p> + +<p>Coldriver watched with deep interest the progress of Scattergood's suit. +It had figured Mandy as an old maid—for, as has been mentioned, she was +close upon her thirtieth year, which, in a village where eighteen is the +general age for taking a husband, is well along in spinsterhood. It was +late in October when Scattergood "came to scratch," as the local saying +is.</p> + +<p>"Mandy," said he, "I calc'late you noticed I been comin' around here +consid'able."</p> + +<p>"You have—seems as though," she said, and blushed. It was coming. She +recognized the signs.</p> + +<p>"I been a-comin' on purpose," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Mandy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am. It's like this: I own a hardware store and some other +prop'ty; not a heap, ma'am, but <i>some</i>. It's gittin' to be more. I +calculate, some day, to be wuth consid'able. When a man gits to this +p'int, he ought to have him a wife, eh?"</p> + +<p>Mandy made no reply.</p> + +<p>"So," said Scattergood, "I took to lookin' around a bit, and of all the +girls there was, Mandy, it looked to me like you would be the only one +to make the kind of a wife I want. That's honest. Yes, sir. Says I to +myself, 'Mandy Randle's the one for me.' So I washed up the buggy and +hitched up the horse and come right out. I been comin' ever since, +because that there first impression of mine has been bore out by +facts.... I'm askin' you, Mandy, will you be Missis Baines?"</p> + +<p>"You're stiddy and savin'—and makin'," said Mandy. "Add what <i>you</i> got +to what I got, and we'll be pretty well off. And I aim to help take care +of it."</p> + +<p>"I aim to have you help," said Scattergood. "But, Mandy, I don't want +you scrimpin' and savin' too much. I want my wife should have as good as +the best, and be looked up to by the best. The day'll come, Mandy, when +we'll keep a hired girl!"</p> + +<p>"No extravagances, Scattergood, till I say we kin afford it.... And, +Scattergood, you got to promise not to make no important move without +consultin' me. I got a head for business."</p> + +<p>"Mandy," said Scattergood, "you and me is equal partners."</p> + +<p>Which, say both tradition and history, is how the arrangement worked +out. Mandy and Scattergood <i>were</i> equal partners. Scattergood was to +learn through the years that Mandy's <i>was</i> a good head for business, +and, though business men who came to deal with Scattergood in the future +sometimes laughed when they found Mandy present at their conferences, +they never laughed but once.... And, though Scattergood's proffer of +marriage had not been couched in fervent terms of love, nor had Mandy +fallen on his overbroad bosom with rapture, theirs was a married life to +be envied by most, for there was between them perfect trust, sincere +affection, and wisest forbearance. For forty years Scattergood and Mandy +lived together as man and wife, and at the end both could look back +through the intimate years and say of the other that he had chosen well +his mate.</p> + +<p>It may be thought that this bit of romance is dropped in here by legend +and history merely to amuse, or as a side light on the character of +Scattergood Baines. This is not so. We are forced by the facts to regard +the matter as an integral part of the business transaction related in +this narrative. Not a minor part, not an important part, but perhaps the +deciding factor....</p> + +<p>John Bones, lawyer, age twenty-six, was a recent acquisition to +Coldriver village. Scattergood had watched the young man's comings and +goings, and had listened to his conversation. Early in November he went +to his bank and drew from deposit two hundred and fifty dollars.... Then +he went to call on Bones.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bones," he said, "folks says old Clayt Mosier's a client of +your'n."</p> + +<p>"He's given me some business, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... Somethin' to do with title to a piece of timber over +Higgins's Bridge way, wa'n't it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, but I guess you'll have to ask Mr. Mosier about +that."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Mosier hain't apt to tell <i>me</i>. Seems like I was sort of +int'rested in that thing. I can't manage nohow to git the facts, so I +thought I'd talk to you."</p> + +<p>"I can't help you. I have no right to talk about a client's confidential +matters."</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... How's business?"</p> + +<p>"Not very good."</p> + +<p>"Not gittin' rich, eh?"</p> + +<p>Young Bones looked unhappy, for making both ends meet was a problem he +had not mastered as yet.</p> + +<p>Scattergood got up, closed the door, and walked softly back to the desk. +He drew from his pocket the roll of bills, and spread them out in +alluring pattern.</p> + +<p>"Them's your'n," said he.</p> + +<p>"Mine? How? What for?"</p> + +<p>"I'm swappin' with you."</p> + +<p>"For what, Mr. Baines?" A slight perspiration was noticeable on young +Lawyer Bones's brow.</p> + +<p>"Information," said Scattergood, looking him in the eye. As the young +man did not speak, Scattergood continued, "about Mosier's title matter."</p> + +<p>For an instant the young man stood irresolute; then he reached slowly +over, gathered up the money into a neat roll—while Scattergood watched +him intently—and then, with suddenly set teeth, hurled the roll into +Scattergood's face, and leaped around the desk.</p> + +<p>"You <i>git</i>!" he said, between his teeth. "Git, and take your filthy +money with you...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood, who did not in the least look it, could move swiftly. The +young lawyer was abruptly interrupted in his pastime of ejecting +Scattergood forcibly. He found himself seized by his wrists and held as +if he had shoved his arms into steel clamps.</p> + +<p>"Set," said Scattergood, "and be sociable.... And keep the money. It's +your'n. You're hired. I guess you're the feller I'm aimin' to use."</p> + +<p>He forced the struggling young man back into his chair, and released +him—grinning broadly, and not at all as a tempter should grin. "If +it'll relieve your conscience," he said, "I hain't got no more int'rest +in Mosier's affairs than I have in the emperor of the heathen Chinee.... +But I <i>have</i> got a heap of int'rest in a young feller that kin refuse a +wad of money when he can't pay his board bill. Maybe 'twan't jest a nice +way, but I had to find out. The man I'm needin' has to have a clost +mouth—and somethin' a mite better 'n that—gumption not to sell out.... +Git the idee?"</p> + +<p>"I—yes, I guess I do—but—"</p> + +<p>"Any objections to workin' for me?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"All right. Keep the money. When you've worked it up come for more. And, +young feller, if things turns out for me like I think they will, you're +goin' to quit bein' a lawyer one of these days. I'm a-goin' to need you +in my business. Come over to my store."</p> + +<p>At the store Scattergood spread his maps before the young man, and +pointed to a certain spot. "There's about fifty different passels of +timber in that crotch. I don't aim to need 'em all to-day, but I +calc'late on gittin' a sort of fringe around the edge." He drew his +finger down the East Branch and up the West Branch in a sort of +horseshoe. "Your job's to git options on the fringe—in your own name. +Git the idee?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Git 'em cheap."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"There's five thousand dollars on deposit in the bank in your name. Use +it." When Scattergood trusted a man he trusted him. "And now," he said, +"I calc'late to raise a little dust, so's you won't be noticed."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's little dust consisted of allowing to be inserted in the +local paper an item announcing that Scattergood Baines had bought all +the stock and contracts of the Bailey Provision Company, which concern +was purveying food supplies to all the camps of Messrs. Crane and +Keith.... Then Scattergood settled back to watch the dust rise.</p> + +<p>The dust arose, and filled the eyes and noses of Messrs. Crane and +Keith, as Scattergood expected, with the result that Mr. Crane was a +passenger on Scattergood's stage to Coldriver village.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Crane?" said Scattergood, as that gentleman belligerently +entered the hardware store. "I was sort of lookin' forward to seein' +some of you folks."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Baines," said Crane, "what are you butting into our game +for? We let you get away with that other thing, but this last deal of +yours makes it look as if you were hunting trouble. You bought that +provision company to get a lever on us."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so.... Maybe so, but I wouldn't get het up about it.... You see, +it's like this: you folks kind of did what I expected you'd do on that +dam and boom deal, and come pretty close to doin' me out of some +valuable property. I didn't get het up, though, I jest sort of sat +around and waited.... And it come out all right. Now, didn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Bullhead luck."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Now, here's how I figger things to-day. You and +Keith hain't amiable about that deal, and you don't aim to let my dam +and boom company make any money out of you. I expect you can manage it. +If I was in your shoes, and was the kind of a man I judge you folks be, +I'd fix it so's the dam and boom company couldn't handle the drive. Buy +up the men, maybe, and start fights, and be sort of forced to take +charge so's to get my drive through. And then I'd sue for damages.... +That's how I'd do. I calc'late that's about what you and Keith has in +mind, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>Crane was purple with rage, but underneath his rage was a clammy layer +of unpleasant surprise that this mound of flabby fat should have had +such uncanny vision into his hardly creditable plans.</p> + +<p>"You're crazy, man," he blustered.</p> + +<p>"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Anyhow, I took out a mite of insurance ag'in' +sich a happenin'. I got me this here provision company to feed your +men.... Ever happen to think what would happen in the woods if your +lumberjacks run short of grub? Eh?... And suppose it happened, and your +men come bilin' out of camp, sore as bears with bee stings. What then, +eh? Couldn't git another crew this winter, maybe. Eh?"</p> + +<p>Crane blustered. He threatened legal measures, but Scattergood pointed +out no legal measures could be taken until he failed to deliver +supplies. Also, he directed Crane's attention to the fact that the +provision company was a corporation, and liable only to the extent of +its assets. "So, even if you got a judgment, you wouldn't collect enough +to make no profit. And your winter's cut would be off, and what logs you +got cut would rot in the woods. I calc'late you'd stand to git damaged +consid'able."</p> + +<p>"What's your proposition?" spluttered Crane.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got none.... You jest run back to Keith and repeat as much of +this here talk as you can remember. I'm goin' to be busy now. +Afternoon."</p> + +<p>For two weeks Scattergood disappeared, and though Crane and Keith sought +him with fever in their blood, he was not to be found. He filled their +minds; he dominated their conversation; he gave them sleepless nights +and unpleasant days.... Their attention was effectively focused on the +emergency he had presented to them. Scattergood had kicked up an +effective dust.</p> + +<p>At the end of two weeks Scattergood appeared again in town, and went +directly to Johnnie Bones's office. Scattergood now called his lawyer +Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"Got 'em?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not all. There's a fifteen-thousand-acre strip cutting right across +your horseshoe, from East to West Branch, and I couldn't touch it. I got +all the rest. That one belongs to a woman, and a more unreasonable +woman to try to do business with I never saw."</p> + +<p>"Um!" said Scattergood. "Know where I been, Johnnie?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Gittin' married."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Me 'n' the lady, we met by arrangement in Boston and got us a +preacher and done the job. Marriage, Johnnie, is a doggone solemn +matter."</p> + +<p>"I've heard so," said the young man.</p> + +<p>"Some day," said Scattergood, "I'm a-goin' to marry you off. Calculate I +got the girl in my eye now."</p> + +<p>"I hope," Johnnie said, "that you'll be—er—very happy."</p> + +<p>"Guess we'll manage so-so.... Now about them options, Johnnie. You make +tracks for the city and sort of edge up to Crane and Keith. Might start +by showin' 'em a deed for a mill site down across from theirs at the +railroad. Then you might start askin' questions like you was lookin' for +information. Guess that'll git up their curiosity some. Then you kin +spring your options on 'em.... When you've done that, come off and leave +'em sweatin'. And don't mention me. I hain't in this deal a-tall."</p> + +<p>But before Johnnie could get to Crane and Keith, Crane and Keith came to +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You've got some kind of a proposition in mind," said Keith, who did the +talking because he could keep his temper better than Crane. "What do you +want?"</p> + +<p>"Make me an offer," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"We'll buy your provision company—and give you a decent profit."</p> + +<p>"Don't sound enticin'," said Scattergood, reaching down and loosening +his shoe. It was too cold to omit the wearing of heavy woolen socks, so +he could not twiddle his toes with perfect freedom, but he could +twiddle them some, and that helped his mental processes.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want?"</p> + +<p>"I'll sell the provision company's stock of provisions—and nothin' +more.... At a profit. You got to buy, 'cause you can't make arrangements +to git in grub before I bring on a famine for you.... And I got the grub +stored in warehouses. That's part of it. Second, I'll <i>lease</i> you my +river for three years. You wasn't calc'latin' to pay for the use of it. +So you be obleeged to pay in advance. I figgered my profits on drivin' +at about two thousand this year. Give you a three-year lease for five +thousand. I hain't no hog.... Yes or no."</p> + +<p>There was a brief conference. "Yes," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to come to the city for it," Keith said, which Scattergood +was not unwilling to do. He returned with a certified check for +twenty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-four dollars and nineteen +cents, of which five thousand was rental of his river, and four thousand +and odd dollars were his profits on his provisions. Not a bad profit +from a dust-throwing project!</p> + +<p>Meantime Johnnie paid his visit to Crane and Keith, and came home to +report.</p> + +<p>"It hit them between wind and water," he said.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... What did you judge they had in mind?"</p> + +<p>"They wanted to buy me out.... Of course I wouldn't sell. My clients +wanted that timber, and were going to work to build their mill.... The +last they said was that they were coming up to see me."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh! When they come, you mention about that strip of fifteen +thousand acres you couldn't buy, eh? Let on you couldn't get it."</p> + +<p>Johnnie held Scattergood as he was going out. "I want to account for +that five thousand dollars you placed in my name."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead. I hain't perventin' you."</p> + +<p>"I got options on eighteen thousand six hundred acres of timber. The +options cost me twenty-one hundred and seventy dollars, and my expenses +were sixty-one dollars and a half."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Cheap enough. What did the land cost an acre?"</p> + +<p>"Averaged a dollar and seventy-five cents."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Not so bad. Now tend to Crane and his quiet friend."</p> + +<p>They arrived in due time, accompanied by their lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bones," said the lawyer, "you have certain options that my clients +wish to purchase. Undoubtedly they were taken in good faith, but we +would like, before going farther, to know whom you are acting for."</p> + +<p>"You can deal with me. I have full powers."</p> + +<p>"You decline to disclose your principal?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"Do I understand the project is to build a mill at once and start to cut +this timber?"</p> + +<p>"That is my information."</p> + +<p>"Aha!... May I ask how much land you have?"</p> + +<p>Johnnie exhibited a map, on which was blocked off the timber in +question. "You see," he said, "there's one fifteen-thousand-acre strip I +couldn't get hold of. It cuts right across the triangle from river to +river."</p> + +<p>Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane.</p> + +<p>"It belongs to a woman who wouldn't do business," Johnnie added.</p> + +<p>"What figure did you pay for the land?"</p> + +<p>"That is hardly a fair question."</p> + +<p>"What do you ask for your options? That's a fair question, isn't it?" +"They're not for sale."</p> + +<p>"But we may make an offer. It might be profitable for your principals to +sell. My clients feel they need this property, lying as it does between +their holdings."</p> + +<p>"I'll listen."</p> + +<p>There followed whispered arguments among the three, resulting in an +offer of a dollar and seventy-five cents an acre for the whole +tract—exactly what Johnnie had agreed to pay.</p> + +<p>"I said I'd listen," said Johnnie, "but I don't seem to hear anything."</p> + +<p>Another conference and a bid of two dollars. Johnnie shrugged his +shoulders. Two dollars and a half an acre was finally offered, and then +Johnnie leaned forward and tapped with his finger on his desk. "If you +gentlemen mean business, let's talk business. I've got what you want. +You can't get it unless I want to sell, and I don't want to sell. I and +my clients know what that timber is worth to us, but any business man +will consider a quick profit if it is <i>enough</i> profit. In five years +that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years +it will be worth fifteen to twenty.... But if you want to buy to-day you +can have it for three dollars through and through."</p> + +<p>"We've got to have it," said Crane, and Keith nodded.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood's.</p> + +<p>"Our bank has made arrangements with your local bank to give us what +money we need," said Keith.</p> + +<p>And then, clattering upstairs, came a small boy. Without ceremony he +burst into the room. "Mr. Bones," he shouted, "I was sent to tell you +that strip of timber you tried to buy from the lady is for sale." Then +he whisked out of sight.</p> + +<p>Johnnie shrugged his shoulders. "Costs me some profit," he said. +"Confound that woman!... Well, we can go to the bank and close this up. +Then you fellows can finish up by buying that last fifteen thousand +acres."</p> + +<p>"You bet we will," said Crane, savagely.</p> + +<p>At the bank fifty-five thousand eight hundred dollars in the form of a +certified check was deposited in the hands of the cashier to be paid to +Johnnie when he should deliver proper deeds to the property sold.... It +represented a profit of twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty +dollars.</p> + +<p>"Now for the other parcel," said Crane, and getting the information as +to ownership, he and his companions took buggy to the spot. It was a +comfortable farmhouse, white painted and agreeable to look upon, but the +pleasure of the view was ruined for Crane and Keith by reason of a bulky +figure standing on the porch in conversation with a woman.</p> + +<p>"Baines!" ejaculated Crane. It sounded like a swear word as he said it.</p> + +<p>The three rushed the piazza.</p> + +<p>"Madam," said Crane, not deigning to recognize Scattergood's presence, +"you own a tract of timber—fifteen thousand acres. We hear it is for +sale. We want to buy it."</p> + +<p>"This gentleman was just making me an offer for it," she said, pointing +to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"We raise his offer twenty-five cents an acre," said Crane, and drew +from his-pocket a huge roll of bills—it being his idea of the +psychology of women that the sight of actual money would have a +favorable effect.</p> + +<p>"That makes two dollars an acre," said she, and looked at Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Two and a quarter," said he.</p> + +<p>"Two and a half," roared Crane.</p> + +<p>"Two seventy-five," said Scattergood. "Three dollars."</p> + +<p>"Three ten," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Three and a quarter" said Crane. He glared at Scattergood. "If you want +it worse than that," he shouted, "why, confound you, you can have it!"</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Scattergood, placidly.</p> + +<p>The woman figured a moment. "That makes forty-eight thousand seven +hundred and fifty dollars," she said. "I kind of like even money. You +can have it for an even fifty thousand."</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked at her and grinned. One might have detected +admiration in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Done," said Crane. "We'll get into town and close the deal, ma'am, if +you don't mind."</p> + +<p>"Your buggy seems to be crowded," said Scattergood. "I'll drive the lady +in, if you want I should."</p> + +<p>"We want nothing from you at all, Baines."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Scattergood, placidly, and, getting into his buggy, he +drove away. He drove rapidly, and alighted at Johnnie Bones's office. +Presently he emerged, carrying a legal-appearing document in his hand, +and went across to the bank, where he handed the document to the +cashier.</p> + +<p>Presently the parties appeared, entered the bank, and the cashier, upon +being directed, executed a certified check to the lady for fifty +thousand dollars. Then he handed it to her, and the deed to Mr. Crane. +"You see," said he, "we have the deed all ready for you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scattergood, stepping through the door. "I had it fixed up +for you. I aim to be prompt when I'm tendin' to my wife's business +matters. Gentlemen, I guess you hain't met Mrs. Baines real proper +yet...."</p> + +<p>It was not a happy moment for Messrs. Crane and Keith, but they +weathered it, not suavely, not with complete dignity, but after a +fashion.... Their departure might, perhaps, have been termed brusque.</p> + +<p>"Well, Scattergood," said Mandy, "it was a real good deal."</p> + +<p>"The way you h'isted 'em to fifty thousand was what got my eye," he +said, proudly. "I wouldn't 'a' had the nerve."</p> + +<p>"I knew they'd pay it," she said. "Seems like a reasonable profit, +though the land's been a-layin' there unproductive for thirty year. +Father, he give a thousand dollars for it, and the taxes must 'a' been a +couple of thousand more. Say forty-seven thousand dollars profit...."</p> + +<p>"And I come out of the other deals perty fair. Made twenty-three +thousand off of the options, and nine or ten off of the other things. +Guess the Baines family's a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars +richer by a good day's work."</p> + +<p>"But it can't lay idle," she said.</p> + +<p>"Not a minnit. We'll buy that sixty thousand acres 'way back up the +river for sixty-six cents, like we planned, and have some workin' +capital.... And, Mandy, Crane and Keith hain't got that timber for +keeps. It's comin' back to us some of these days. I feel it in my +bones...."</p> + +<p>"Kind of a nice wind-up for our honeymoon," said Mrs. Baines, +practically.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_III"></a><h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines was on his way to the city! An exclamation point +deserves to be placed after this because it rightly belongs in a class +with the statement that the mountain was coming to Mohammed. Scattergood +had fully as much in common with cities as eels with the Desert of +Sahara.</p> + +<p>He had not started the journey brashly, on impulse, but after debate and +discussion with Mandy, his wife. Mandy's conclusion was that if +Scattergood <i>had</i> to go to the city he might as well get at it and have +it over, exercising the care of an exceedingly prudent man in the +circumstances, and following minutely advice that would be forthcoming +from <i>her</i>. Undoubtedly, she thought, he could manage the matter and +return to Coldriver unscathed.</p> + +<p>So Scattergood was clambering into the stage—his stage that plied +between Coldriver village and the railroad, twenty-four miles distant. +When he settled in his seat the stage sagged noticeably on that side, +for Scattergood added to his weight yearly as he added to his other +possessions. Mandy stood by, watching anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Remember," said she, "I pinned your money in the right leg of your +pants, clost to the knee."</p> + +<p>"Mandy," said he, confidentially, "I feel the lump of it. I hope I don't +have to git after it sudden. Dunno but I should have fetched along a +ferret to send up after it."</p> + +<p>"Don't git friendly with no strangers—dressed-up ones, especial. And +never set down your valise. There's a white shirt and a collar and two +pairs of sox, and what not, in there. Make quite an object for some +sharper."</p> + +<p>He nodded solemnly.</p> + +<p>"If you git invited out to <i>his house</i>," she said, "it'll save you a +dollar hotel bill, anyhow, and be a heap sight safer."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Mandy, as usual," he agreed. "G'by, Mandy. I calculate +you won't have no trouble mindin' the store."</p> + +<p>"G'by, Scattergood," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "I'll be relieved to +see you gittin' back."</p> + +<p>There seemed to be little sentiment in these, their words of parting, +but in reality it was an exceedingly sentimental passage for them. +Between Scattergood and his wife there was a deep, true, abiding +affection. Folks who regarded it as a business partnership—and there +were many of them—lacked the seeing eye.</p> + +<p>The stage rattled off down the valley—Scattergood's valley. He had +invaded it some years before because valleys were his hobby and because +<i>this</i> valley offered him the opportunity he had been searching for. +Scattergood knew what could be done with a valley, and he was busy doing +it, but he was only at the beginning. As he bumped along he could see +busy villages where only hamlets rested; he could see mills turning +timber into finished products; he could see business and life and +activity where there were only silence and rocks and trees. And where +ran the rutted mountain road, over which his stage was carrying him +uncomfortably, he could see the railroad that was to make his dream a +reality. He could see a railroad stretching all the way from Coldriver +village to the main line, and by virtue of this railroad Scattergood +would rule the valley.</p> + +<p>He had arrived with forty-odd dollars in his pocket. His few years of +labor there, assisted by a wise and business-like marriage, had +increased that forty dollars to what some folks would call wealth. +First, he owned a prosperous hardware store. This was his business. It +netted him a couple of thousand dollars a year. The valley was his +avocation. It had netted him well over a hundred thousand dollars, most +of which was growing on the mountain sides in straight, clear spruce, in +birch, beech, and maple. It had netted him certain strategic holdings of +land along Coldriver itself, sites for future dams, for mills yet to be +built—for railroad yards, depots, and terminals. Quietly, almost +stealthily, he had gotten a hold on the valley. Now he was ready to grip +it with both hands and to make it his own.... That is why he journeyed +to the city.</p> + +<p>He put his canvas telescope between his feet so that he could feel it. +It was as well, he determined, to practice caution where none was +needed, so he would be letter perfect in the art when he reached the +dangers of the city. Between Scattergood's shoes and the feet they +inclosed, were sox. Before his union with Mandy he had been a stranger +to such effeteness. Even now he was prone to discard them as soon as he +was out of range of her vision. To-day he had not escaped, for, warm as +the day was, heavy white woolen sox folded and festooned themselves +modishly over the tops of his shoes. He could not wriggle a toe, which +made his mental processes difficult, for his toes were first aids to his +brain.</p> + +<p>However, he was going to visit a railroad president, and railroad +presidents were said by Mandy to go in for style. Scattergood mournfully +arose to the necessities of the situation.</p> + +<p>The twenty-four-mile ride was not long to Scattergood, for he occupied +it by studying again every inch of his valley. He never tired of +studying it. As the law book to the lawyer so the valley was to +Scattergood—something never to be laid aside, something to be kept +fresh in mind and never neglected. He never passed the length of it +without seeing a new possibility.</p> + +<p>Scattergood flagged the train. The four-hour ride to the city he +occupied in talking to the conductor or brake-man or any member of the +train's crew he could engage in conversation. He was asking them about +their jobs, what they did, and why. He was asking question after +question about railroads and railroading, in his quaint, characteristic +manner. It was his intention to own a railroad, and he was at work +finding out how the thing was done.</p> + +<p>Next morning at seven he was on hand at the terminal offices of the G. +and B. An hour later minor employees began to arrive.</p> + +<p>"Young feller," he said, accosting a pleasant-faced boy, "where d'you +calc'late I'll find Mr. Castle?"</p> + +<p>"President Castle?" asked the boy.</p> + +<p>"That's the feller," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"About now he'll be eating grapefruit and poached egg," said the boy.</p> + +<p>"Don't he work none durin' the day?"</p> + +<p>The boy laughed good-humoredly. "He gets down about nine thirty, and +when he don't go off somewheres he's mostly here till four—except +between one and two, when he's at lunch."</p> + +<p>"Gosh!" said Scattergood. "Must be wearin' him to the bone. 'Most five +hours a day he sticks to it. Bear up under it perty well, young feller, +does he? Keep his health and strength?"</p> + +<p>"He works enough to get paid fifty thousand a year for it," said the +boy.</p> + +<p>"That settles it," said Scattergood. "I've picked my job. I'm a-goin' to +be a railroad president." He put his canvas telescope down, and placed a +heavy foot on it for safety. "Calc'late I kin sit here and wait, can't +I?"</p> + +<p>The boy nodded and went on. During the next hour more than one dozen +young men and women passed that spot to eye with appreciation the caller +who waited for Mr. Castle. Scattergood was unaware of their scrutiny, +for he was building a railroad down his valley—a railroad of which he +was the president.</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked frequently at a big, open-faced, silver watch which +was connected to his vest in pickpocket-proof fashion with a braided +leather thong. When it told him nine thirty had arrived, he got up, his +telescope in his hand, and ambled heavily down the corridor. He poked +his head in at an open door, and called, amiably, "Kin anybody tell me +where to find Mr. Castle?"</p> + +<p>He was directed, and presently opened a door marked "President's +Office." The room within did not contain the president. It was crossed +by a railing, behind which sat an office boy. Behind him was a +stenographer.</p> + +<p>"President in?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The boy looked at him severely, and replied, shortly, that the president +was busy.</p> + +<p>"Havin' only five hours to do all his work," said Scattergood, "I +calc'lated he <i>would</i> be some took up. Tell him Scattergood Baines wants +to have a talk to him, sonny."</p> + +<p>"Have an appointment?"</p> + +<p>"No, sonny," said Scattergood, "but if you don't scamper into his room +fairly <i>spry</i>, the seat of your pants is goin' to have an appointment +with my hand." He leaned over the railing as he said it, and the boy, +regarding Scattergood's face a moment, arose and whisked into the next +room.</p> + +<p>Shortly there appeared a youngish man, constructed by nature to adorn +wearing apparel.</p> + +<p>"Be you Mr. Castle?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I'm his secretary. What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Young man, I'm disapp'inted. When I see you I figgered you must be +president of the railroad or the Queen of Sheeby. I want to see Mr. +Castle."</p> + +<p>"What is your business with him?"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't fit for young ears to listen to," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"If you have any business with Mr. Castle, state it to me."</p> + +<p>"Um!... I come quite consid'able of a distance to see <i>him</i>—which I +calc'late to <i>do</i>." He reached over, with astonishing suddenness in one +so bulky, and twirled the secretary about with his ham of a hand. At the +same time he leaned against the gate, which was not fastened to restrain +such a weight. "Now, forrard march, young feller. Lead the way. I'm +follerin' you." And thus Scattergood entered the presence.</p> + +<p>He saw behind a huge, flat desk a very thin man, who leaned forward, +clutching his temples as though to restrain within bounds the machinery +of the brain inside. It was President Castle's habitual posture when +working. The temples and dome of the head seemed to bulge, as if there +was too much inside for the strength of the restraining walls. The +president looked up and fastened eyes that themselves bulged from +hollowed sockets. It was the face of a man who ran his mental dynamo at +top speed in defiance of nature's laws against speeding.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he snapped. "<i>Well—well</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Name's Scattergood Baines. Figger to build a railroad. Want to see you +about it," said Scattergood, succinctly.</p> + +<p>"Not interested. Busy. Get out," said Castle.</p> + +<p>Scattergood dropped the secretary, and lumbered up to the president's +desk. He leaned over it heavily. "I've come to see you about this here +thing," he said, quietly. "Either you'll talk to me about it <i>now</i>, or +I'll have to sort of arrange so that you'll come to <i>me</i>, askin' to talk +about it, later. Now you kin save both our time."</p> + +<p>Castle regarded Scattergood with eyes that seemed to burn with +unnatural nervous energy—it was a brief scrutiny. "Clear out," he said +to his secretary. "Sit down," to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Obleeged," said Scattergood. "I'm figgerin' on buildin' a railroad down +Coldriver Valley from Coldriver to connect with the G. and B. narrow +gauge. Carry freight and passengers. Want you to agree about train +service, freight transfer, buildin' a station, and sich matters."</p> + +<p>Here was a man who could get down to business, President Castle +perceived, and who could state his business clearly and to the point.</p> + +<p>"I know the valley. Been talking about it. Where do you come in?"</p> + +<p>"I calculate to build the road."</p> + +<p>"For Crane and Keith?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"They're the men backing it, aren't they? In to see me about it last +week."</p> + +<p>Crane and Keith! Scattergood's career in the valley had been one of +warfare with Crane and Keith. He had beaten them with his dam and boom +company; he had beaten them in certain stumpage operations. Now they +were after his railroad and his valley.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." he said, and reached down mechanically to loosen his shoe. Here +was need for careful thought.</p> + +<p>"I gave them all necessary information," said the president.</p> + +<p>"Don't concern me none," said Scattergood. "This here is to be <i>my</i> +railroad, and I'm the feller that's goin' to own and run it. Crane and +Keith hain't in it at all."</p> + +<p>"You're too late. The G. and B. has agreed to handle their freight and +to stop passengers at their station. Tentatively agreed to lease and +operate the road when built.... Good morning." "I calculate there's +room for argument," said Scattergood. "I own right consid'able of that +right of way."</p> + +<p>"Railroad can take it under the right of eminent domain," said the +president.</p> + +<p>"Kin one railroad take from another one?" asked Scattergood, a bit +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wa-al, you see, Mr. Castle, I got me a charter to build this +railroad. Legislature up and give me one."</p> + +<p>"Makes no difference. We've made an agreement with Crane and Keith which +<i>stands</i>. You can't build your road, whatever you've got. Frankly, we +won't tolerate a road there that we don't control. Good morning."</p> + +<p>"That final, Mr. President?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"If I was to build in spite of you I calc'late you'd fix things so's +runnin' it wouldn't do much good to me, eh? Stop no trains for me, and +sich like?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Mornin', Mr. President. If you ever git up to Coldriver don't go +to the hotel. Come right to my house. Mandy'll be glad to see you. +Mornin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood and Johnnie Bones, the young lawyer whom Scattergood had +taken to his heart, were studying a railway map of the state with +special reference to the G. & B. It showed them that the G. & B. +traversed a southerly corner of the state and had within its boundaries +some forty miles of track.</p> + +<p>"The idee," said Scattergood, "is to make that forty mile of track +consid'able more of a worry to Castle than all the rest of his +railroad."</p> + +<p>"Meddling with the railroads is a dangerous pastime," said Johnnie. +"Besides, how can you manage it?"</p> + +<p>"We got a legislature, hain't we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the boys feel pretty friendly to the railroads, I +understand."</p> + +<p>"Feel perty friendly to me, too," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I doubt if you could pass any legislation they wanted to fight hard."</p> + +<p>"Um!... I'll look out for that end, Johnnie. Now what I want is for you +to draw up a bill for me that'll sort of irritate 'em where irritation +does the most hurt—which, I calc'late, is in the pocketbook. Here's my +notion: To make a pop'lar measure of it; somethin' that'll appeal to the +folks. We kin git the papers to start a holler and have folks demandin' +action of their representatives, and sich like. Taxes! That'll fetch 'em +every time."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Johnnie, dubiously, "but—"</p> + +<p>"You <i>listen</i>" said Scattergood. "It stands to reason that the state +don't realize much out of that there forty mile of track. The G. and B. +gits the use of the state, so to speak, without payin' a fair rent for +it. You draw up a bill pervidin' that the railroad has got to pay a fee +of, say a dollar, for every passenger car it runs over them forty miles, +and fifty cents for every freight car. That'll mount to a consid'able +sum every year, eh?"</p> + +<p>"It'll amount to so much," said Johnnie, gazing ruefully at his client, +"that there'll be the devil to pay. You'll pull every railroad in the +state down around your ears."</p> + +<p>"Let 'em drop."</p> + +<p>"And I don't know if the law'll hold water—even if you got it passed. +It's darn-fool legislation, Mr. Baines—but some darn-fool legislation +<i>sticks</i>. I don't believe this would, but it <i>might</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's plenty to suit me," said Scattergood, slipping on his shoes and +standing up. "You git at it.... And say," he said, as a sort of +afterthought, "I want to git through a leetle bill for my stage line. +Here's about it. Won't take more'n fifty words." He handed Johnnie a +slip, crumpled and grimy, with lead-pencil notes on. "This won't cause +no trouble, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went back to his hardware store and sat down in his +reinforced armchair on the piazza. As he sat there young Jim Hands drove +up with his girl, alighted, and went into the ice-cream parlor for +refreshment. Scattergood studied the rig. It lacked something to give it +the final touch of style dear to the country youth.</p> + +<p>Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a +resplendent buggy whip—one with a white silk bow tied above its handle. +This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his +chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig. +He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished +it through the air to try its excellence.</p> + +<p>"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim.</p> + +<p>"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good +whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked."</p> + +<p>Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and +felt in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I <i>did</i> need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips +fetchin'?"</p> + +<p>"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to +you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy."</p> + +<p>The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills, +which he passed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off +with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by +methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the +business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for. +Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business +opportunity slip—large or small—and that he manufactured for himself +fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail +salesmanship to the rank of an art.</p> + +<p>Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain +wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had +pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and +weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find +them and ship them at once.</p> + +<p>Presently Tim Plant, teamster, drove by, and Scattergood hailed him.</p> + +<p>"Tim," he said, "you owe me a leetle bill. This hain't a dun, but I got +a mite of work to be done, and seein' things wasn't brisk with you, I +figgered you might want to work it out—jest to keep busy."</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Tim.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Scattergood elevated himself to the seat beside Tim, and was +driven to the spot he had selected for the Coldriver terminal of his +railroad.</p> + +<p>"I want about a hunderd feet graded along here," he said, "to lay rails +on."</p> + +<p>"Rails!... Gosh! Scattergood, you hain't thinkin' of buildin' a +railroad, be you?"</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" said Scattergood. "I jest got a half dozen rails comin', and I +figgered I'd like to see how they'd look all laid down on the spot. Give +folks an idee how a railroad 'u'd look if there was one."</p> + +<p>In which manner Scattergood collected a doubtful bill, obtained a +quantity of labor at what might be called wholesale rates—and actually +started work on his railroad. Actual, patent for the world to see. The +railroad was begun. Not Crane & Keith, not President Castle, not a court +in the world could deny that actual construction had begun. Scattergood +was insuring himself against possible steps by the enemy to nullify his +charter.</p> + +<p>"What's this here <i>eminent domain</i>?" Scattergood asked Johnnie Bones.</p> + +<p>"It's a legal thing that allows railroads to take land necessary to its +operation—paying for it, of course."</p> + +<p>"Anybody's land?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Crane and Keith, f'r instance?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Have to be right of way, or jest land for railroad yards, or to +build railroad buildin's on?"</p> + +<p>"Any land <i>necessary</i> to a railroad."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Who says if it's necessary?"</p> + +<p>"The courts."</p> + +<p>"How'd you git at it?"</p> + +<p>"Start what are called condemnation proceedings."</p> + +<p>"All right, Johnnie, start me some."</p> + +<p>"Against whom, and for what, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"Against Crane and Keith, to git their land down at the G. and B. All +their mill yards, you know. Don't want the mill buildin'. They're +welcome to that. Jest their yards."</p> + +<p>"But they can't run the mill without the log yard and the yard to pile +out their lumber."</p> + +<p>"Be too bad, wouldn't it? Calc'late I'm a heap sorry for Crane and +Keith. Them fellers arouses my sympathy mighty frequent."</p> + +<p>"But you're not a railroad, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Yes I be, Johnnie. To-morrow I'll be layin' rails to prove it."</p> + +<p>"But you own land right adjoining Crane and Keith's yards. Plenty of +it."</p> + +<p>"Not plenty, Johnnie.... Not plenty. As long as Crane and Keith owns +<i>anything</i> in this neighborhood I hain't got plenty of it. Get the idee?"</p> + +<p>"You want to run them out?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, they hain't been exactly friendly to me. I like to dwell among +friends, Johnnie. Lately they been makin' a sight of trouble for me. +Seems like I ought to sort of return the favor. 'Tain't jest spite, +Johnnie. Spite's a luxury I can't afford if there hain't a money profit +in it. Seems like there might be a dollar or two in this here +proceedin'—if handled jest right."</p> + +<p>Johnnie didn't see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object +in a great many things that Scattergood undertook. It was not his +business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood's +directions. The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood's +right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead.</p> + +<p>"Didn't know Crane's sister married President Castle of the G. and B., +did you, Johnnie?"</p> + +<p>"No. What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Consid'able.... Consid'able. Goes some ways toward provin' to me I was +expected to call on Castle and that things was arranged on purpose. +Proves to my satisfaction that Crane and Keith went out of their way to +start this rumpus with me.... You start them condemnation proceedin's as +quick as you kin."</p> + +<p>Johnnie started them. Scattergood waited a few days; watched with +interest the laying of the first rails of the Coldriver Railroad, and +then made the day's drive to the state capital with drafts of his pair +of bills in his pocket. He hunted up the representative from his +town—Amri Striker by name.</p> + +<p>"Amri," said he, "how's your disposition these days, eh? Feel like doin' +favors?"</p> + +<p>"Guess a lot of us boys feel like doin' favors for you, Scattergood." +Which was not short of the truth, for Scattergood had been studying the +science of politics as it was practiced in his state and putting to +practical use his education. Indeed, he added to the science not a few +contrivances characteristic of himself, which made the old-timers +scratch their heads and admit that a new man had arisen who must be +reckoned with. Not yet did Scattergood hold the state in the hollow of +his hand, naming governors, senators, directing legislation, as he did +when his years were heavier on his shoulders. Probably, however, there +was no single individual in the commonwealth who could exert as much +influence as he. If there was a single man to compare with him it was +Lafe Siggins, from the northern part of the state. All men admitted that +a partnership between Scattergood and Lafe would be unbeatable.</p> + +<p>"Got a bill I want introduced, Amri," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Let's see her, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>Amri read the bill; then he turned around in his chair and looked out of +the window. Then he walked to the door and opened it suddenly, and +peered up and down the hall.</p> + +<p>"The dum thing's loaded with dynamite," he said, when he came back.</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated on some explosion," said Scattergood. "But I calc'late the +folks'll be for it. Shouldn't be s'prised if the feller who introduced +it and made a fight for it would stand mighty well, back home. Might git +to be Senator, Amri. No tellin'."</p> + +<p>"Can't no sich bill be passed. The boys likes their passes, and I guess +there's some that gits more than passes out of the railroads."</p> + +<p>"If this bill's introduced, Amri," said Scattergood, solemnly, "there'll +be a chance for some of the boys to fat up their savings' +account—pervidin' there's a good chance of its passin'. The +railroads'll git scairt and send quite a bank roll up this way."</p> + +<p>"You bet," said Amri, with watering mouth.</p> + +<p>"Lafe in town?"</p> + +<p>"Come in last week."</p> + +<p>"Lafe, I understand, hain't in politics for fun."</p> + +<p>"Lafe's in right where he kin git the most the quickest."</p> + +<p>"Run out and git him to step up here," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>In half an hour Lafe Siggins, tall, bony, long, and solemn of face, +stepped into the room, and closed the door after him cautiously.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Scattergood!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Lafe!... Want your backin' for a pop'lar measure. I've up and +invented a new way of taxin' a railroad."</p> + +<p>Lafe started for the door. "Afternoon," he said, with a tone of +finality.</p> + +<p>"But," said Scattergood, "I figger you to do the fightin' for the +railroads—reapin' whatever benefits you can figger out of it for +yourself."</p> + +<p>Lafe paused, considered, and returned. "What's the idee?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I jest don't want this bill to pass too easy," said Scattergood, +soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't," said Lafe.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Railroads is more liberal, hain't they, when there's a good +chance of their gittin' licked? Suppose this come to a fight, and it +looked like they was goin' to git the worst of it. Supposin' the outcome +hung on two or three votes, eh? And them votes looked dubious."</p> + +<p>Lafe pressed his thin lips together.</p> + +<p>"I guess I kin account for near half of the boys, Lafe, and I guess you +kin line up clost to half with the railroads, can't you? Well, you don't +stand to lose nothin', do you? All we got to do is keep them decidin' +votes where we want 'em." Then he leaned over and whispered in Lafe's +ear briefly.</p> + +<p>Lafe's thin lips curved upward a trifle at the ends. "Scattergood," +said he, "this here's an idee. Never recollect nothin' resemblin' it +since I been in politics. What <i>you</i> after?"</p> + +<p>"Jest pleasure, Lafe.... Jest pleasure. Is it a deal?"</p> + +<p>"It's a deal."</p> + +<p>"Amri outside?"</p> + +<p>"Standin' guard, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"When you go out send him in."</p> + +<p>Amri opened the door that Lafe closed behind him.</p> + +<p>"All fixed," said Scattergood. "I want to see these boys to-night." +Scattergood handed Amri a list of names. "And say, Amri, here's a leetle +bill you might jest slip along quick. Don't amount to nothin', but it +might help me some. Like to git the Governor's signature to it as soon +as it kin be done."</p> + +<p>Amri read it cautiously. It was just a harmless little measure having to +do with stage lines. "All right," he said, carelessly.</p> + +<p>Crane was in President Castle's office, and his demeanor was that of a +man who has heard disquieting news.</p> + +<p>"I told you," he said, in tones of reproach, "that he wasn't safe to +monkey with. Keith and I thought he was just a fat, backwoods rube, but +we got burnt, and burnt good. We were going to let him alone, but you +got us into this—and now you've got to get us out again. Know what he's +done? Nothing much but start condemnation proceedings against us to take +our mill yards down on the railroad for a site for a depot and freight +sheds. That's all. And us with close to a hundred thousand tied up in +that mill. If he puts it through ..."</p> + +<p>"He won't," snapped Castle.</p> + +<p>"He's started to build his railroad. Actually laying rails."</p> + +<p>"So I heard. That's to hold his charter.... Don't you worry. He can't +build that road, and you men will. As soon as I found out he had that +charter, and saw the possibilities of that valley, I made up my mind he +had to be eliminated. And he will be."</p> + +<p>"Keith and I tried that."</p> + +<p>"I saw him," said Castle. "He's no fool. You thought he was. I'm not +making any such mistake. Going after you the way he has proves it."</p> + +<p>"And he'll be going after you, too. You want to mind your eye."</p> + +<p>"It's a little different tackling the G. and B., don't you think? And I +doubt if he figures we're really backing you."</p> + +<p>"What he figures and what you think he figures are mighty wide apart +sometimes. It cost me money to find that out."</p> + +<p>The telephone interrupted. Castle answered: "Yes, Hammond, I can see you +now. What is it?... All right. Come right up." Hammond was the +railroad's general counsel.</p> + +<p>He appeared presently.</p> + +<p>"I thought we had the legislature up yonder tamed," he said, angrily, as +he entered the office.</p> + +<p>"We have."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Take a look at this." He handed to the president Scattergood's +novel taxation, measure. "What you make of that? Who's behind it? What's +the game?"</p> + +<p>Castle read it carefully; then he turned to Crane. "You win," he said, +succinctly. "Your friend Scattergood has brought the fight right on to +our front porch.... What about it, Hammond? Will such a tom-fool law +stand water?"</p> + +<p>"Can't tell. My judgment is that it wouldn't, but it's such a fool law +that nobody can tell. And if it stuck—" He sucked in his breath. "It +would give every jay legisature a show to rough the railroads +beautifully."</p> + +<p>"It would hurt.... Of course it mustn't pass. Get after it and don't let +any grass grow. Kill it in committee. That's the safest way.... Have +Lafe Siggins look after it."</p> + +<p>Hammond bustled out, and Castle turned to his brother-in-law. "I +underestimated this Scattergood <i>some</i>," he said. "Now I'll go after +him.... For reasons of necessity we will discontinue all train service +at the flag station at the mouth of Coldriver Valley. That'll leave his +stage line dangling in the air. Just for a taste of what we can do.... +I'll have Hammond look after that condemnation matter for you."</p> + +<p>"He'll be coming around to offer to sidetrack that legislation if you'll +let him build his railroad."</p> + +<p>"Probably. I guess we won't trade."</p> + +<p>But Scattergood did not come around to offer a compromise. He seemed to +have lost interest in the matter wholly and to give his time solely to +his hardware store. But the Transient Car bill, as it came to be called, +began mysteriously to attract unprecedented attention. The press of the +state showed unusual interest in it. In short, it became the one big +measure of the legislative session. Everything else was secondary to it. +When a railroad measure is hotly discussed in every loafing place in a +state there is a measure that legislators handle with gloves. It is +loaded. When the home folks get really interested in a thing they are +apt to demand explanations. Wherefore it was but natural that President +Castle's experts found it impossible to strangle the bill in committee. +It was reported out, and then Hammond found it wise to journey to the +capital to take charge of things himself.</p> + +<p>At the end of a week, Mr. Hammond, general counsel for the G. & B. and +expert handler of legislatures, was forced to write President Castle +that he faced a condition new in his broad experience.</p> + +<p>"The chances," he said, "are more than even that this bill passes. Men +we have been able to depend on are refractory. Siggins is doing his +best, but so far he has been able to account for only forty-five per +cent of the votes. The strange thing about it," he finished, with +genuine amazement, "is that the other side doesn't seem to be spending a +penny."</p> + +<p>Which was perfectly true. Neither in that fight nor in any of the scores +of legislative battles in which Scattergood took part in his after life +did he spend a dollar to buy a vote or to influence legislation. Perhaps +it was scruple on his part; perhaps economy; perhaps he felt that his +own peculiar methods were more efficacious than mere barter and sale.</p> + +<p>From end to end, the state was in excitement over the measure. Skillful +work had made it seem a vital thing to the people, and hundreds of +letters and telegrams poured in to representatives. It looked as if +public opinion were overwhelmingly with the bill. It was Scattergood's +first use of the weapon of public opinion. In this battle he learned its +potentialities. Men who knew him well and were close to him in political +matters declare he became the most skillful creator of a fictitious +public opinion that ever lived in the state. It was in keeping with his +methods that he always seemed to be acting in response to a demand from +the public rather than that he excited the public to demand what +Scattergood wanted. But that was when Scattergood's hair was touched +with gray and his girth had increased by twoscore pounds.</p> + +<p>"I can't find any trace of Scattergood Baines in this matter," Hammond +reported to President Castle.</p> + +<p>That was true. Scattergood stayed at home, tending vigorously to his +hardware business. Representatives did not call on him; he did not call +on them. No trails led to his door.</p> + +<p>President Castle had expected overtures from Scattergood, but none +materialized. To a man of Castle's experience this was more than +strange; it was uncanny. He began to consider the situation really +serious. Was the man so confident as his silence indicated?</p> + +<p>"Get the votes," he wired succinctly to Hammond, and Hammond, reading +the message correctly, dipped into the emergency barrel of the railroad +with generous hands. Prosperity had come to that legislature. Yet he was +able, at the end of another two weeks, to guarantee six votes less than +a majority. The opposition had captured one more vote than he, and +needed but five to pass their measure. Hammond faced the task of +acquiring those five unplaced legislators, and of weaning one away from +Scattergood—and the bill was due to come up in the House in two days.</p> + +<p>That day President Castle himself arrived in the capital, and, after +discussing the situation with Hammond, wired Scattergood, asking for an +appointment. The mountain was going to Mohammed. Scattergood replied not +a word.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late," he said to Mandy, "that President Castle's raisin' him a +blister."</p> + +<p>On the morning of the day on which the bill was to come to a vote +Scattergood appeared unostentatiously in the capital, but word of his +presence flashed from tongue to tongue with miraculous speed. Word of it +came to President Castle, who pocketed his pride for excellent business +reasons, and sent up his card to Scattergood's room.</p> + +<p>"Guess I kin see him a minute," said Scattergood, and the president +ascended with thoughts in his heart which Scattergood was well able to +lead.</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Castle, without preface, "what do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin' you've got, I calc'late," said Scattergood, serenely.</p> + +<p>"You're back of this infernal bill. The railroads can't permit it to +pass. It won't pass."</p> + +<p>"Then what you wastin' your time on me for?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"If we let you build your infernal little railroad will you drop out of +this?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't in it to speak of."</p> + +<p>"Will you take your hands off—if we give you your railroad and +guarantee train service?"</p> + +<p>"Can't seem to see my way clear."</p> + +<p>"What do you gain by passing this bill? You're nothing ahead. It won't +give you your railroad. It won't give you anything."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late you're right."</p> + +<p>"Listen to reason, man. You want <i>something</i>. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Me?... Um!... I'm a plain kind of a man, Mr. President, with a plain +kind of a wife. Hain't never met Mandy, have you? Wa-al, her and me is +perty contented with life. We got a good hardware store ..."</p> + +<p>"Rot! What do you want?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood leaned forward, his round face, with its bulging cheeks, as +expressionless as some particularly big and ruddy apple.</p> + +<p>"If you're achin' to do favors for me, Mr. President you kin drop in +along about supper time. Right now can't think of a thing you kin do for +me. But I'll try ... I'll spend the afternoon thinkin' over all the +things you might be able to do, and I'll try to pick one of 'em out.... +I got to see a hardware salesman now. Afternoon Mr. President."</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Castle, losing his temper for the first time in a dozen +years, "we'll smash you for this. We'll drive you out of the state. +Well—"</p> + +<p>"Don't slam the door," said Scattergood, placidly; "it might disturb the +other folks in the hotel."</p> + +<p>That afternoon the galleries of the House were jammed. Below, in their +seats, the legislators sat uncomfortably. There was a tenseness in the +air which made men's skin tingle. The Transient Car bill was about to +come to a vote. Everything had been done by both sides that could be +done. There could be no more outside interference; no more money +influence. It was all over. Now the matter was in the hands of those +uneasy men, who, even now, might hold steadfast to their principles or +to the money that had bought them or to the power that had compelled +them—or who might, for reasons secret to their several souls, change +sides with astonishing suddenness, upsetting all calculations. Such +things have been done.... But, even without the happening of the +unexpected, no man could say how the votes would fall. Neither side had +obtained a sure majority.</p> + +<p>The preliminary formalities went forward. Then began the roll call, and +from his place in the gallery Hammond checked off on his list name after +name, as they voted yea or nay—and President Castle watched and kept +mental count. Scattergood was not present. The thing was even, +dangerously even. For every yea there sounded a balancing nay. The count +stood sixty-one for, sixty against ... with ten more votes to call.... +With six votes to call the count was even.</p> + +<p>"Whittaker," called the clerk's monotonous voice.</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Robbins."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Baker."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Hooper."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Bolger."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Brock."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>The six final votes had been cast—and cast solidly against +Scattergood's bill. Scattergood was beaten, decisively, destructively +beaten. Not only was he defeated here, but he was smashed where the +damage was even more destructive—in his prestige. He was a discredited +political leader.... Lafe Siggins could not restrain a chuckle, for +Scattergood had played into his hands. Scattergood had allowed himself +to be eliminated from calculation in the state, leaving Siggins as sole, +undisputed, victorious boss. It had been a clever scheme that +Scattergood had outlined to Lafe—so clever that Lafe hadn't seen the +great good that lay in it for himself—until days later. He shrugged his +shoulders. It was just another case of a man unfamiliar with the game +overplaying his hand.</p> + +<p>President Castle shook hands openly with Hammond. True, there was a +demonstration of disapproval from the gallery—but that was only the +people! It did not signify.</p> + +<p>"We got him," said Castle.</p> + +<p>"But it was a close squeak."</p> + +<p>Castle looked grimly down on the representatives, now huddled together +in whispering groups.</p> + +<p>"I don't often have the impulse to crow over a man," he said, "but this +Baines was so infernally cocky. He told me I might see him at six +o'clock and he'd tell me what I could do for him. Well, I'm going to see +him." His voice was grim and forbidding.</p> + +<p>On the way they picked up Siggins and invited him to dinner. The three +went to the hotel, where, sitting calmly, placidly in the lobby, was +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Castle walked directly to him. "You were going to tell me what I could +do for you—at this hour, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Did say somethin' like that."</p> + +<p>Castle eyed Scattergood venomously, found him a hard man to crow over. +He admitted Scattergood to be a good loser.</p> + +<p>"I expect you'll be asking favors for some time," Castle said, "and not +getting them. I told you we'd lick you—and we have. I told you we'd +smash you and drive you out of the state. We'll do that just as +surely ..."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so," said Scattergood, phlegmatically. "Maybe so. Nobody kin +tell.... Howdy, Siggins! Lookin' mighty jubilant about somethin'. Glad +to see it.... And Mr. Hammond seems pleased, too. Done a good job of +work, didn't you? Bet your boss is pleased with you, eh?"</p> + +<p>"When you're ready to turn your chunks of right of way over to Crane and +Keith, let them know," said Castle. "I guess the G. and B. loses +interest in you from this on—or it will presently."</p> + +<p>"Jest a jiffy," said Scattergood, as the trio turned away. "Seems like +you was goin' to do a favor for me. Well, you hain't done it yet.... +Guess I need a favor perty bad at this minute, eh? Wa-al, 'tain't a big +one. Jest sort of cast your eye over this here." Scattergood handed +Castle a folded paper of documentary appearance.</p> + +<p>Castle snatched it and read it. It was brief. Not more than fifty words. +It was a copy of a bill having to do with stage lines, passed by both +Houses and signed by the Governor. It provided that wherever any stage +line or <i>other transportation company of whatsoever nature</i> intersected +the line of a railroad or terminated on such line, the railroad should +be compelled to establish a regular station on demand, for the handling +of passengers and freight, and should stop all trains except through +trains, and should establish sidetracks for the handling and transfer of +freight.</p> + +<p>A few formal words, backed by the authority of the state, compelling the +G. & B. to do all, and more than all, that Scattergood had requested of +them! A few words making possible Scattergood's railroad more surely +than agreement with President Castle could have made it!</p> + +<p>"While you folks was busy with the Transient Car bill," Scattergood +said, amiably, "the boys sort of tended to this for me. If I'd thought +Hammond was int'rested I might have called it to his attention. But I +figgered he was paid to watch out for sich things, and I didn't want to +interfere none. Jest as well, I take it."</p> + +<p>Castle was scowling at Hammond, momentarily at a loss for words. Siggins +was gazing at Scattergood with thin lips parted a trifle. His joy was +blanketed.</p> + +<p>"Somethin' else," said Scattergood, looking from one to another, and +finally at Lafe. "Siggins figgered that my gittin' a beatin' on this +bill would sort of make him boss of the state. You see, Mr. President, +this here bill wasn't <i>meant</i> to pass. It was fixed up for a couple of +reasons. One was to git something which I'll tell you about in a second. +Another was to make the boys in the House sort of prosperous like, and +grateful to me for gittin' 'em the prosperity—with the railroads payin' +for it. The last was to settle things between Lafe and me. I sort of +wanted Lafe and the boys in politics to understand which was which.... +And they'll understand.... Now, Mr. President, the thing I wanted to git +was in two parts. First one was to git your attention on this here bill +so's you wouldn't notice my little stage-line thing. The other was +pretty nigh as valuable. I got it. It's a list of every man in this +legislature that took money for a vote on this thing, with how much +money he took and the hour and minute it was paid him—and <i>who by</i>. +Seems like I managed to git <i>your</i> name, Mr. President, connected with +them last six votes that you took over body and britches this noon. And +I kin <i>prove</i> every item of it.... With the folks around the state +feelin' like they do, I shouldn't be s'prised if I could make a heap of +trouble."</p> + +<p>President Castle was a big man or he would not hold the position that +was his. He knew when a fight was over. "You win," he said, tersely. +"Name it."</p> + +<p>"Two things. First off I want an agreement with your road, made by a +full vote of the board of directors, agreein' to do jest what this bill +pervides—in case of emergencies. And second, I want your folks should +handle the bonds of my railroad—construction bonds. Guess I could +manage it without, but I need my money for somethin' else. About two +hunderd thousand dollars' worth of bonds'll do it."</p> + +<p>Castle shrugged his shoulders—seeing possibilities for the future. +However, he knew Scattergood had weighed those possibilities himself.</p> + +<p>"Agreed," he said. There was a moment's silence. "By the way," he asked, +"what was the idea of the condemnation proceedings against Crane and +Keith?"</p> + +<p>"Jest a mite of business. With the railroad goin', I need a good mill up +on a site I got below Coldriver. Seems like Crane and Keith got a might +timid, and yestiddy they up and sold out that mill to a friend of +mine—actin' for me—for fifty-five thousand dollars. Figger I got it +dirt cheap. Wuth close to a hunderd thousand, hain't it?... I'm goin' to +move it to Coldriver, lock, stock, and barrel."</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Castle, presently, "the G. and B. will keep hands off +your valley. It will be better for us to work together than at odds. +Suppose we bury the hatchet and work for each other's interest.... I'm +paid to know a coming man when I see one."</p> + +<p>"Was hopin' you'd see it that way, Mr. President. I hain't one that +hankers for strife ... not even with Lafe, here, if he can figger he's +willin' to admit what he's got to admit."</p> + +<p>"I take my orders from you," said Lafe.</p> + +<p>In which authentic manner Scattergood Baines, in one transaction, made +possible and financed his railroad, obtained his first mill, and became +undisputed political dictator of his state. Characteristically, there +was charged to expense for the whole transaction a sum that a very +ordinary man could earn in a week. Scattergood loved cheap results.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a><h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING</h3> +<br /> + +<p>It is known to all the world that Scattergood came to own the stage line +that plied down the valley to the railroad, but minute research and a +sifting of dubious testimony was required to unearth the true details of +that transaction in which the peg leg of Deacon Pettybone figured in a +dominant manner.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had long had his eye on the stage line, because his valley, +the Coldriver Valley, was dominated by it. Transportation was king, and +Scattergood knew that if his vision of developing that valley and of +acquiring riches for himself out of the development were ever to become +actuality, he must first control the means of transporting passengers +and commodities. But the stage line was not to be acquired, because +Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper, who owned it in partnership, had not +been on speaking terms for twenty years. So bitter was the feud that +either would have borne cheerfully a loss to prevent the other from +making a profit. The stage line was a worry and an annoyance to both of +them, but neither of them would sell, because he was afraid his enemy +might derive some advantage.</p> + +<p>As Scattergood well knew, the feud had its inception in religion as +religion is practiced in that community. Deacon Pettybone had been born +a Congregationalist. Elder Hooper was the sturdiest pillar of the +Congregationalist church. They had grown up together from boyhood, as +chums, and later as business partners, but at the mature age of forty +Deacon Pettybone had attended a revival service in the Baptist church. +When he came out of that service the mischief was done—he had been +converted to the tenets of immersion and straightway withdrew from the +church of his birth to enter the fold of its bitterest rival in +Coldriver, if it were possible for the Baptists to be bitterer rivals of +the Congregationalist than the Methodists and Universalists were. +Coldriver's population was less than four hundred. It required a great +deal of religion to get that four hundred safely past the snares and +pitfalls of Coldriver, for there were no fewer than five full-grown +churches, of which the Roman Catholic was the fifth, and a body of folks +who met in one another's houses of a Sabbath under the denomination of +the United Brethren. Five churches worshiped God through the crackling +parchment of their mortgages, when one, or at most two, might have +pointed the way to heaven free and clear, and with no worries over +semiannual interest.</p> + +<p>When Pettybone turned apostate there was such a commotion as had never +before disturbed Coldriver; it subsided, and was forgotten as the years +dragged on, by all but Pettybone and Hooper, who continued tenaciously +to hate each other with a bitter hatred—and the more so that their +financial affairs were so inextricably mingled.</p> + +<p>Even when Pettybone's leg was mashed by a log, and he lay between life +and death, there was no hint of a reconciliation; and when Pettybone +appeared again on Coldriver's streets, hobbling on a peg leg of his own +fashioning, the fires of vindictiveness burned higher and hotter than +ever.</p> + +<p>The situation would have been hopeless to anybody not possessed of +Scattergood's optimism and resource. It is reported that Scattergood +propounded a saying early in his career at Coldriver, to this effect:</p> + +<p>"Anybody kin git anythin' done if he wants it hard enough. Trouble is, +most folks hain't got a sufficient capacity for wantin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's capacity for wanting was abnormal, and his ability to want +until he got was what made him the remarkable figure in the life of his +state that he was destined to become.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was sitting on the piazza of his hardware store, basking in +the sunshine, and gazing up the dusty road which passed between +Coldriver's business structures, and disappeared over the hill. His eyes +were half closed, and his bulk, which later became phenomenal, filled +comfortably the specially reinforced chair which came to be called his +throne. Pliny Pickett slouched around the corner, and, as he approached, +the unmistakable odor of horses became noticeable. Inhabitants of +Coldriver knew when Pliny came into a room even if their backs were +turned.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Pliny," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Fetch any passengers?"</p> + +<p>"Drummer 'n' a fat woman to visit the Bogles. Say, Scattergood, looks +like you're goin' to have competition."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Don't say."</p> + +<p>"Hardware," said Pliny, nasally. "Station's heaped with it. Every +merchant in town's layin' in a stock."</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Scattergood, without emotion. "Kettleman and Locker?" +They were the grocers.</p> + +<p>Pliny nodded. "An' Lumley and Penny mixin' it in with dry goods, and +Atwell minglin' it with clothin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood reached down and unlaced his shoes. His mind worked more +freely when his toes were unconfined, so that he might wriggle them as +he reasoned. Pliny knew the sign and grinned.</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged," said Scattergood, and Pliny moved off.</p> + +<p>"Pliny," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Was you thinkin' of buyin' a stove?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Could think about it, couldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Might manage it."</p> + +<p>"Folks thinkin' of buyin' stoves gits prices, don't they? Kind of +inquires around to see where they kin buy cheapest?"</p> + +<p>"Most does."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>Something of the sort was not unanticipated by Scattergood. He knew the +merchants of the town had not forgiven him for once getting decidedly +the better of them in a certain transaction, and he knew now that they +had combined against him. Their idea was transparent to him. It was +their hope to put him out of business by adding hardware to their stocks +and to sell it at cost, until he gave up the ship. They could afford it. +It would not interfere with their normal profits.</p> + +<p>Scattergood wriggled his toes furiously and squinted his eyes. They +alighted on a young man in clerical black, who crossed the square from +the post office. It was no other than Jason Hooper, son of Elder Hooper, +who had been educated to the ministry and had recently come to occupy +the pulpit of his father's church—a pleasant and worthy young man. +Almost simultaneously Scattergood's eyes perceived Selina Pettybone, +daughter of Deacon Pettybone, just entering the post office.</p> + +<p>"Purty as a picture," said Scattergood to himself, and then he chuckled.</p> + +<p>The young minister nodded to Scattergood, and Scattergood spoke in +return. "Mornin', Parson," he said. "How d'you find business?"</p> + +<p>"Business?" The young man looked a bit startled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how's the marryin' industry, f'r instance? Brisk?"</p> + +<p>Jason smiled. "It might be brisker."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Maybe folks figgers you hain't had enough experience to do their +marryin' jest accordin' to rule—seein' 's you hain't married yourself."</p> + +<p>Jason blushed and frowned. This was a subject that had been brought to +his attention insistently; he had been informed that a minister should +marry, and there were several marriageable daughters in his church.</p> + +<p>"You aren't going to pick a wife for me, too?" he said, with a rueful +smile.</p> + +<p>"Dunno but I might," said Scattergood. "Got any preferences as to weight +and color?"</p> + +<p>"My only preference is to have them all—a long way off," said the young +minister.</p> + +<p>"Some day you'll have opposite leanin's. There'll be a girl you'll want +to snuggle right clost to.... G'-by, Parson, I'll keep my eyes open for +you."</p> + +<p>A few days later consignments of hardware began to arrive, and +Scattergood, sitting on the piazza of his store, watched them carried +with much ostentation into the stores of his rivals. It was noticed that +he scarcely had his shoes on during this week and that he even walked to +the post office barefooted, squirming his delighted toes into the warm +sand with apparent enjoyment. Immediately Locker and Kettleman and +Lumley and the rest made it known to Coldriver and environs that they +were dealing in hardware and not for profit, but merely as a convenience +to their patrons. They emphasized the fact that they would sell hardware +at cost, and exhibited prices which Scattergood studied and saw that he +could not meet.</p> + +<p>The town watched the affair, expecting much of Scattergood, but he made +no move. Apparently he was contented to sit on his piazza and see +customers passing him by for the alluring bargains offered beyond. +Coldriver was disappointed in Scattergood, and it said so, much as a +disgruntled critic will speak of an actor who has made a flat failure in +a favorite piece.</p> + +<p>On a certain afternoon Scattergood was seen to accost Selina Pettybone, +who paused, and drew nearer, showing signs of regret and interest.</p> + +<p>"Seliny," said Scattergood, "you're one of them Daughters of Dorcas, or +half sisters of Mehitable, or somethin' religious and charitable, hain't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Selina, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"What does sich folks do when they git to hear of a case of misery and +distress?"</p> + +<p>"They do what they can, Mr. Baines," said Selina.</p> + +<p>"Um!... If you heard Xenophon Banks was took sick of a busted leg, and +his wife was dead these two year, and a 'leven-year-old girl was tryin' +to nuss her pa and look after four more, what d'ye calc'late you'd +calc'late?"</p> + +<p>"I'd calculate," said Selina, "that I ought to go out there to the farm +and see about it at once."</p> + +<p>"Usin' your buggy or mine?"</p> + +<p>"Mine, thank you."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Selina."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mr. Baines," she said, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Scattergood watched her disappear in the direction of her home and then +got up leisurely and ambled toward the Congregational parsonage, in +which young Jason Hooper lived in solitary dignity. Mr. Hooper was in +his study.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Parson?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"Bible say anythin' regardin' visitin' the sick an' ministerin' to the +oppressed?"</p> + +<p>"A great deal, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Think it's meant, eh? Or was it put there jest to preach about?"</p> + +<p>"It is meant, undoubtedly."</p> + +<p>"For ministers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Xenophon Banks busted his leg. 'Leven-year-old daughter's tryin' +to carry him and four other childern on to her back, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"I'll go at once, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>Scattergood fidgeted. "Calculate Xenophon wasn't forehanded. Six mouths +to feed. <i>More mealtimes than meals</i>," he said, and fumbled in his +pocket. He was visibly embarrassed. "Here's ten dollars that was give me +to be used for sich a purpose. The feller that give it let on he wanted +it to come like it was give by the church, and him not mentioned. Git +the idee?"</p> + +<p>"I get the idea perfectly," said young Mr. Hooper, his face lighting as +he surveyed Scattergood with a whimsical twinkle—and as he saw this +scheming, money-hungry, power-hungry man in a new light. "The man may +feel confident I shall not betray him."</p> + +<p>"If I was a minister in sich a case I wouldn't forgit some stick candy +for them five childern. Seems like candy's 'most necessary for sich. Dum +foolishness, but keeps 'em quiet.... Git a big bag of candy.... And, if +I was doin' this, I wouldn't let no grass grow under my feet."</p> + +<p>So it happened that Selina Pettybone and the Rev. Jason Hooper, +respectively, daughter of the leading deacon of the Baptist church, and +parson of the Congregational church, arrived at Xenophon Banks's little +house within ten minutes of each other, and each was greatly embarrassed +by the other's presence, for the family feud had compelled them to be +coldly distant to each other all of their short lives.... But there was +much to do, and embarrassment of such kind between an unusually pretty +and wholesome girl, and a reasonably well-looking and kindly young man, +is not an emotion that cannot be easily dissipated.</p> + +<p>About a week later Scattergood chanced to pass Deacon Pettybone's +house, and saw the old gentleman sitting on the front porch, shaping a +large piece of wood with a draw-shave.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, Deacon," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Set and rest your legs," said the deacon. "Jest puttin' the finishin' +touches on this timber leg of mine."</p> + +<p>"Sturdy-lookin' leg, Deacon."</p> + +<p>"Best I ever made. Always calc'late to keep one ahead. Soon's one leg +wears out and I put on the spare one, I set to work fashionin' another, +to have by me. Always manage to figger some improvement."</p> + +<p>"More int'restin' than cuttin' out ax handles," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The deacon looked his scorn. "Anybody kin cut an ax handle, but lemme +tell you it takes study and figgerin' and <i>brains</i> to turn out a timber +leg that's full as good if not better 'n a real one.... I aim to varnish +this here leg and hang it in the harness room. Wisht I could keep it by +me in the kitchen, but the ol' woman says it sp'iles her appetite. +Wimmin is full of notions. Claims she'd go crazy with a leg a-hangin' +back of the stove, and some day she'd up and slam it in the oven and +serve it up for a roast. You kin thank your stars you hain't got +wimmin's notions to worry you, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"How d'ye stand on the proposition to have the town build a sidewalk up +the hill apast the Congregational church, Deacon?"</p> + +<p>The deacon pounded on the porch with his nearly finished leg, and grew +red in the face. "All the doin's of ol' man Hooper. Connivin' and +squillickin' around for his own ends. Lemme tell you, Scattergood, no +town meetin' of Coldriver'll ever vote sich a steal only over my dead +body. Jest you tell that far and wide."</p> + +<p>Business had been almost at a standstill for Scattergood. The only +sales he made were of small articles his competitors had forgotten or +neglected to stock. He had not taken in enough money for a month to pay +for the wear and tear on his fixtures. Coldriver was coming to set him +down as a failure and a black disappointment; but it marveled that he +took no action whatever and showed no signs of worry. His eyes were as +blue and his manner as humorous as it had ever been. Most of his +conversation seemed to be on the subject of the sidewalk past the +Congregational church, and it was carried on in low tones, and never to +more than one individual at a time. If those individuals had compared +notes they would have been astonished. Scattergood's attitude on the +matter was widely different, depending on whether he talked with Baptist +or Congregationalist. One might almost say that both sides were coming +to him for advice on how to conduct its campaign to carry the town +meeting—and one would have been right.</p> + +<p>The matter had developed into the hottest political issue Coldriver had +ever seen. No presidential election had come near to rivaling it, and +the local-option issue had stirred up fewer heartburnings and given rise +to less bellowing and to fewer hard words. The town meeting was less +than a month away.</p> + +<p>But even in the heat of the campaign Scattergood found time to drive out +to Xenophon Banks's. The road to Banks's was fairly well traveled these +days, for there was hardly a day that did not see either Selina +Pettybone or Parson Hooper driving out to the little house, and, +strangely enough, the days on which both were present appeared to be in +the majority. Scattergood dropped out now and then with pockets full of +stick candy, which he never delivered himself, but which he always +handed to the minister or to Selina to be given anonymously after he was +gone. He seemed as much interested in watching Selina and Jason as he +was in talking with Xenophon, and he might have been perceived +frequently to nod his head with satisfaction—especially on the day when +he heard Jason call Selina by her first name, and on the other day when +he saw the young minister retaining Selina's hand longer than he should +have done in saying good afternoon. That day Jason drove back to town +with Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Likely-lookin' girl—Seliny," observed Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful," said the parson, and Scattergood grinned.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Single ministers is a menace. Yes, sir, churches has busted up +on account of their ministers not bein' married."</p> + +<p>There was no reply.</p> + +<p>"But I calculate you're different. You're jest made and created to be an +old batch. Never seen sich a feller. Couldn't no girl interest you, not +if she was the Queen of Sheeby."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Jason, after a pause, "I'm very miserable. I—I think +I shall resign from my church and go away."</p> + +<p>"Sandrich Islands or somewheres—missionery feller?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I—why, yes, that's what I'll do.... I wish I'd never seen her." Then +he corrected himself sharply. "No, I don't. I'm glad I've seen her. I've +got that much, anyhow. I can always remember her and think about how +sweet and beautiful she was—"</p> + +<p>"And die at the age of eighty with her name comin' from your lips on +your last breath. To be sure.... Seems to me, though, it would be a +sight more satisfyin' to live them fifty-odd years <i>with</i> her and raise +up a fam'ly, and git some benefits out of that sweetness and beauty and +sich like, besides mullin' 'em over in your mind. Speakin' of Seliny, +wasn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Don't hanker to marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines—"</p> + +<p>"Then why in tunket don't you?"</p> + +<p>"She's a Baptist."</p> + +<p>"White, hain't she?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Respectable?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, sir."</p> + +<p>"Don't call to mind no state law ag'in' Congregationalists marryin' +Baptists."</p> + +<p>"My congregation wouldn't allow it."</p> + +<p>"Hain't never seen no deed of sale of you to your congregation."</p> + +<p>"Her father would never permit it?"</p> + +<p>"Huh!..."</p> + +<p>"And she's an obedient daughter."</p> + +<p>"Has she said so?"</p> + +<p>"Y-yes."</p> + +<p>"Ho! Kind of human, after all, hain't you? Look pleased when she said +it?"</p> + +<p>"She cried."</p> + +<p>"Comfort her—some."</p> + +<p>"I—She—she loves me, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Well, I snum! Kind of disobedient to love you, hain't it? Knows her +father 'd be set ag'in' it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but she can't help that."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"You—why, you <i>fall</i> in love! You don't do it on purpose, Mr. Baines. +It just comes to you."</p> + +<p>"From where?" said Scattergood, abruptly.</p> + +<p>The young minister stared.</p> + +<p>"Who's to blame for there bein' love?" Scattergood demanded.</p> + +<p>After a pause the young man answered. "God," he said. "Why does He send +it?"</p> + +<p>"So that people will marry, and the love will keep them together, strong +to bear the trials and labors of life. I think love is a kind of wages +that God pays to men and women for living on His earth."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Does He send love sort of helter-skelter and hit-or-miss, or +does He aim it at certain folks?"</p> + +<p>"I have often preached that marriages were made in heaven."</p> + +<p>"Then it's a kind of a command, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Which d'ye calculate is the wust disobedience? To refuse to obey an +order sich as this, or to disobey a parent that runs counter to the +wants of the Almighty?"</p> + +<p>The young man's face was alight with happiness. "Mr. Baines," he said, +"I'm grateful to you. I shall marry Selina."</p> + +<p>"Maybe," said Scattergood. "It runs in my mind you got to have dealin's +with Deacon Pettybone, and the deacon always figgers that the news he +gits from heaven is fresher and more dependable than what anybody else +gits. Might ask him and see."</p> + +<p>A few days after that Coldriver knew that Parson Hooper had asked the +hand of Selina from her father and had been rejected with language and +almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had +married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been +enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him +as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it +espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to +marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean, +narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing became a +public question, second in importance only to the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"Hold your hosses," Scattergood advised Jason. "Let's see what a mite +of dickerin' and persuasion'll do with the deacon. Then, if measures +fails, my advice to you as a human bein' and a citizen is to git Seliny +into a buckboard and run off with her. But hold on a spell."</p> + +<p>So Jason held on, and the town meeting approached, and Scattergood +continued to sit in idleness on the piazza of his store and twiddle his +bare toes in the sunshine. Deacon Pettybone was a busy man, organizing +the forces of the Baptists, and seeking diligently to round up the votes +of neutrals. Elder Hooper, the leader of the Congregationalist party, +was equally occupied, and no man might hazard a guess at the outcome of +the affair.</p> + +<p>"This here is a great principle," said Deacon Pettybone, "and men gives +their lives and sacrifices their families for sich. I'm a-goin' to fight +to the last gasp."</p> + +<p>"Don't blame ye a mite," said Scattergood. "If them Congregationalists +rule this town meetin' you might's well throw up your hands. They'll +rule the town forever."</p> + +<p>"It's got to be pervented."</p> + +<p>"And nobody but you kin manage it," said Scattergood. "The hull thing +rests with you. Why, if you was sick so's to be absent from that meetin' +the Congregationalists 'u'd win, hands down."</p> + +<p>"I b'lieve it," said the deacon, "and nothin' on earth'll keep me +away—nothin'. If I was a-layin' at my last gasp I'd git myself carried +there."</p> + +<p>"Deacon," said Scattergood, solemnly, "much is dependin' on you. +Coldriver's fort'nit to have sich a man at the helm."</p> + +<p>Even the cribbage game under the barber shop was suspended, and the +cribbage game was an institution. It was the deacon's one shortcoming, +but even there he strove to get the better of the enemy, for the two men +who were considered his only worthy antagonists at the game were +Congregationalists. The three bickered and quarreled and threatened +each other with violence, but they played daily. There were few +afternoons when a ring of spectators did not surround the table, +breathlessly watching the champions. It was the great local sporting +event, and who shall quarrel with the good deacon for touching cards in +the innocent game of cribbage? Certainly his pastor did not do so, nor +did the fellow members of his congregation. Indeed, there was even pride +in his prowess.</p> + +<p>But the game was discontinued, and Hamilcar Jones and Tilley Newcamp +were loud in their excoriations of their late antagonist. The +Congregationalists had no hotter adherents than they, nor none who +entered the conflict with more bitterness of spirit. Scattergood saw to +it that he encountered them on the evening before the momentous town +meeting.</p> + +<p>"Evenin', Ham. Evening Tilley."</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"How's things lookin' for to-morrer?"</p> + +<p>"Mighty even, Scattergood. If 'twan't for that ol' gallus Pettybone, +we'd git that sidewalk with votes to spare."</p> + +<p>"Um!... If he was absent from the meetin' things might git to happen."</p> + +<p>"Ho! Tie him to home, and there wouldn't even be a fight."</p> + +<p>"Got a wooden leg, hain't he?"</p> + +<p>"Wisht he had three."</p> + +<p>"Got two, one hangin' in the harness room. Harness room's never locked. +If 'twas a boy could squirm through the window."</p> + +<p>"What of it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin'. Jest happened to think of it.... Ever stop to think what a +comical thing it 'u'd be if somebody was to ketch a wooden-legged man +and saw his leg off about halfway up? Jest lay him across a saw buck +and saw her off while he hollered and fit. Most comical notion I ever +had."</p> + +<p>"Would make a feller laugh."</p> + +<p>"More 'special if his spare leg was stole away and he didn't have +nothin' but the sawed-off one. Sich a man would have difficulty gittin' +any place he wanted to git to.... G'-by, Ham. G'-by, Tilley. Hope the +meetin' comes out right to-morrer."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went inside and looked at his bank book. In two months his +deposits from sales had amounted to something like a hundred dollars. +The situation spelled nothing less than bankruptcy, but Scattergood +replaced the book and waddled out to his piazza, where he sat in the +cool of the evening, twiddling his toes and looking from the store of +one competitor to the store of another, reflectively.</p> + +<p>At a late hour a small boy named Newcamp delivered a bulky package to +Scattergood, and vanished into the darkness. The package was about large +enough to contain a timber leg.</p> + +<p>The town seethed with politics next morning, and the deacon was in the +center of it. The meeting was called for ten o'clock. At nine thirty a +small boy wriggled up to the deacon and whispered in his ear. The deacon +quickly made his way out of the crowd and down the stairs into the +basement room under the barber shop—for news had been given him of a +chance to swap for votes. He burst into the room, and stopped, frowning, +for Tilley Newcamp stood before him. Hamilcar Jones was not at the +moment visible, because he was behind the door, which he slammed shut +and locked.</p> + +<p>No word was uttered, but a Trojan struggle ensued. It was two against +one, but even those odds did not daunt the deacon. It was full five +minutes before he was flat on his back, panting and uttering such +burning and searing words as might properly fall from the lips of a +Baptist deacon. Tilley Newcamp, who was heavy, sat on his chest. +Hamilcar Jones dragged up a saw buck and laid the deacon's timber leg +across it.... The deacon saw and comprehended, and lifted up his voice. +Another five minutes were consumed in returning him to quiescence. And +then the saw did its work, while the deacon breathed threats of blood +and torture, and regretted that his religion prevented him from using +language better suited to his purpose. The leg was severed; a fragment +full ten inches long fell from the end, and the deacon's assailants drew +away, their fell purpose accomplished.</p> + +<p>There was a rapping on the door. It was Scattergood Baines, and he was +admitted. His face was full of wrath as he gazed within, and he quivered +with fury as he ordered the two miscreants out of the place.</p> + +<p>"What's this, Deacon, what's this?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>The deacon told him at length, and fluently.</p> + +<p>"I was jest in time. Now we kin send for that spare leg and you kin git +to the meetin'. Lucky you had that spare leg."</p> + +<p>The deacon sat on the floor, speechless now, staring down at all that +remained to him of his timber leg. Scattergood, with great show of +solicitude, dispatched a youngster to the deacon's house for his extra +limb. He returned empty-handed.</p> + +<p>"This here boy says the leg hain't in the harness room. Sure you left it +there?"</p> + +<p>Again the deacon found his voice, and his words were to the general +effect that the blame swizzled, ornery, ill-sired, and regrettably +reared pew-gags had, in defiance of law and order, stolen and made away +with his leg—and what was he to do?</p> + +<p>"Deacon, you can't go like that. If this story got into the meetin' it +would do fer you. You'd git laughed out. Them Congregationalists 'u'd +win. You got to have a sound leg to travel on, and I don't see but one +way to git it."</p> + +<p>"How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Call in young Parson Hooper and make him force them adherents of hisn +to give it up."</p> + +<p>Scattergood did not wait for the permission he surmised would not be +given, but sent word for Jason Hooper, who came, saw, and was most +remarkably astonished.</p> + +<p>"Parson," said Scattergood, "this here outrage is onendurable. Some of +you Congregationers done it, and stole his other leg. As leader of your +flock and a honest man, it's your bounden duty to git it back."</p> + +<p>"But I—I know nothing about it. What can I do? I—There isn't a thing +you can do."</p> + +<p>"Deacon," said Scattergood, "there hain't a soul in the world can git +back your leg in time but this young man. Maybe he don't know he kin do +it, but he kin. Hain't you got no offer to make?"</p> + +<p>The parson started to say something, but Scattergood silenced him with a +waggle of the head.</p> + +<p>"I got to git to that meetin'," bellowed the deacon. "There hain't +nothin' in the world I wouldn't give to git there, and git there whole +and hearty, and so's not to be laughed at."</p> + +<p>"Remind you of any leetle want of yourn?" asked Scattergood. He took the +young man aside and whispered to him.</p> + +<p>"Deacon," he said, presently, "Parson Hooper says as how he don't see no +reason for interferin' and helpin' his enemy." The parson had said +nothing of the sort. "But I kin see a reason, Deacon. If this here young +man was a member of your family, so to speak, and was related to you +clost by ties of love and marriage, I don't see how he'd have a right +to hold his hand.... Want this man's daughter f'r your wedded wife, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the parson, faintly.</p> + +<p>"Hear that, Deacon? Hear that?"</p> + +<p>"Never, by the hornswoggled whale that swallered Jonah."</p> + +<p>"Meetin's about to start," said Scattergood, looking at his watch.</p> + +<p>The deacon sweated and bellowed, but Scattergood adroitly waved the red +flag of animosity before his eyes, and pictured black ruin and +defeat—until the deacon was ready to surrender life itself.</p> + +<p>"Git me my leg," he shouted, "and you kin have anythin'.... Git me my +leg."</p> + +<p>"Is it a promise, Deacon? Calculate it's a promise?"</p> + +<p>"I promise. I promise, solemn."</p> + +<p>Scattergood whispered again in the pastor's ear, who stuttered and +flushed and choked, and hurried out of the room, presently to reappear +with the deacon's spare leg.</p> + +<p>"Now, young feller, make your preparations for that there weddin'.... +Scoot."</p> + +<p>It is of record that the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in +the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to +triumph—and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too +late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all +against him, and he could not withstand the pressure.</p> + +<p>And then....</p> + +<p>"Parson," said Scattergood, "your pa and the deacon ought to make up."</p> + +<p>"They'll never do it, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Deacon'll have to let your pa come to the weddin'. There'll be makin' +up and reconciliations when there's a grandson, but I can't wait. I'm in +a all-fired hurry. You go to the deacon and tell him your pa sent him +to say that he's ready to bury the hatchet and begs the deacon's pardon +for everythin'—everythin'."</p> + +<p>"But it wouldn't be true."</p> + +<p>"It's got to be true. Hain't I sayin' it's true? And then you go to your +pa and tell him the deacon wants to make up, and begs <i>his</i> pardon out +and out. Tell both of 'em to be at my store at three o'clock, but don't +tell neither t'other's to be there."</p> + +<p>At three o'clock Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper came face to face in +Scattergood's place of business.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, gents?" said Scattergood. "Lookin' forward to bein' mutual +grandads, I calc'late. Must be quite a feelin' to know you're in line to +be a grandad."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted the deacon.</p> + +<p>"Wumph!" coughed the elder.</p> + +<p>"To think of you old coots dandlin' a baby on your knees—and buyin' it +pep'mint candy and the Lord knows what, and walkin' down the street, +each of you holdin' one of its hands and it walkin' betwixt you.... +Dummed if I don't congratulate you."</p> + +<p>The deacon looked at the elder and the elder looked at the deacon. They +grinned, frostily at first, then more broadly.</p> + +<p>"By hek! Eph," said the deacon.</p> + +<p>"I'll be snummed!" said the elder, and they shook hands there and then.</p> + +<p>"Step back here a minute. I got a mite of business. You won't want the +nuisance of that stage line—with a grandson to fetch up. I'm kinder +hankerin' to run the thing—not that it'll be much of an investment."</p> + +<p>"What you offerin'?" asked the deacon.</p> + +<p>Scattergood mentioned the sum. "Cash," he concluded.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late we better sell," said the elder.</p> + +<p>An hour later, with the papers in his pocket to prove ownership, +Scattergood visited the stores of his rivals, Locker, Kettleman, Lumley, +and Penny.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "you been a-tryin' to crowd me out of business. I +hain't made a cent of profit f'r two months, and I calc'late on a profit +of two hunderd and fifty a month. Jest gimme your check for five hunderd +dollars and I'll take your stocks of hardware off'n your hands at, say, +fifty cents on the dollar, and we'll call it a day."</p> + +<p>"Scattergood, we got you where we want you. You can't hold out another +sixty days."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. But, gentlemen, I guess we kin do business. I jest bought the +only means of transportin' goods, wares, and merchandise into Coldriver. +Beginnin' now, rates for freight goes up. I've studied the law, and +there hain't no way to pervent me. I kin charge what I want for +freighting and what I want will be so much not a one of you kin do +business.... And I'll put in groceries and what not, myself. Gittin' my +freight free, I calc'late to under-sell you quite consid'able.... Kin we +do business?"</p> + +<p>The enemy went into executive session. They surrendered. Scattergood +pocketed a check for five hundred dollars, and came into possession of a +fine stock of hardware at fifty cents on the dollar. Likewise, he owned +the stage line and franchise, controlling the only right of way by which +a railroad could reach up the valley. It had required politics, marrying +and giving in marriage, and patience, to accomplish it, but it was done.</p> + +<p>That evening Mrs. Hooper and Mrs. Pettybone, childhood friends, long +separated by the feud, stopped to speak to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows how we appreciate what you done Minnie and me," said Mrs. +Pettybone.</p> + +<p>"Blessed is the peacemaker," said Mrs. Hooper.</p> + +<p>"Thankee, ladies. I don't mind bein' a peacemaker any time—when I kin +do it at a profit."</p> + +<p>"It's always done at a profit, Mr. Baines, if you read the Good Book. +This day you laid up a treasure in heaven."</p> + +<p>"Trouble with depositin' profits in heaven," said Scattergood, very +soberly, "is that you got to wait so tarnation long to draw your +int'rest."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_V"></a><h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"It's a telegram from Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood Baines to his +wife, Mandy, as he tore open the yellow envelope and read the brief +message it contained.</p> + +<p>"Telegram!" said Mandy. "Why didn't he write? Them telegrams come +high.... Huh! Jest one word—'Come.' Costs as much to send ten as it +does one, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Identical," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Mandy, sharply, "if he was bound to telegraph why didn't he +git his money's worth?"</p> + +<p>"I calc'late he thought he said a plenty," Scattergood replied. "Johnnie +he don't like to put no more in writin' that's apt to pass from hand to +hand than he's obleeged to.... Mandy, looks like we better start for +home."</p> + +<p>"What d'you s'pose it kin be?" Mandy asked, already busy laying clothing +in their canvas telescope. "Mostly telegrams announces death or +sickness."</p> + +<p>"I kin think of sixty-nine things it <i>might</i> be," said Scattergood, "but +I got a feelin' it hain't none of 'em."</p> + +<p>"We shouldn't of come away on this vacation," said Mandy. "Johnnie Bones +is too young a boy to leave in charge."</p> + +<p>"Johnnie Bones is a dum good lawyer, Mandy, and a dum far-seein' young +man. I don't calc'late Johnnie's done us no harm. Hain't no hurry, +Mandy. We can't git a train home for five hours."</p> + +<p>"We'll be settin' right in the depot waitin' for it," said Mandy, who +declined to take chances. "Be sure you keep your money in the pants +pocket on the side I'm walkin' on. Pickpockets 'u'd have some difficulty +gittin' past me."</p> + +<p>"Only thing ag'in' Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood, "is that he hain't +a first-rate hardware clerk."</p> + +<p>Scattergood, in spite of the ownership of twenty-four miles of +narrow-gauge railroad, of a hundred-odd thousand acres of spruce, and of +a sawmill whose capacity was thirty thousand feet a day, persisted in +regarding these things as side lines, and in looking upon his little +hardware store in Coldriver as the vital business of his life. It was +now ten years since Scattergood had walked up Coldriver Valley to the +village of Coldriver. It was ten years since he had embarked on the +conquest of that desirable valley, with a total working capital of forty +dollars and some cents—and he not only controlled the valley's business +and timber and transportation, but generally supervised the politics of +the state. He could have borne up manfully if all of it were taken away +from him—excepting the hardware store. To have ill befall that would +have been disaster, indeed.</p> + +<p>On the train Scattergood turned over a seat to have a resting place for +his feet, took off his shoes, displaying white woolen socks, a +refinement forced upon him by Mandy, and leaned back to doze and +speculate. When Mandy thought him safely asleep she covered his feet +with a paper, to conceal from the public view this evidence of a +character not overgiven to refinements. It is characteristic of +Scattergood that, though wide awake, he gave no sign of knowledge of +Mandy's act. Scattergood was thinking, and to think, with him, meant so +to unfetter his feet that he could wriggle his toes pleasurably.</p> + +<p>Johnnie Bones was waiting for Scattergood at the station.</p> + +<p>"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "did you sell that kitchen range to Sam +Kettleman?"</p> + +<p>"Almost, Mr. Baines, almost. But when it came to unwrapping the weasel +skin and laying money on the counter, Sam guessed Mrs. Kettleman could +keep on cooking a spell with what she had."</p> + +<p>"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "you're dum near perfect; but you got your +shortcomings. Hardware's one of 'em.... What about that telegram of +yourn?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mandy.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Castle, president of the G. and B.—"</p> + +<p>"I know what job he's holdin' down, Johnnie."</p> + +<p>"—came to see you yesterday. I wouldn't tell him where you were, so he +had to tell me what he wanted. He wants to buy your railroad. Said to +have you wire him right off."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." Scattergood walked deliberately, with heavy-footed stride, to +the telegraph operator, and wrote a brief but eminently characteristic +message. "I might," the telegram said to President Castle.</p> + +<p>"Now, folks," he said, "we'll go up to the store and sort of figger on +what Castle's got in mind."</p> + +<p>They sat down on the veranda, under the wooden awning, and Scattergood's +specially reinforced chair creaked under his great weight as he stooped +to remove his shoes. For a moment he wriggled his toes, just as a golfer +waggles his driver preparatory to the stroke. "Um!..." he said.</p> + +<p>"Castle," said he, presently, "works for jest two objects—makin' money +and payin' off grudges. Most gen'ally he tries to figger so's to combine +'em."</p> + +<p>Johnnie and Mandy waited. They knew better than to interrupt +Scattergood's train of thought. Had they done so he would have uttered +no rebuke, but would have hoisted himself out of his chair and would +have waddled away up the dusty street, and neither of them would ever +hear another word of the matter.</p> + +<p>"He knows I wouldn't sell this road without gittin' money for it. +<i>Therefore</i> he's figgerin' on makin' a lot of money out of it, or payin' +off a doggone big grudge.... Somebody we don't know about is calc'latin' +on movin' into this valley, Johnnie. Somebody that's goin' to do a heap +of shippin'—and that means timber cuttin'.... And it must be settled or +Castle wouldn't come out and offer to buy."</p> + +<p>Johnnie and Mandy had followed the reasoning and nodded assent.</p> + +<p>"What timber be they goin' to cut?" Scattergood poked a chubby finger at +Johnnie, who shook his head.</p> + +<p>"The Goodhue tract, back of Tupper Falls. Uh-huh! Because there hain't +no other sizable tract that I hain't got strings on. And the mills, +whatever kind they be, will be at Tupper Falls. Mills <i>got</i> to be there. +Can't git timber out to no other place. And, Johnnie, buyin' timber is a +heap more important and difficult than buyin' mill sites. Eh?... +Johnnie, you ketch the first train for Tupper Falls. I own a mite of +land along the railroad, Johnnie, but you buy all the rest from the +falls to the station. Not in my name, Johnnie. Git deeds to folks whose +names we're entitled to use—and the more deeds the better. Scoot."</p> + +<p>"Now, Scattergood, don't go actin' hasty," said Mandy. "You don't +<i>know</i>—"</p> + +<p>"The only thing I don't know, Mandy, is whether Johnnie 's too late to +buy that land. Knowin' nobody else wants it, and it hain't no good for +nothin' but what they want it for, these folks may not have bought +<i>yit</i>...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood shouted suddenly at the passing drayman. "Hey, Pete.... Come +here and git a cookin' range and take it up to Sam Kettleman's house. +Git a man to help you. Tell Mis' Kettleman I sent it, and she's to try +it a week to see if she likes it. Set it up for her and all."</p> + +<p>Scattergood settled back to watch with approval, while two men hoisted +the heavy stove on the wagon and drove away with it. Presently Sam +Kettleman appeared on the porch of his grocery across the street, and +Scattergood called to him: "Well, Sam, glad you decided to git the woman +a new stove. Shows you're up an' doin'. It's all set up by this time."</p> + +<p>Sam stared a moment; then, smitten speechless, he rushed across the road +and stood, a picture of rage, glaring at Scattergood. "I didn't buy no +stove. You know dum well I didn't buy no stove. I can't afford no stove. +You jest git right up there and haul it back here, d'you hear me?"</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Sam, don't it beat all—me makin' a mistake like that? Sure +I'll send after it, right off.... Now I won't have to order one special +for Locker." Locker was the rival grocer. "I kin haul this one right to +his house, and explain to him how he come to git it so soon. I'll say: +'Locker, we jest hauled this stove down from Sam Kettleman's. Had it all +set up there and then Sam he figgered it was too expensive a stove for +him and he couldn't afford it right now on account of business not bein' +brisk.'"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Kettleman.</p> + +<p>"'Twon't cause a mite of talk that anybody'll pay attention to. +Everybody knows what Locker's wife is. Tongue wagglin' at both ends. And +I'll take pains to conterdict whatever story she goes spreadin' about +you bein' too mean to git your wife things to do with in the kitchen, +and about how you're 'most bankrupt and ready to give up business. +Nobody'll b'lieve her, anyhow, Sam, but if they do I'll explain it to +'em."</p> + +<p>"Now—"</p> + +<p>"Locker's wife'll be glad to have it, too. She'd have to wait two +weeks for hers, and now she'll git it right off. Oven's cracked on hern, +and she allows she sp'iles every batch of bread she bakes—and her +pledged to furnish six loaves for the Methodist Ladies' Food Sale...."</p> + +<p>"Scattergood Baines, if you dast touch my stove I'll have the law onto +you. You can't go enterin' my house and removin' things without my +permission, I kin tell you. Don't you try to forgit it, neither. If you +think you can gouge me out of my stove jest to make it more convenient +for Mis' Locker, you're thinkin' <i>wrong</i>...."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't your stove till it's paid for, Sam."</p> + +<p>"Then, by gum! it'll be mine darn quick. Thirty-eight dollars, was it? +Now you gimme a receipt.... Locker!..."</p> + +<p>Scattergood waddled into the store, wrote a receipt, and put the money +in the safe. When Sam had recrossed the road again he turned to Johnnie +Bones. "Sellin' hard-ware's easy if you put your mind to it, Johnnie. +Trouble with you is you don't take no int'rest in it.... Next time +you'll know better. Train's goin' in fifteen minutes. Better hustle."</p> + +<p>Next noon Scattergood was in his usual place on the piazza of his store +when the train came in. Presently Mr. Castle, president of the G. & B., +came into view, and Scattergood closed his eyes as if enjoying a midday +snooze. Mr. Castle approached, stopped, regarded Scattergood with a +pucker of his thin lips, and said to himself that the man must be an +accident. It was one of Scattergood's most valuable qualities that his +appearance and manner gave that opinion to people, even when they had +suffered discomfiture at his hands. Mr. Castle coughed, and Scattergood +opened his eyes sleepily and peered over the rolls of fat that were his +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Howdy?" said Scattergood, not moving.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Mr. Baines. You got my message?"</p> + +<p>"Seein' as you got my reply to it, I must have," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Can we talk here?"</p> + +<p>"I kin."</p> + +<p>Mr. Castle looked about. No one was within earshot. He occupied a chair +at Scattergood's side.</p> + +<p>"I understand your message to mean that you are willing to sell your +railroad."</p> + +<p>"I calculate that message meant jest what it said."</p> + +<p>"I know what your railroad cost you—almost to a penny."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood, without interest.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you why I want it. My idea is to extend it through to +Humboldt—twenty miles. May have to tunnel Hopper Mountain, but it will +give me a short line to compete with the V. and M. from Montreal."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood, who knew well that such an extension was +not only impracticable from the point of view of engineering, but also +from the standpoint of traffic to be obtained. "Good idee."</p> + +<p>"I'll pay you cost and a profit of twenty-five thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Hain't interested special," said Scattergood. "I git that much fun out +of railroadin'."</p> + +<p>"It isn't paying interest on your investment."</p> + +<p>"I calculate it's goin' to. I'm aimin' to see it does."</p> + +<p>"Set a figure yourself."</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no figger in mind."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines, I'll be frank with you. I want your railroad."</p> + +<p>"So I jedged," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I <i>need</i> it. I'll pay you a profit of fifty thousand—and that's my +last word."</p> + +<p>Scattergood closed his eyes, opened them again, and sat erect. "Now that +business is over with," he said, "better come up and set down to table +with Mandy and me. Mandy's cookin' is considered some better 'n at the +hotel."</p> + +<p>"You refuse?"</p> + +<p>"I was wonderin'," said Scattergood, "if you had any notion if I could +buy the Goodhue timber reasonable?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Mr. Castle, startled. "The Goodhue timber?"</p> + +<p>"Back of Tupper Falls."</p> + +<p>"Who told—" Mr. Castle snapped his teeth together sharply.</p> + +<p>"Leetle bird," said Scattergood. "Dinner's ready."</p> + +<p>"There might come a time when you'd be mighty glad to sell for less than +I'm offering."</p> + +<p>"Once there was a boy," said Scattergood, "and he up and says to another +boy, 'I kin lick you,' The story come to me that the boy sort of +overestimated his weight.'"</p> + +<p>"I'm not threatening you," said Castle.</p> + +<p>"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you +goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?"</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in +Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information."</p> + +<p>"Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg, +and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all +fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used +right."</p> + +<p>"Will you answer a fair question?"</p> + +<p>"If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another."</p> + +<p>"Has McKettrick got to you first?"</p> + +<p>It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face +showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who +McKettrick was—but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any +conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe +what he desired—and Castle believed.</p> + +<p>"He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling +them to you. It cost <i>me</i> money to find out."</p> + +<p>"Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Did he offer to buy your road?"</p> + +<p>"If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'."</p> + +<p>It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information, +though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a +haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle +knew less after the interview than he had known when he came; +Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover.</p> + +<p>Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he +had been partially successful.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on +the quiet. Three strips from the river to the hill were not to be had, +but I bought four strips, two at the ends and two between the pieces I +couldn't get."</p> + +<p>"Better call it a side of bacon, Johnnie. Strip of fat and strip of +lean. Dunno but it's better as it lays. Hear anythin' about the Goodhue +tract?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody's been cruising it for a month back—without a brass band."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Send a wire, Johnnie. Lumberman's Trust Company, Boston. Set +price Goodhue tract...."</p> + +<p>Johnnie telephoned the wire. Two hours later the answer came, "Goodhue +tract no longer in our hands."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever wonder, Johnnie, why I never got int'rested into that +Goodhue timber?"</p> + +<p>Johnnie shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Because," said Scattergood, "you got to log it by rail. Forty thousand +acres of it, and no stream runnin' through it big enough to drive logs +down.... But I got an idee, Johnnie, that loggin' by rail can be done +economical. Know who bought that timber?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"McKettrick of the Seaboard Box and Paper Company, biggest concern of +the kind in America. Calc'late they'll be makin' pulp here to ship to +their paper mills. Calculate I'll give 'em a commodity rate of around +seven cents to the G. and B. Johnnie, our orchard's goin' to begin +givin' a crop. That'll give us sixteen dollars and eighty cents for +haulin' a minimum car of twenty-four thousand. And this hain't goin' to +be any one-car mill, neither. Five cars a day'll be increasin' our +revenue twenty-four thousand three hunderd dollars a year—on outgoin' +freight. Then there's incomin' freight to figger. All we got to do is +set still and take <i>that</i>. Beauty of controllin' the transportation of a +region. But it seems like we ought to git more out of it than that—if +we stir around some. Especial when you come to consider that McKettrick +and Castle is flyin' at each other's throats. It's a situation, Johnnie, +that man owes a duty to himself to take advantage of."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went back to his hardware store and seated himself on the +piazza. Presently a team drove up from down the valley and a tall, gaunt +individual, with hair of the color of a dead leaf, alighted.</p> + +<p>"I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said.</p> + +<p>"You kin," Scattergood replied.</p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him."</p> + +<p>The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks +to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and +disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the +scrutiny stopped.</p> + +<p>"Some mistake," he said; "I want the owner of the Coldriver Valley +Railroad."</p> + +<p>"It may be a mistake," said Scattergood. "Calculate it <i>is</i> a mistake to +own a railroad. But 'tain't the only mistake I ever made."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> own the road?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to."</p> + +<p>Evidently the stranger was not impressed by Scattergood in a manner to +arouse him to a notable exertion of courtesy. He allowed it to appear in +his manner that he set a light value on Scattergood; in fact, that it +was not exactly pleasant to him to be compelled to do business with such +a human being. Scattergood's eyes twinkled and he wriggled his toes.</p> + +<p>"Well, Baines," said the stranger, "I want to talk business to you."</p> + +<p>"Step into my private office," said Scattergood, motioning to a chair at +his side, "and rest your legs."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of establishing a plant below," said the stranger. "A very +considerable plant. In studying the situation it seems as if your +railroad might be run as an adjunct to my business. I suppose it can be +bought."</p> + +<p>"Supposing" said Scattergood, "is free as air."</p> + +<p>"I'll take it off your hands at a fair figure."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't layin' heavy on my hands," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"How much did it cost you?"</p> + +<p>"A heap less 'n I'll sell for.... You hain't mentioned your name."</p> + +<p>"McKettrick."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded.</p> + +<p>"I'd sell to a man of that name."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"One million dollars," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You're—you're <i>crazy</i>," said McKettrick. It was an exclamation of +disgust, a statement of belief, and a cry of pain. "I might go a quarter +of a million."</p> + +<p>"This here's a one-price store—marked plain on the goods. Customers is +requested not to haggle."</p> + +<p>"You're not serious?"</p> + +<p>"One million dollars."</p> + +<p>"I'll build a road down my side of the river."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. Can be done. Twelve mile of tunnel and the rest trestle. +Wouldn't cost more 'n fifteen, twenty million—if you're figgerin' on +the west side of the stream.... How you figgerin' on gettin' your pulp +wood down to Tupper Falls?"</p> + +<p>"What?... What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Goin' to log, yourself, or job it?"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Baines, what do you know?"</p> + +<p>"About what's needful. I try to keep posted."</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you know. I insist."</p> + +<p>Scattergood opened his eyes and peered over his dumpling cheeks at +McKettrick, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"And how you found it out."</p> + +<p>"I've been figgerin' over your case," said Scattergood. "I'll give you a +sidetrack into your yards pervidin' you pay the cost of bridgin' and +layin' the track, me to furnish ties and rails. <i>Also</i>, I'll give you a +commodity rate of seven cents to the G. and B. As to sellin', I don't +calc'late you want to buy at a million. But that hain't no sign you and +me can't do business. You got to log by rail. You got to cut consid'able +number of cords of pulpwood. I'll build your loggin' road, and I'll +contract to cut your pulp and deliver it.... Want to go into it with +me?"</p> + +<p>McKettrick peered at Scattergood with awakened interest. His scrutiny +told him nothing.</p> + +<p>"What backing have you?"</p> + +<p>"My own."</p> + +<p>McKettrick almost sneered.</p> + +<p>"Been lookin' me up?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Let's step to the bank."</p> + +<p>McKettrick followed Scattergood's bulky figure-wondering.</p> + +<p>In the bank Scattergood presented the treasurer. "Mr. Noble, meet Mr. +McKettrick. He wants you should tell him somethin' about me. For +instance, Noble, about how fur you calculate my credit could be +stretched."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines would have no difficulty borrowing from five hundred +thousand to three quarters of a million," said Noble.</p> + +<p>"How's his reppitation for keepin' his word?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"The whole state knows your word is kept to the letter."</p> + +<p>"What you calculate I'm wuth—visible prop'ty?"</p> + +<p>"I'd say a million and a half to two millions."</p> + +<p>"Backin' enough to suit you, Mr. McKettrick?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>McKettrick wore a dazed look. Scattergood did not look like two +millions; he did not look like ten thousand. His bearing became more +respectful.</p> + +<p>"I'll listen to any proposition you wish to make," he said.</p> + +<p>"Come over to Johnnie Bones's," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>In a moment they were sitting in Johnnie's office, and McKettrick and +Johnnie were acquainted.</p> + +<p>"Here's my proposition," said Scattergood. "I'll build and equip a +loggin' road accordin' to your surveys. You furnish right of way and +enough money to give you forty-nine per cent of the stock in the company +we'll form. I kin build cheaper 'n you, and I know the country and kin +git the labor. You pay the new railroad a set price for haulin' +pulpwood—say dollar 'n a quarter to two dollars a cord, as we figger it +later.... Then I'll take the job of loggin' for you and layin' down the +pulpwood at sidings. It'll save you labor and expense and trouble. I've +showed I was responsible. The new railroad company'll put up bonds, and +so'll the loggin' company—if you say so."</p> + +<p>This was the beginning of some weeks of negotiations, during which +Scattergood became convinced that McKettrick was wishful of using him so +long as he proved useful; then, when the day arrived for a showing of +profit on the profit sheet, the same McKettrick was planning to see that +no profit would be there and that Scattergood Baines should be +eliminated from consideration—to McKettrick's profit in the sum of +whatever amount Scattergood invested in the construction of the +railroad. It was a situation that exactly suited Scattergood's love of +business excitement.</p> + +<p>"If McKettrick had come up here wearin' better manners," said +Scattergood to Johnnie, "and if he hadn't got himself all rigged out as +little Red Ridin' Hood's grandmother—figgerin' I'd qualify for little +Red Ridin' Hood without the eyesight for big ears and big teeth that +little girl had—why, I might 'a' give him a reg'lar business deal. But +seem's he's as he is, I calc'late I'm privileged to git what I kin git."</p> + +<p>Therefore Scattergood made it a clause in the contract that all the +stock in the new railroad and construction company should remain in his +own name until the road was completed and ready to operate. Then 49 per +cent should be transferred to McKettrick. This McKettrick regarded as a +harmless eccentricity of the lamb he was about to fleece.</p> + +<p>The new company was organized with Johnnie Bones as president, +Scattergood as treasurer, an employee of McKettrick's as secretary, and +Mandy Baines and another employee of McKettrick's as the remaining two +directors.</p> + +<p>While the negotiations regarding the railroad were being carried on, +another matter arose to irritate Mr. McKettrick, and, in some measure, +to take the keen edge off his attention. Scattergood usually endeavored +to have some matter arise to irritate and distract when he was engaged +on a major operation, and it was for this reason he had bought the four +strips of land at Tupper Falls.</p> + +<p>McKettrick awoke suddenly to find that his men had not secured the site +for his mills, and that, apparently, it could not be secured. He +discussed the thing with Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Prob'ly some old scissor bills that got a notion of hangin' on to their +land," Scattergood said.</p> + +<p>"It can't be that, for the sales to the present owners were recent. The +new owners refuse absolutely to sell."</p> + +<p>"And pulp mills hain't got no right of eminent domain like railroads."</p> + +<p>"All substantial businesses ought to have it," said McKettrick. "You +know these folks. I wish you'd see what you can do."</p> + +<p>"Glad to," Scattergood promised, and two days later he reported that all +four landowners might be brought to terms. Three would sell, surely; one +was holding back strangely, but the three had put the matter into the +hands of a local real-estate and insurance broker, by name Wangen. +"We'll go see him," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Which they did. "My clients," said Wangen, importantly, "realize the +value of their property. That, I may say, is why they bought."</p> + +<p>"It cost the three of 'em less 'n three thousand dollars for the three +passels," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Prices have gone up," said Wangen.</p> + +<p>"Give them two hundred dollars profit apiece," said McKettrick.</p> + +<p>"Consid'able difference between givin' it and their takin' it," said +Scattergood. "I agree with that," said Wangen.</p> + +<p>"Now, Wangen, you and me has done consid'able business," said +Scattergood, "and you hain't goin' to hold up a friend of mine."</p> + +<p>"If it was a personal thing, Mr. Baines; but I've got to do my best for +my clients."</p> + +<p>"What's your proposition?"</p> + +<p>"Five thousand dollars apiece for the three strips."</p> + +<p>"It's an outrage," roared McKettrick. "I'll never be robbed like that."</p> + +<p>"Take it," said Wangen, "or leave it."</p> + +<p>"You've <i>got</i> to have it," Scattergood whispered.</p> + +<p>McKettrick spluttered and stormed and pleaded, but Wangen was firm and +gave but one answer. There could be but one result: McKettrick wrote a +check for fifteen thousand dollars—and still had one strip to buy—a +strip not at an edge of his mill site, but bisecting it.</p> + +<p>This strip caused the worry when Scattergood needed attention distracted +the most. But Scattergood managed finally to secure it for McKettrick +for seventy-five hundred dollars. Thus it will be seen how Scattergood +resorted to the law of necessity, and how McKettrick suffered from +failure to build securely his commercial structure from its foundation. +Twenty-two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars were paid by +McKettrick for land that had cost Scattergood exactly three thousand six +hundred dollars. Scattergood believed in always paying for services +rendered, so Wangen and each of the four ostensible landowners were +given a hundred dollars. Net profit to Scattergood, eighteen thousand +one hundred and fifty dollars.</p> + +<p>"Which it wouldn't 'a' cost him if he hadn't looked sneerin' at my +stockin' feet," said Scattergood to Johnnie Bones.</p> + +<p>Johnnie Bones prepared the papers for the incorporation of the new +railroad, and the organization was perfected. There were two thousand +shares of one hundred dollars each. McKettrick put in his right of way +at five thousand, an excessive figure, as Scattergood knew well, and +gave his check for the balance of his 49 per cent. Scattergood deposited +a check for his 51 per cent, or one hundred and two thousand dollars. +Work was begun grading the right of way immediately.</p> + +<p>McKettrick vanished from the region and did not appear again except for +flying visits to his rising plant at Tupper Falls. He never inspected so +much as a foot of the new railroad back into the Goodhue tract—and +this, Scattergood very correctly took to be suspicious. The work was +left utterly in Scattergood's hands, with no check upon him and no +inspection. It was not like a man of McKettrick's character—unless +there were an object.</p> + +<p>Once or twice Scattergood encountered President Castle of the G. & B. +while the road was building.</p> + +<p>"Hear you're putting in a logging road for McKettrick," he said.</p> + +<p>"For me," said Scattergood. "Stock stands in my name. Calculate to +operate it myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Castle, and drummed with his fingers on the window ledge. +Scattergood said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Own the right of way?" asked Castle.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't precisely a right of way," said Scattergood. "It's a easement, +or property right, or whatever the lawyers would call it, to run tracks +over any part of McKettrick's property and operate a loggin' +railroad—where McKettrick says he wants to get logs from."</p> + +<p>"No definite right of way?"</p> + +<p>"Jest what I described."</p> + +<p>"Capitalized for two hundred thousand, I see."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!"</p> + +<p>"Any stock for sale?"</p> + +<p>"Not at the present writin'."</p> + +<p>"At a price?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, now—"</p> + +<p>"Say a profit of twenty dollars a share."</p> + +<p>"It'll pay dividends on more 'n that figger," said Scattergood, +"which," he added, "you know dum well."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Castle, "but for a quick turnover—and I'm not figuring +dividends altogether."</p> + +<p>"Kind of got a bone to pick with McKettrick, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe."</p> + +<p>"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "I'll sell you forty-nine per +cent of the stock at a hunderd and twenty. Stock to stand in my name +till the road's ready to operate, I don't want it known I've been +sellin' any.... Shouldn't be s'prised if you was able to pick up control +one way and another—but I hain't goin' to sell it to you."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Castle, closing his eyes and squinting through a slit +between the lids. "It's a deal, Mr. Baines," he said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You'll find a certified check in the mail the day after I get the +proper papers."</p> + +<p>Which transaction gave Scattergood another profit on the whole affair of +nineteen thousand six hundred dollars—this time a capitalization of the +spite of man toward man. It will be seen that McKettrick owned 49 per +cent of the stock, Castle, 49 per cent, and Scattergood, 2 per cent. He +was now in a position to await developments.</p> + +<p>They arrived as the railway was on the point of running its first train. +McKettrick brought them in person. He burst upon Scattergood as +Scattergood sat in front of his hardware store, and began to storm.</p> + +<p>"What's this? What's this?" he roared. "What's that railroad doing up +the easterly side of our timber? It's waste money, lost money. It'll +have to be rebuilt. We've made all arrangements to cut off the westerly +side. Now we'll have to swamp roads and log by team till the road can be +moved."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood, "so <i>that's</i> it, eh? I was wonderin' how it +would come."</p> + +<p>"It was an inexcusable blunder, and it'll cost you money. You know how +the railroad's contract with the company reads. Who gave you directions +to run up the easterly side?"</p> + +<p>"My engineer got 'em in your office."</p> + +<p>"Oh, your engineer. He made the mistake, eh? Then the mistake's yours, +all right, for every scrap of writing in our office has the word +'westerly' in it, plain and distinct. It means tearing up those rails, +grading a new line—and you'll pay for it. I sha'n't stand loss for your +mistake. It'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars for that blunder."</p> + +<p>"Hain't you discoverin' it a mite late?"</p> + +<p>"It was left wholly to you."</p> + +<p>"Seems like I noticed it," said Scattergood. "So all that work's lost, +eh? Seems a pity, too."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem to take it seriously."</p> + +<p>"You bet I do, and I calculate to look into it <i>some</i>."</p> + +<p>"It won't do any good. The mistake is plain."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't be s'prised. I git your idee, McKettrick. You've been +figgerin' from the start on smougin' me out of what I invested in that +road, eh?... By the way, your stock's in your name. I'll git the +certificates out of the safe."</p> + +<p>McKettrick shoved the envelope in his pocket. "The Seaboard Box and +Paper Company will force you to remove your tracks from our land. I'll +sue you for damages for your blunder. The Seaboard will sue the new +railroad for damages for failure to have the tracks into the cuttings +on time. I guess when we begin collecting judgments by levying on the +new road, there won't be much of it left. The Seaboard will come pretty +close to owning it."</p> + +<p>"And you and I will be frozen out, eh?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>McKettrick purred and smiled. "Exactly," he said. "Now, my advice to you +is not to fight the thing. You can't deny the blunder and you'll save +cost of litigation."</p> + +<p>"What's your proposition?"</p> + +<p>"Transfer your stock to the Seaboard."</p> + +<p>"And lose a hunderd and two thousand?"</p> + +<p>"It's not our fault if you make expensive mistakes."</p> + +<p>"Course not," said Scattergood. "I admit I hain't much on litigation. +S'posin' you and me meets in Boston to-morrow with our lawyers, and sort +of figger this thing out."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to figure out—but I'll meet you to-morrow. You're +sensible to settle."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I be," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle's 49 per cent of +the railroad's stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the +hands of the railroad's chief executive.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow. There will be a meeting at his hotel +at three o'clock. McKettrick will be there."</p> + +<p>"I'll come," said President Castle.</p> + +<p>The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized. +McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with +Johnnie Bones—and last came President Castle.</p> + +<p>At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet.</p> + +<p>"What do <i>you</i> want here?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths +of disagreeability, "I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this +concern. I imagine I have a right to be here."</p> + +<p>"What's that? What's that?" McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat +placidly removing his shoes.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I'll relieve my feet," he said.</p> + +<p>"So I got you, too," McKettrick said to Castle. "I didn't figure on +<i>that</i> luck."</p> + +<p>"Got me? I'm interested."</p> + +<p>McKettrick explained at length, and, as he explained, Castle glared at +him, and then at Scattergood, with increasing rage. As he saw it there +was a plot between Scattergood and McKettrick to get him—and he +appeared to have been gotten. He started to speak, but Scattergood +stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Jest a minute, Mr. Castle," he said. "'Tain't time for you to cuss yet. +Maybe you won't git to do no reg'lar cussin' a-tall. You see, McKettrick +he up and made a little error himself. Regardin' me makin' an error. +Yass.... I don't calc'late to make errors costin' upward of a hunderd +thousand. No.... Not," he said, "that I got any doubts about the word +'westerly' appearin' in all the papers McKettrick's got regardin' this +enterprise. What I doubt some is whether the word 'westerly' was there +right from the start off of the beginnin'. In other words, it looks to +me kind of as if McKettrick had done a mite of fixin' up to them +documents. Rubbin' out and writin' in, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks!" said McKettrick. "Of course that is what you would +charge."</p> + +<p>"McKettrick," said Scattergood, "did you figger I'd take notes in lead +pencil on my cuff of where I was to build that railroad? Did you figger +I was goin' to lay down a railroad without knowin' the place I put it +was where it b'longed? Castle he knows me better 'n you, and he +wouldn't guess I'd do sich a thing. No, sir, Mr. McKettrick. I took +them original papers out of your office for jest a day, and bein' as +they constituted an easement on land, I got 'em recorded in the office +of the recorder of deeds. Paid reg'lar money in fees to have it done. +And who you think I got to compare the records with the original in case +somethin' come up, eh? Why, the circuit jedge of this county and the +prosecutin' attorney—they both bein' personal and political friends of +mine.... That's what I done, and if you'll search them records you'll +find the word 'easterly' standin' cool and ca'm in every place where it +ought to be.... So, if you're figgerin' on litigation, I guess maybe +we'll litigate, eh?"</p> + +<p>"These are the references to the records," said Johnnie Bones, laying a +memorandum on the table. "You'll find them correct."</p> + +<p>"Knowing Baines as I do," said President Castle, "I'm satisfied."</p> + +<p>McKettrick and his attorney were conversing in hoarse whispers. +McKettrick looked like a man who had come out of a warm bath into a +cold-storage room. He was speechless, but his lawyer spoke for him.</p> + +<p>"You win," he said, succinctly.</p> + +<p>"Always calc'late to when I kin," said Scattergood. "Now, don't hurry, +gentlemen. I got another leetle matter to call to your attention. +McKettrick there's got forty-nine per cent of the stock in the railroad +that's built where it ought to be, and Castle's got another forty-nine +per cent. That leaves two men with all but two per cent of the stock, +and neither of them in control. If I know them men they hain't apt to +git together and agree peaceable and reasonable. Therefore, the feller +that has the remainin' two per cent of the stock, or forty shares, +stands perty clost to controllin' the corporation, eh? Him votin' with +either of the forty-nine per cents? Sounds that way, don't it?... And I +got that two per cent.... Do I hear any suggestions?"</p> + +<p>Castle stood up and bowed. "I take off my hat to you, Baines.... I bid +ten thousand."</p> + +<p>"Eleven," choked McKettrick.</p> + +<p>"This here road's goin' to be mighty profitable. Contract with the +Seaboard folks makes it look like it would pay eighteen, twenty per cent +on the investment, maybe more. And control—hain't that wuth a figger?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen," said Castle.</p> + +<p>"Sixteen."</p> + +<p>"Seventeen five hundred."</p> + +<p>"That's enough," said Scattergood. "I got a leetle grudge ag'in' +McKettrick for havin' bad manners, and for regardin' me as somethin' to +pick and eat. It'll hurt him some to have you control this road, Castle, +so you git it, at seventeen thousand five hunderd. I don't want to burn +you, and I calc'late the figger you're payin' is clost to bein' fair. +I'm satisfied. Write a check."</p> + +<p>Castle drew out his check book, and in a moment passed the valuable slip +across to Scattergood. "Thankee," said Baines, "and good day.... Another +time, McKettrick, don't look sneerin' at white woolen socks."</p> + +<p>He walked out of the room, followed by Johnnie Bones.</p> + +<p>"Perty fair deal for a scissor bill," said Scattergood. "This last +check, deductin' four thousand as cost of stock, gives me a profit of +twelve thousand two hunderd and fifty for the day. Add that to eighteen +thousand one hunderd and fifty on the strips of land, and nineteen +thousand six hunderd on the stock I sold Castle first, and what do we +git?"</p> + +<p>"Even fifty thousand," said Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"I always did cotton to round figgers," said Scattergood, comfortably. +"Let's git us a meal of vittles."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a><h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines was not a man to shingle his roof before he built his +foundations. He knew the value of shingles, and was not without some +appreciation for frescoes and porticoes and didos, but he liked to reach +them in the ordinary course of logical procedure. His completed +structure, according to the plans carefully printed on his brain, was +the domination of Coldriver Valley through ownership of its means of +transportation and of its water power. He wanted to be rich, not for the +sake of being rich, but because a great deal of money is, aside from +love or hate, the most powerful lever in the world. For five years, now, +Scattergood had moved along slowly and irresistibly, buying a bit of +timber here, acquiring a dam site there, taking over the stage line to +the railroad twenty-four miles away, and establishing a credit and a +reputation for shrewdness that were worth much more to him than dollars +and cents in the bank.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Scattergood had amassed considerable more money +than even the gimlet eyes and whispering tongues of Coldriver had been +able to credit him with. It is doubtful if anybody realized just how +strong a foot-hold Scattergood was getting in that valley, but the men +who came closest to it were Messrs. Crane and Keith, lumbermen, who were +beginning to experience a feeling of growing irritation toward the fat +hardware merchant. They were irritated because, every now and then, they +found themselves shut off from the water, or from a bit of timber, or +from some other desirable property, by some small holding of +Scattergood's which seemed to have dropped into just the right spot to +create the maximum amount of trouble for them. It could be nothing but +chance, they told each other, for they had sat in judgment on +Scattergood, and their judgment had been that he was a lazy lout with +more than a fair share of luck.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing but luck," Crane told his partner. "The man hasn't a brain +in his head—just a big lump of fat."</p> + +<p>"But he's always getting in the way—and he does seem to know a +water-power site when he sees it."</p> + +<p>"Anybody does," said Crane. "He's a doggone nuisance and we might as +well settle with him one time as another—and the time to settle is +before his luck gives him a genuine strangle hold on this valley. We've +got too much timber on these hills to take any risks."</p> + +<p>"I leave it with you, Crane. You're the outside man. But when you bust +him, bust him good."</p> + +<p>Crane retired to his office and devoted his head to the subject +exclusively, and because Crane's head was that sort of head he devised +an enterprise which, if Scattergood could be made to involve himself in +it, would result in the extinction of that gentleman in the Coldriver +Valley.</p> + +<p>It was a week later that a gentleman, whose clothes and bearing +guaranteed him to be a genuine denizen of the city, stopped at +Scattergood's store. Scattergood was sitting, as usual, on the piazza, +in his especially reinforced chair, laying in wait for somebody to whom +he could sell a bit of hardware, no matter how small.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," said the gentleman. "Is this Mr. Scattergood Baines?"</p> + +<p>"It's Scattergood Baines, all right. Don't call to mind bein' christened +Mister."</p> + +<p>"My name is Blossom."</p> + +<p>"Perty name," said Scattergood, unsmilingly.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I can have a little talk with you, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"Havin' it, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Blossom smiled appreciatively, and sat down beside Scattergood. "I'm +interested in the new Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company. You've heard of it, +haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Some," said Scattergood. "Some."</p> + +<p>"We are starting to build our mill. It will be the largest in America, +with the most modern machinery. Now we're looking about for somebody to +supply us spruce cut to the proper length for pulpwood. You own +considerable spruce, do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to have title to a tree or two."</p> + +<p>"Good. I came up to find out if you are in a position to swing a rather +big contract—to deliver us at the mill a minimum of twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood?"</p> + +<p>"Depends," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Mr. Blossom drew a jackknife from his pocket and began leisurely to +sharpen a pencil. It was a rather battered jackknife, and Scattergood +noticed that one blade had been broken off. He stretched out his hand. +"Jackknife's kind of lame, hain't it? Don't 'pear to be as stylish as +the rest of you?"</p> + +<p>"It is a bit dilapidated."</p> + +<p>"Got some good ones inside. Fine line of jackknives. Only carry the +best. Show 'em to you."</p> + +<p>He lifted himself out of the groaning chair and went into the store, to +return with a dozen or more knives, which he showed to Mr. Blossom, and +Mr. Blossom looked at them gravely. He was smiling to himself. A man who +could interrupt a deal involving upward of a hundred thousand dollars to +try to sell a jackknife certainly was not of a caliber to give serious +worry to an astute business man.</p> + +<p>"Recommend the pearl-handled one," said Scattergood. "Two dollars 'n' a +half."</p> + +<p>"I'll take it," said Mr. Blossom, and he stuck his old knife in a post, +replacing it in his pocket with the new purchase.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Scattergood, and Mr. Blossom handed over the currency.</p> + +<p>"Speakin' of pulpwood," said Scattergood, "how much you figger on +payin'?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Blossom named a price, delivered at the mill.</p> + +<p>"Pay when?"</p> + +<p>"On delivery."</p> + +<p>"When want it delivered, eh? What date?"</p> + +<p>"Before May first."</p> + +<p>"Water power or steam?" said Scattergood, somewhat irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>"Both. We're putting in steam engines and boilers, but we're going to +depend mostly on water power."</p> + +<p>"Goin' to build a dam, eh? Big dam?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Stock company?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. We'll be solid. Capitalized for a quarter of a million and bonded +for a quarter of a million. Gives us half a million capital to start +business."</p> + +<p>"Stock all sold?"</p> + +<p>"Every share."</p> + +<p>"Who to?"</p> + +<p>"Mostly in small blocks in Boston."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Bonds sold?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Who bought 'em?"</p> + +<p>"They're underwritten by the Commonwealth Security Trust Company."</p> + +<p>"Want to know!... Got authority? Vested with authority to put it in +writin'?"</p> + +<p>"The contract, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to mean that."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Lawyer acrost the street," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You can swing it?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to."</p> + +<p>"You have the capital to make good?"</p> + +<p>"Know I have, don't you? Wouldn't have come to me if you hadn't?"</p> + +<p>"You'll have to borrow heavily."</p> + +<p>"My lookout, hain't it? Don't need to worry you?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least."</p> + +<p>"Lawyer's still acrost the street."</p> + +<p>So Scattergood and Mr. Blossom went across the street and up the narrow +stairs to Lawyer Norton's office, where a contract was drafted and +signed, obligating Scattergood to deliver to the Higgins's Bridge Pulp +Company twenty-five thousand cords of pulp, on or before May 1st, +payment to be made on delivery. Mr. Blossom went away wearing a +satisfied expression, and in the course of the day sent to Crane & Keith +a brief message, a message of two words. "He bit," was the telegram.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went back to his chair, and presently might have been seen +to unlace his shoes absent-mindedly. For an hour he sat there, twiddling +his bare toes. Then he got up, jerked Mr. Blossom's old jackknife from +the post where it had been abandoned, and pocketed it.</p> + +<p>"If nothin' else happens," he said to himself, "I'm figgered to make a +profit of sixty cents and a tradin' knife."</p> + +<p>There followed a very busy fall and winter for Scattergood. Not that he +neglected his hardware store, but from its porch, and later from a post +beside its big stove, he recruited men for his camps and directed the +labor of cutting and piling pulpwood along the banks of Coldriver. +Also, from time to time, he visited various banks to borrow the money +necessary to carry on the operation, sometimes on notes and collateral, +sometimes on timber mortgages. The sum of his borrowing mounted and +mounted, until, before the arrival of spring, his credit had been +strained to the uttermost.</p> + +<p>Nor had the pulp company been idle. Its new mills had arisen beside the +river at Higgins's Bridge, machinery had been installed, and the little +hamlet was beginning to speculate in town lots and to look forward to +unexampled prosperity.</p> + +<p>But before the ice was out of the river disquieting rumors began to +breathe out of Higgins's Bridge. They were the meerest vapor of +conjecture at first, apparently based upon no evidence whatever, but +friends delighted to convey them to Scattergood, as friends always +delight to perform such a disagreeable duty.</p> + +<p>"Hear things hain't goin' right down to the new pulp mill," said Deacon +Pettybone, one bitterly cold afternoon, when he came into Scattergood's +store to thaw the icicles out of his sparse beard.</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Be perty bad for you if they was to go wrong, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Perty bad, Deacon."</p> + +<p>"'Most ruin you, wouldn't it? Clean you out? Leave you with nothin'?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't mortgaged my health. Hain't mortgaged my brains. Have them left, +Deacon. Don't figger I'm clean bankrupt till them two is gone."</p> + +<p>But it was to be noticed that Scattergood toasted his bare toes a great +deal during the ensuing days. He scarcely put on his shoes except when +he was going out to wallow through the drifts; and, as Coldriver knew, +when Scattergood waggled his bare toes he was struggling with a +problem.</p> + +<p>Also it might have been noticed that he pored much over the detailed +maps in the county atlas, studying the flow of streams and the lie of +timber. It might have been seen that several large blocks of timber had +been marked by Scattergood with red crosses, and that certain other +limits had been blotted out in black. The black pieces were neither +numerous nor individually extensive, but they belonged to Scattergood. +Those marked with red crosses were the property of Messrs. Crane & +Keith.</p> + +<p>Now, it may be taken as axiomatic that in those early days the value of +a piece of timber depended upon its accessibility to flowing water down +which logs might be driven. A medium piece of timber on the banks of a +stream which came to plentiful flood in the spring was worth more in +hard dollars and cents than a much larger and finer piece back in the +hills. A piece of timber which had no access whatever to water +approximated worthlessness. On the atlas, the largest pieces of Crane & +Keith timber were back from the river—not too far back, but still +separated from it by narrow strips which, for the most part, were farms. +Some few pieces ran down to the river, but it was apparent that Crane & +Keith were looking to the future—buying timber when it was at its +lowest, and preparing to hold for a better day. They had bought +strategically. More than one tributary valley was in their hands, and, +when the day ripened, small land purchases would connect their holdings, +bring them to water, and place them in such a commanding position that +the valley would be as surely theirs as if they owned every foot of it. +Inasmuch as Scattergood planned, himself, to control Coldriver Valley, +the prospect was not pleasing to him.</p> + +<p>Scattergood closed the atlas and put on his shoes. "Um!..." he said. +"Calculate that'll keep their minds off'n other things a spell. If +they see me dickerin' there, they won't figger I'm dickerin' some place +else."</p> + +<p>If Scattergood had been a general, history would have recorded that he +won his battles by making feints at some vulnerable point in the enemy's +line, and then struck his major blow at a distance where he was not +suspected to be operating at all.</p> + +<p>It chanced that Crane & Keith were cutting timber from the Bottle—a +valley so named. Their rollways were piled high, and it was time for +them to team to the river. To reach the river they must pass through the +Bottleneck and over the farm belonging to Old Man Plumm. There was +another road into the valley—a public road—but it was a fifteen-mile +haul. Old Man Plumm was a non-assertive person, and good-natured. His +farm was a ramshackle, down-at-heels, worthless place, off which he +gleaned the meagerest of livelihoods, so that he had not been averse to +permitting Crane & Keith to traverse his land for a nominal +consideration. It was cheaper for Crane & Keith than purchase—and so +the matter stood.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went across the road to Lawyer Norton's office.</p> + +<p>"Goin' up Bottleneck way perty soon?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not that I know of, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Nice drive. Old Man Plumm's got a farm there."</p> + +<p>"I know that, of course."</p> + +<p>"Don't figger to visit him?"</p> + +<p>"Why—" said Norton, beginning to see that Scattergood had something in +view—"I could."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't try to buy the farm, would you?"</p> + +<p>Norton hesitated. "I—I might."</p> + +<p>"Cash?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"In your own name, eh? Not in anybody else's."</p> + +<p>"How much should I pay?"</p> + +<p>"Folks always pays what they have to—no more—no less. Immediate +possession. Always a good thing. Got any money?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Call at the bank. They'll give you what's needed. Ought to be back with +the deed by night. Fast hoss?"</p> + +<p>"Fast enough."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Norton."</p> + +<p>That night Norton returned with the deed and with Old Man Plumm, who +took the morning stage for Connecticut and his youngest daughter.</p> + +<p>"Hear folks is trespassin' on your land, Norton. Name of Crane and +Keith. Haulin' logs acrost. No contract with you? No contract with +Plumm?"</p> + +<p>"No contract."</p> + +<p>"Hain't got a right to do it, have they?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"If I owned that land I'd give 'em notice," said Scattergood. "G'-by, +Norton. Goin'to Boston to-day. Set tight, Norton. G'-by."</p> + +<p>Twenty-four hours later both Crane and Keith were in Coldriver, storming +up to Lawyer Norton's office. Scattergood was in Boston and not visible.</p> + +<p>"What does this mean?" blustered Crane, displaying to Norton the notice +mailed at Scattergood's direction.</p> + +<p>"What it says."</p> + +<p>"You can't stop us hauling to the river."</p> + +<p>Norton shrugged his shoulders. "You can use the state road."</p> + +<p>"Fifteen miles! You know it's impossible. We've got millions of feet on +our rollways. It'll doze and spoil if we don't get it out."</p> + +<p>"That's your lookout."</p> + +<p>"What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"It's some kind of a hold-up. What'll you take for that farm?"</p> + +<p>"Not for sale."</p> + +<p>"What will it cost us to haul across you?"</p> + +<p>"You can't haul across. Not for money, marbles, or chalk. Use the road."</p> + +<p>That was the best Crane & Keith could get out of Norton, though they +besieged him for a week, though they consulted lawyers, though they made +threats, and though they begged and promised. Norton was a stubborn man.</p> + +<p>During this week Scattergood had been in Boston. His first visit had +been to Linderman, president of the Atlantic Pulp and Paper Company.</p> + +<p>"Have you an appointment with Mr. Linderman?" asked a clerk.</p> + +<p>"Never heard of me."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm afraid you can't see him. He's very busy."</p> + +<p>"That his office? That door?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He in? Right in there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Scattergood walked calmly toward it. The slender clerk interposed. +Scattergood picked him up, tucked him under a huge arm, and waddled +through the great man's door.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Linderman? Howdy?"</p> + +<p>Linderman looked up and frowned, then his eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>"Who are you? What have you there?"</p> + +<p>"Young feller I found outside. 'Fraid of steppin' on him, so I picked +him up to save him. You can run along now, sonny," he said to the clerk. +"He let on I couldn't see you," Scattergood explained.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Scattergood Baines."</p> + +<p>"Of Coldriver?" Scattergood was surprised, but did not show it. "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Sit down."</p> + +<p>"Thankee.... Come to do a mite of business with you. Interested in pulp, +hain't you. Quite consid'able interested?"</p> + +<p>"Very much."</p> + +<p>"Know the Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. Understand they're in difficulties."</p> + +<p>"In some, and goin' to be in more. That's why I come down."</p> + +<p>Thereupon Scattergood explained in detail his contract with the pulp +company, and his theories of what that company was planning to do to +him. "Double barreled," he said. "Crane and Keith owns them bonds. +Figger on freezin' out the stockholders and buyin' 'em out for a song. +Figger on bustin' me. Next we hear the mill'll be in receiver's hands. +No money. Can't pay no contracts. My notes'll come due, and I'm done +for. Simple. Crane thought it up."</p> + +<p>"What do you want of me? So far as I can see, you are up against it. You +can't borrow any more, and your notes won't be extended. You're done."</p> + +<p>"Hain't started yet—not yet. Figger to start to-day. That's why I come +to see you."</p> + +<p>"But I can do nothing for you."</p> + +<p>"Higgins's Bridge mill's good, hain't it? Logical payin' proposition? +Money to be made?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Like to own it cheap?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Crane and Keith is gittin' ready for a killin'. Own big block of stock. +Paid par. Want to sell, I hear ... if anybody's fool enough to buy. Then +want to buy back for dum' near nothin' when receivership comes. Good +scheme. Money in it. Crane thought it up."</p> + +<p>"What's your idea?"</p> + +<p>"Buy all they got. Option the rest. Easy.... What happens when a man +sells somethin' he hain't got?"</p> + +<p>"He has to get it some place."</p> + +<p>"If he can't get it, what?"</p> + +<p>"Makes it expensive for him."</p> + +<p>"Thought so. Figgered that way.... Nobody to interfere. Crane and Keith +left orders to sell. They won't be takin' notice. Got 'em worried some +place else. Mighty worried." Scattergood recounted the story of Plumm's +farm.</p> + +<p>Mr. Linderman scrutinized Scattergood intently and nodded his head. "And +you want me—"</p> + +<p>"Put up the money. Git the stock. Lemme handle it. Gimme twenty per +cent."</p> + +<p>"In stock?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late so."</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Linderman, "I'll go you. Crane and Keith are due for a +lesson."</p> + +<p>"Ready now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mr. Linderman. Have money when I want it. G'-by."</p> + +<p>Scattergood had a list of stockholders in the pulp company and knew they +were worried. He spent two days in interviewing a dozen of them, and +found little difficulty optioning their stock at a pleasant figure. They +imagined he must be crazy, and he did nothing to destroy the belief.</p> + +<p>Then he called at the offices of Crane & Keith.</p> + +<p>"Want to see the boss man," he said.</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"Hear you got stock for sale. Pulp company. Figger to buy."</p> + +<p>Here was a lamb ready for the slaughter. Mr. McCann, who received him, +could see the delight of his employers, and his own profit, if he +should succeed in taking this fat backwoodsman into camp.</p> + +<p>"You want to buy stock in the pulp company, I understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"How much you got?"</p> + +<p>"Guess we can sell you all you want."</p> + +<p>"Money-makin' proposition, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"But you're willin' to sell? Kind of funny, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no. We have so many enterprises."</p> + +<p>"Glad you want to sell. I figger to make money on this stock. Want to +buy a lot of it."</p> + +<p>"About how many shares?"</p> + +<p>"What you askin'?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Par."</p> + +<p>"Shucks! Give you thirty."</p> + +<p>There was haggling and bickering until a price of sixty was agreed upon, +and Mr. McCann's heart expanded with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Now, how many shares?"</p> + +<p>"Want control. Want fifty-one per cent, anyhow. Got 'em?"</p> + +<p>"Of course." This was not the fact, but Mr. McCann was not addicted to +unnecessary facts. He knew where he could get the rest for less than 60. +There would be an additional profit and additional credit coming to him. +In cold reality, Crane & Keith owned some 40 per cent of the stock.</p> + +<p>"Take all you'll sell."</p> + +<p>"I can let you have fifteen hundred shares—for cash." This was an even +60 per cent, but McCann knew where he could get the other 20.</p> + +<p>"Come to the bank. Come now. Give you the cash."</p> + +<p>"I can't deliver but one thousand shares to-day, but I can give you the +other five hundred to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Suits me. Pay for 'em all to-day. Gimme what you got and a receipt for +the rest. Comin' to the bank?"</p> + +<p>Mr. McCann put on his coat and hat and accompanied Scattergood to the +bank, where he received a certified check for the full amount, gave +Scattergood in return a thousand shares of stock, and a receipt which +recited that Scattergood had paid for five hundred shares more, to be +delivered within twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went to see Mr. Linderman; McCann went out to round up five +hundred shares of stock. By midnight he was a worried young man. The +stock he had thought to pick up so readily was not to be had. Everybody +seemed to have disposed of it and nobody seemed to know exactly who had +been doing the buying, for the options had been taken in a number of +names. Next morning McCann sought diligently until he found Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I've been a bit delayed in the delivery of the rest of the stock," he +told Scattergood, and there was cold moisture on his forehead. "Would +you mind waiting until to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Guess I'll have to," said Scattergood. "G'-by. Better be movin' around +spry. I want to git back home."</p> + +<p>That night McCann wired his employers to get back home as quickly as +conveyances would carry them. They did so, and in no happy mood, for +Lawyer Norton had remained immovable in his position. Young McCann told +his tale hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Who did you say you sold to?" demanded Crane.</p> + +<p>"Fat man by the name of Baines."</p> + +<p>"Baines! He's busted. Hasn't a cent."</p> + +<p>"Paid cash."</p> + +<p>Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane. Just then the telephone +rang. It was Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Want to speak to Mr. Crane," he said.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" Crane said, gruffly. "What's this about your buying pulp +company stock?"</p> + +<p>"Bought some. Bought a little. Called up to see why your young man +wasn't deliverin'. Want to git home."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get the money?"</p> + +<p>"Have to know that? Have to know where it come from before you kin make +delivery? Hain't inquisitive, be you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Crane made use of language. "I want to see you—got to have a talk. +Come right down here."</p> + +<p>"Jest been measurin'," said Scattergood, "and I figger it's a mite +longer from here to there than it is from there to here. If you want to +see me, here I be."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood gave an office address and hung up the receiver.</p> + +<p>"They'll be here in a minnit," he said to Mr. Linderman, and he was not +exaggerating greatly as to the time required to bring the gentlemen to +him. "Know Mr. Linderman—Crane and Keith?" said Scattergood. "Come in +and set."</p> + +<p>"What do you want with pulp company stock?" Crane demanded.</p> + +<p>"Paper the kitchen. Maybe, if I kin git enough, I'll paper the parlor. +Lack five hunderd shares for the parlor. Got'em with you?"</p> + +<p>"No, and we're not going to get them."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Paid for 'em, didn't I? Got a receipt?"</p> + +<p>"What's Linderman doing in this?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Linderman leaned forward a little. "I'm in a legitimate business +transaction—something quite foreign to you gentlemen's notions of doing +business. I came into it to make a profit, but mostly to teach you +fellows a lesson in decent business methods. I don't like you. I don't +like your ways. If you like your ways you must expect to pay for the +pleasure you get out of them.... Mr. Baines is waiting for delivery of +the stock he bought."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know we haven't got it?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"We can't deliver."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can. Go out in the open market and buy. Now, I own a few +shares, for instance. I might sell."</p> + +<p>The faces of Messrs. Crane and Keith did not picture lively enjoyment. +They were caught. If it had been Scattergood alone they might have +wriggled out of it, they thought, for they had scant respect for his +sagacity, but Linderman—well, Linderman was not to be trifled with.</p> + +<p>"How much?" said Crane.</p> + +<p>"You need five hundred shares. Par is a hundred, is it not? I will part +with mine for three hundred. First, last, and only offer. In ten minutes +the price goes up to three fifty, and fifty for each five minutes after +that."</p> + +<p>"It's robbery ..." Mr. Crane spluttered, and made uncouth sounds of +rage.</p> + +<p>"Now you know how the other fellow has been feeling. Seven minutes +left...."</p> + +<p>Four more minutes sped before the surrender came.</p> + +<p>"Certified check," said Mr. Linderman. "My messenger will go to the bank +for you."</p> + +<p>The check was drawn for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and Crane +and Keith settled back sullenly.</p> + +<p>"You can retain your bonds. I believe you have about a quarter of a +million dollars' worth of them. Glad to have you finance the mill for +me. It will, of course, go ahead under my direction," said Linderman. "I +guess I can iron out the difficulties you gentlemen have arranged for, +and there will be no receivership. That will relieve Mr. Baines, who has +a considerable contract with the company." Mr. Crane swore softly.</p> + +<p>Scattergood heaved himself to his feet. "One other leetle matter, Crane. +There's the Plumm farm. Kind of exercised about that, hain't you? Stayed +up in the country a week to look after it—while I was dickerin' down +here.... Like to buy that farm?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer.</p> + +<p>"Calculate to take a hint from Mr. Linderman. That farm's mine, and you +can't haul a log acrost it. My price is fifteen thousand. Bought it for +two. Price goes up hunderd dollars a minute. Cash deal."</p> + +<p>That surrender was more prompt, and a second check was sent to the bank +to be certified.</p> + +<p>"G'-by, gentlemen," said Scattergood, and Messrs. Crane and Keith took +their departure in no dignified manner, but with rancor in their hearts, +which there was no method of salving.</p> + +<p>"Let's take stock," said Scattergood. "Like to know jest how we come +out."</p> + +<p>"Let's see. We bought the stock at an average of sixty dollars a share. +That makes a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in expenses, doesn't it? +The five hundred shares just transferred cost thirty thousand dollars +and we sold them for a hundred and fifty thousand. Profit on that part +of the deal is a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. That made the +total capital stock in the mill worth a quarter of a million of +anybody's money; cost us exactly thirty thousand dollars, didn't it? +Nice deal.... And you cleaned up an extra thirteen thousand on your side +issue. Not bad."</p> + +<p>"I git five hunderd shares worth fifty thousand dollars, don't I? Then +my thirteen. That's sixty-three thousand. Then my profit on twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood—which is goin' to be paid, I jedge. That'll +be anyhow another twenty-five thousand. Calc'late this deal's about +fixed me so's I kin go ahead with a number of plans. Much obleeged, Mr. +Linderman. You come in handy."</p> + +<p>"So did you, Mr. Baines. Mighty handy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, me. I had to. I was jest takin' out reasonable insurance ag'in' +loss...."</p> + +<p>"I guess you have a permanent insurance policy against loss, inside your +head."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood, slipping his feet into his shoes, preparatory +to leaving, "difficulty about that kind of insurance is that most folks +lets it lapse 'long about the first week after they're born."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a><h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The world has come to think of Scattergood Baines as an astute and +perhaps tricky business man, or as the political despot of a state. +Because this is so it has overlooked or neglected many stories about the +man much more indicative of character, and more fascinating of detail +than those well-known and often-repeated tales of his sagacity in +trading or his readiness in outwitting a political enemy. To one who +makes a careful study of Scattergood's life with a view to writing a +truthful biography, he inevitably becomes more interesting and more +lovable when seen simply as a neighbor, a fellow townsman of other New +Englanders, and as a country hardware merchant. There is a certain charm +in the naïveté with which he was wont to stick his pudgy finger in the +affairs of others with benignant purpose; and it is not easy to believe +other tales of hardness, of ruthless beating down of opposition, when +one repeatedly comes upon well-authenticated instances in which he has +stood quietly hidden behind the scenes to pull the strings and to make +his neighbors bow and dance and posture in accordance with some schemes +which he has formulated for their greater happiness.</p> + +<p>Scattergood loved to meddle. Perhaps that is his dominant trait. He +could see nothing moving in the community about him and withhold his +hand. If Old Man Bogle set about buying a wheelbarrow, Scattergood would +intervene in the transaction; if Pliny Pickett stopped at the Widow +Ware's gate to deliver a message, Scattergood saw an opportunity to +unite lonely hearts—and set about uniting them forthwith; if little Sam +Kettleman, junior, and Wade Lumley's boy, Tom, came to blows, +Scattergood became peacemaker or referee, as the needs of the moment +seemed to dictate. It would be difficult to find a pie in Coldriver +which was not marked by his thumb. So it came about that when he became +convinced that Grandmother Penny was unhappy because of various +restrictions and inhibitions placed on her by her son, the dry-goods +merchant, and by her daughter-in-law, he determined to intervene. +Scattergood was partial to old ladies, and this partiality can be traced +to his earliest days in Coldriver. He loved white hair and wrinkled +cheeks and eyes that had once been youthful and glowing, but were dulled +and dimmed by watching the long procession of the years.</p> + +<p>Now he sat on the piazza of his hardware store, his shoes on the +planking beside him, and his pudgy toes wriggling like the trained +fingers of an eminent pianist. It was a knotty problem. An ordinary +problem Scattergood could solve with shoes on feet, but let the matter +take on eminent difficulty and his toes must be given freedom and elbow +room, as one might say. Later in life his wife, Mandy, after he had +married her, tried to cure him of this habit, which she considered +vulgar, but at this point she failed signally.</p> + +<p>The facts about Grandmother Penny were, not that she was consciously ill +treated. Her bodily comfort was seen to. She was well fed and reasonably +clothed, and had a good bed in which to sleep. Where she was sinned +against was in this: that her family looked upon her white hair and her +wrinkles and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that her interest in +life was gone—in short, that she was content to cumber the earth and to +wait for the long sleep. To them she was simply one who tarries and is +content. Scattergood looked into her sharp, old eyes, eyes that were +capable of sudden gleams of humor or flashes of anger, and he <i>knew</i>. He +knew that death seemed as distant to Grandmother Penny as it had seemed +fifty years ago. He knew that her interest in life was as keen, her +yearning to participate in the affairs of life as strong, as they had +been when Grandfather Penny—now long gone to his reward—had driven his +horse over the hills with one hand while he utilized the other arm for +more important and delightful purposes.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was remembering his own grandmother. He had known her as no +other living soul had known her, because she had been his boyhood +intimate, his defender, always his advocate, and because the boyish love +which he had given her had made his eyes keen to perceive. His parents +had fancied Grandma Baines to be content when she was in constant +revolt. They had supposed that life meant nothing more to her now than +to sit in a comfortable rocker and to knit interminable stockings and to +remember past years. Scattergood knew that the present compelled her +interest and that the future thrilled her. She wanted to participate in +life, to be in the midst of events—to continue to live so long as the +power of movement and of perception remained to her. He was now able to +see that the old lady had done much to mold his character, and as he +recalled incident after incident his face wore a softer, more melancholy +expression than Coldriver was wont to associate with it. He was +regretting that in his thoughtless youth he had failed to accomplish +more to make gladder his grandmother's few remaining years.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late," said Scattergood to himself—but aloud—"that I'll kind +of substitute Grandmother Penny for Grandma Baines—pervidin' Grandma +Baines is fixed so's she kin see; more'n likely she'll understand what +I'm up to, and it'll tickle her—I'm goin' to up and borrow me a +grandmother."</p> + +<p>He wriggled his toes and considered. What thing had his grandmother most +desired?</p> + +<p>"Independence was what she craved," he said, and considered the point. +"She didn't want to be beholdin' to folks. She wanted to be fixed so's +she could do as she pleased, and nobody to interfere. I calc'late if +Grandma Baines 'd 'a' been left alone she'd 'a' found her another +husband and they'd 'a' had a home of their own with all the fixin's. It +wasn't so much doin' that grandma wanted, it was knowin' she <i>could</i> do +if she wanted to."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's specially reinforced chair creaked as he strained forward +to pick up his shoepacs and draw them on. It required no small exertion, +and he straightened up, red of face and panting a trifle. He walked up +the street, crossed the bridge, and descended to the little room under +the barber shop where the checker or cribbage championship of the state +was decided daily. Two ancient citizens were playing checkers, while a +third stood over them, watching with that thrilled concentration with +which the ordinary person might watch an only son essaying to cross +Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Scattergood knew better than to interrupt +the game, so he stood by until, by a breath-taking triple jump, Old Man +Bogle sent his antagonist down to defeat. Then, and only then, did +Scattergood speak to the old gentleman who had been the spectator.</p> + +<p>"Morning Mr. Spackles," he said.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Scattergood. See that last jump of Bogle's? I swanny if +'twan't about as clever a move as I see this year."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "I come down here to find out could I +ask you some advice. You bein' experienced like you be, it 'peared to +me like you was the one man that could help me out."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." grunted Mr. Spackles, his old blue eyes widening with the +distinction of the moment. "If I kin be of any service to you, I +calculate I'm willin'. 'Tain't often folks comes to me for advice any +more, or anythin' else, for that matter. Guess they figger I'm too old +to 'mount to anythin'."</p> + +<p>"Feel like takin' a mite of a walk?"</p> + +<p>"Who? Me? I'm skittisher'n a colt this mornin'. Bet I kin walk twenty +mile 'fore sundown."</p> + +<p>They moved toward the door, but there Mr. Spackles paused to look back +grandly upon the checker players. "Sorry I can't linger to watch you, +boys," he said, loftily, "but they's important matters me and +Scattergood got to discuss. Seems like he's feelin' the need of sound +advice."</p> + +<p>When they were gone the checker players scrutinized each other, and then +with one accord scrambled to the door and stared out after Scattergood +and Mr. Spackles.</p> + +<p>"I swanny!" said Old Man Bogle.</p> + +<p>"What d'you figger Scattergood wanted of that ol' coot?" demanded Old +Man Peterson.</p> + +<p>"Somethin' deep," hazarded Old Man Bogle. "I always did hold Spackles +was a brainy cuss. Hain't he 'most as good a checker player as I be? +What gits me, though, is how Scattergood come to pick him instid of me."</p> + +<p>"Huh!..." grunted Old Man Peterson, and they resumed their game.</p> + +<p>Scattergood walked along in silence for a few paces; then he regarded +Mr. Spackles appraisingly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Spackles," said he, deferentially, "I dunno when I come acrost a +man that holds his years like you do. Mind if I ask you jest how old you +be?"</p> + +<p>"Sixty-six year," said Spackles.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't never 'a' b'lieved it," marveled Scattergood. "Wouldn't 'a' +set you down for a day more 'n fifty-five or six, not with them clear +eyes and them ruddy cheeks and the way you step out."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to be nigh as good as I ever was, Scattergood. J'ints creak +some, but what I got inside my head it don't never creak none to speak +of."</p> + +<p>"What I want to ask you, Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "is if you +calc'late a man that's got to be past sixty and a woman that's got to be +past sixty has got any business hitchin' up and marryin' each other."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Depends. I'd say it depends. If the feller was perserved like I +be, and the woman was his equal in mind and body, I'd say they was no +reason ag'in' it—'ceptin' it might be money."</p> + +<p>"Ever think of marryin', yourself, Mr. Spackles?"</p> + +<p>"Figgered some. Figgered some. But knowed they wasn't no use. Son and +daughter wouldn't hear to it. Couldn't support a wife, nohow. Son and +daughter calc'lates to be mighty kind to me, Scattergood, and gives me +dum near all I kin ask, but both of 'em says I got to the time of life +where it hain't becomin' in 'em to allow me to work."</p> + +<p>"How much kin sich a couple as I been talkin' about live on?"</p> + +<p>"When I married, forty-odd year ago, I was gittin' a dollar a day. Me +'n' Ma we done fine and saved money. Livin's higher now. Calc'late it +'u'd take nigh a dollar 'n' a half to git on comfortable."</p> + +<p>"Figger fifty dollars a month 'u'd do it? Think that 'u'd be enough?"</p> + +<p>"Scattergood, you listen here to me. I hain't never earned as much as +fifty dollar a month reg'lar in my whole life—and I got consid'able +pleasure out of livin', too." They had walked up the street until they +were passing the Penny residence. Grandmother Penny was sitting on the +porch, knitting as usual. She looked very neat and dainty as she sat +there in her white lace cap and her lavender dress.</p> + +<p>"Fine-lookin' old lady," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles regarded Grandmother Penny and nodded with the air of a +connoisseur. "Dum'd if she hain't." He lifted his hat and yelled across +the road: "Mornin', Ellen."</p> + +<p>"Mornin', James," replied Grandmother Penny, and bobbed her head. "Won't +you folks stop and set? Sun's a-comin' down powerful hot."</p> + +<p>"Don't mind if we do," said Scattergood. He seated himself, and mopped +his brow, and fanned himself with his broad straw hat, whose flapping +brim was beginning to ravel about the edges. Presently he stood up.</p> + +<p>"Got to be movin' along, Mis' Penny. Seems like I'm mighty busy off and +on. But I dunno what I'd do without Mr. Spackles, here, to advise with +once in a while. He's jest been givin' me the benefit of his thinkin' +this mornin'."</p> + +<p>With inward satisfaction Scattergood noticed how the old lady turned a +pert, sharp look upon Mr. Spackles, regarding him with awakened +interest. To be considered a man of wisdom by Scattergood Baines was a +distinction in Coldriver even in those days, and for a man actually to +be consulted and asked for advice by the ample hardware merchant was to +lift him into an intellectual class to which few could aspire.</p> + +<p>"I hope he gin you good advice, Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny.</p> + +<p>"Allus does. If ever you're lookin' for level-headedness, and f'r a man +you kin depend on, jest send a call for Mr. Spackles. G'-by, ma'am. +G'-by, Mr. Spackles, and much 'bleeged to you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles was a little bewildered, for he had not the least idea +upon what subject he had advised Scattergood, but he was of an acuteness +not to pass by any of the advantage that accrued from the situation. He +replied, with lofty kindness, "Any time you want for to consult with me, +young man, jest come right ahead."</p> + +<p>When Scattergood was gone, Mr. Spackles turned to the old lady and +waggled his head.</p> + +<p>"Ellen, that there's a mighty promisin' young man. Time's comin' when +he's a-goin' to amount to suthin'. I'm a-calc'latin' on guidin' him all +I kin."</p> + +<p>"I want to know," said Grandmother Penny, almost breathless at this new +importance of Mr. Spackles's, and Mr. Spackles basked in her admiration, +and added to it by apochryphal narratives of his relations with +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>For a week Scattergood let matters rest. He was content, for more than +once he saw Mr. Spackles's faded overalls and ragged hat on the Penny +premises, and watched the old gentleman in animated conversation with +Grandmother Penny, who seemed to be perter and brighter and handsomer +than she had ever seemed before.</p> + +<p>On one such day Scattergood crossed the street and entered the gate.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, folks?" he said. "Wonder if I kin speak with Mr. Spackles +without interferin'?"</p> + +<p>"Certain you kin," said Grandmother Penny, cordially.</p> + +<p>"Got a important bankin' matter over to the county seat, Mr. Spackles, +and I was wonderin' if I could figger on your help?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure you kin, Scattergood. To be sure."</p> + +<p>"Got to have a brainy man over there day after to-morrer. B'jing! that's +circus day, too. Didn't think of that till this minnit. Wonder if you'd +drive my boss and buggy over and fix up a deal with the president of the +bank?"</p> + +<p>"Glad to 'bleege," said the flattered Mr. Spackles.</p> + +<p>"Circus day," Scattergood repeated. "Been to a circus lately, Mis' +Penny?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't seen one for years."</p> + +<p>"No?... Mr. Spackles, what be you thinkin' of? To be sure. Why, you kin +bundle Mis' Penny into the buggy and take her along with you! Finish the +business in no time, bein' spry like you be, and then you and her kin +take in the circus and the side show, and stay f'r the concert. How's +that?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles was suddenly red and embarrassed, but Grandmother Penny +beamed.</p> + +<p>"Why," says she, "makes me feel like a young girl ag'in. To be sure I'll +go. Daughter'll make a fuss, but I jest don't care if she does. I'm +a-goin'."</p> + +<p>"That's the way to talk," said Scattergood. "Mr. Spackles'll be round +f'r you bright and early. Now, if you kin spare him, I calc'late we got +to talk business."</p> + +<p>When they were in the street Mr. Spackles choked and coughed, and said +with some vexation:</p> + +<p>"You went and got me in f'r it that time."</p> + +<p>"How so, Mr. Spackles? Don't you want to take Mis' Penny to the circus?"</p> + +<p>"Course I do, but circuses cost money. I hain't got more 'n a quarter to +my name."</p> + +<p>"H'm!... Didn't calc'late I was askin' you to take a day of your time +for <i>nothin</i>', did you? F'r a trip like this here, with a lot hangin' on +to it, I'd say ten dollars was about the fittin' pay. What say?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles's beaming face was answer enough.</p> + +<p>Grandmother Penny and Mr. Spackles went to the circus in a more or less +surreptitious manner. It was a wonderful day, a successful day, such a +day as neither of them had expected ever to see again, and when they +drove home through the moonlight, across the mountains, their souls +were no longer the souls of threescore and ten, but of twoscore and one.</p> + +<p>"Great day, wa'n't it, Ellen?" said Mr. Spackles, softly.</p> + +<p>"Don't call to mind nothin' approachin' it, James."</p> + +<p>"You be powerful good company, Ellen."</p> + +<p>"So be you, James."</p> + +<p>"I calculate to come and set with you, often," said James, diffidently.</p> + +<p>"Whenever the notion strikes you, James," replied Grandmother Penny, and +she blushed for the first time in a score of years.</p> + +<p>Two days later Pliny Pickett stopped to speak to Scattergood in front of +the hardware store. Pliny supplemented and amplified the weekly +newspaper, and so was very useful to Baines.</p> + +<p>"Hear tell Ol' Man Spackles is sparkin' Grandmother Penny," Pliny said, +with a grin. "Don't figger nothin' 'll come of it, though. Their +childern won't allow it."</p> + +<p>"Won't allow it, eh? What's the reason? What business is 't of theirn?"</p> + +<p>"Have to support 'em. The ol' folks hain't got no money. Spackles 's got +two-three hunderd laid by for to bury him, and so's Grandmother Penny. +Seems like ol' folks allus lays by for the funeral, but that's every red +cent they got. I hear tell Mis' Penny's son has forbid Spackles's comin' +around the house."</p> + +<p>This proved to be the fact, as Scattergood learned from no less an +authority than Mr. Spackles himself.</p> + +<p>"Felt like strikin' him right there 'n' then," said Mr. Spackles, +heatedly, "but I seen 'twouldn't do to abuse one of Ellen's childern."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Was you and Grandmother Penny figgerin' on hitchin' up?" +Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"I put the question," said Mr. Spackles, with the air of a youth of +twenty, "and Ellen up and allowed she'd have me. But I guess 'twon't +never come off now. Seems like I'll never be content ag'in, and Ellen's +that downcast I shouldn't be a mite s'prised if she jest give up and +passed away."</p> + +<p>"Difficulty's money, hain't it? Largely financial, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Ya-as."</p> + +<p>"Folks has got rich before. Maybe somethin' like that'll happen to you."</p> + +<p>"Have to happen mighty suddin, Scattergood, if it aims to do any good in +this world."</p> + +<p>"I've knowed men to invest a couple hunderd dollars into some venture +and come out at t'other end with thousands. You got couple hunderd, +hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Ellen and me both has—saved up to bury us."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Git buried, anyhow. Law compels it. Doggone little pleasure +spendin' money f'r your own coffin. More sensible to git some good out +of it.... I'm goin' away to the city f'r a week or sich a matter. When I +come back we'll kind of thrash things out and see what's to be done. +Meantime, don't you and Grandmother Penny up and elope."</p> + +<p>In this manner Scattergood planted the get-rich-quick idea in the head +of Mr. Spackles, who communicated it to Grandmother Penny in the course +of a clandestine meeting. The old folks discussed it, and hope made it +seem more and more plausible to them. Realizing the fewness of the days +remaining to them, they were anxious to utilize every moment. It was +Grandmother Penny who was the daring spirit. She was for drawing their +money out of the bank that very day and investing it somehow, somewhere, +in the hope of seeing it come back to them a hundredfold.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had neglected to take into consideration Grandmother Penny's +adventuresome spirit; he had also neglected to avail himself of the +information that a certain Mr. Baxter, registered from Boston, was at +the hotel, and that his business was selling shares of stock in a mine +which did not exist to gullible folks who wanted to become wealthy +without spending any labor in the process. He did a thriving business. +It was Coldriver's first experience with this particular method of +extracting money from the public, and it came to the front handsomely. +Mr. Spackles got wind of the opportunity and told it to Grandmother +Penny. She took charge of affairs, compelled her fiancé to go with her +to the bank, where they withdrew their savings, and then sought for Mr. +Baxter, who, in return for a bulk sum of some five hundred dollars, sold +them enough stock in the mine to paper the parlor. Also, he promised +them enormous returns in an exceedingly brief space of time. Their +profit on the transaction would, he assured them, be not less than ten +thousand dollars, and might mount to double that sum. They departed in a +state of extreme elation, and but for Mr. Spackles's conservatism +Grandmother Penny would have eloped with him then and there.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to, Ellen. I'd like to, mighty well, but 'tain't safe. Le's +git the money fust. The minnit the money comes in, off we mog to the +parson. But 'tain't safe yit. Jest hold your hosses."</p> + +<p>When Scattergood returned and was visible again on the piazza of his +hardware store, it was not long before the village financiers came to +him boasting of their achievement. He, Scattergood, was not the only man +in town with the ability to make money. No, indeed, and for proof of it +here were the stock certificates, purchased from a deluded young man for +a few cents a share, when common sense told you they were worth many, +many dollars. Scattergood listened to two or three without a word. +Finally he asked:</p> + +<p>"How many folks went into this here thing?"</p> + +<p>"Sev'ral. Sev'ral. Near's I kin figger, folks here bought nigh five +thousand dollars' wuth of stock off'n Baxter. Must 'a' been fifty or +sixty went into the deal."</p> + +<p>"Dum fools," said Scattergood, with sudden wrath. "Has it got so's I +don't dast to leave town without you folks messin' things up? Can't I +leave overnight and find things safe in the mornin'?... You hain't got +the sense Gawd give field mice—the whole kit and b'ilin' of you. Serves +you dum well right, tryin' to git somethin' f'r nothin'. Now git away +fr'm here. Don't pester me.... You've been swindled, that's what, and it +serves you doggone well right. Now git."</p> + +<p>It was one of the few times that Coldriver saw Scattergood in a rage. +The rage convinced them. Scattergood said they were swindled and he was +in a rage. Therefore he must be right. The news spread, and knots of +citizens with lowered heads and anxious eyes gathered on street corners +and whispered and nodded toward Scattergood, who sat heavily on his +piazza, speaking to nobody. It was Grandmother Penny who dared accost +him. She crept up to his place and said, tremulously:</p> + +<p>"Be you sure, Scattergood, about that feller bein' a swindler?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked down at her fiercely. Then his eyes softened and he +leaned forward and scrutinized her face.</p> + +<p>"Did you git into this mess, too, Grandmother Penny?"</p> + +<p>"Both me 'n' James," she said. "You let on that folks got rich quick by +investin'. Me 'n' James was powerful anxious to git money so's—so's we +could git married on it. So we drawed out our money and—and invested +it."</p> + +<p>"Come here, Grandmother," said Scattergood, and she stood just before +his chair, her head coming very little higher than his own as he sat +there, big and ominous. "So the skunk took <i>your</i> money, too. I hain't +carin' a whoop for them others. They got what was comin' to 'em, and I +didn't calculate to do nothin'. But you! By crimminy!... Wa-al, +Grandmother, you go off home and knit. I'll look into things. It's on +your account, and not on theirs." He shook his head fiercely toward the +town. "But I calculate I'll have to git theirn back, too.... And, +Grandmother—you and James kin rest easy. Hain't sayin' no more. Jest +wait, and don't worry, and don't say nothin' to nobody.... G'-by, +Grandmother Penny. G'-by."</p> + +<p>That evening Scattergood drove out of Coldriver in his rickety buggy. +Nobody had dared to speak to him, but, nevertheless, he carried in his +pocket a list of the town's investors in mining stock, together with the +amounts of their investments. He was not seen again for several days.</p> + +<p>Two days later Scattergood appeared in the lobby of the Mansion House, +in the county seat. He scrutinized the register, and found, to his +satisfaction, that a Mr. Bowman of Boston was occupying room 106. Mr. +Bowman had signed the hotel register in Coldriver as Mr. Baxter, also of +Boston. Scattergood seated himself in a chair and lighted one of the +cigars which made his presence so undesirable in an inclosed space. He +appeared to be taking a nap.</p> + +<p>Fifteen minutes after Scattergood began to nod, Sam Bangs, a politician +with some strength in the rural districts, came down the stairs in +company with a young man of prepossessing appearance, and clothing which +did not strike the beholder as either too gaudy or too stylish. Indeed +the young man impressed the world as being a sober, conservative person +in whose judgment it would be well to place confidence.</p> + +<p>When Bangs saw Scattergood he stopped and whispered a moment to his +companion, who nodded. They approached Scattergood, and Bangs touched +him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," he said, "I want you should meet my friend Mr. Bowman. +Mr. Bowman's a broker. Been buyin' some stocks off'n him—or calculate +to. I knowed you done consid'able investing so I took the liberty."</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked drowsily at the young man. "Set," he said. "Set and +have a cigar."</p> + +<p>The young Mr. Bowman accepted the cigar, but, after a glance at it, +thrust it into his mouth unlighted. The conversation began with national +politics, swung to crops, and veered finally to the subject of +investments. Mr. Bowman, backed in his statements by Mr. Bangs, spoke to +Scattergood of a certain mine whose stock could be had for a song, but +whose riches in mineral, about to be reached by a certain shaft or drift +or tunnel, were fabulous. Scattergood was interested. An appointment was +made for further discussion.</p> + +<p>The appointment was kept that evening, in the same lobby, and Mr. +Bowman, while finding more than ordinary difficulty in convincing this +fat country merchant, did eventually succeed in bringing him to a point +of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Looks good," said Scattergood. "Calc'late a feller could make a +killin'. I'm a-goin' into it hair, hide, and hoofs. Figger me f'r not +less 'n five thousand dollars' wuth of it. Ought to make me fifty +thousand if it makes a cent."</p> + +<p>"You're conservative, Mr. Baines, conservative."</p> + +<p>"Always calculated to be, Mr. Bowman." He looked up as a middle-aged man +with a drooping mustache approached. "Howdy, John? Still workin' f'r the +express company, be you?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to, Mr. Baines. Got charge of the local office. 'Tain't all +pleasure, neither. In a sight of trouble this minnit."</p> + +<p>"I want to know," said Scattergood. "Stand to lose my job," said John, +sadly. "Dunno where I'll find me another."</p> + +<p>"What you been doin', eh? What got you in bad?"</p> + +<p>"One of them dummed gold shipments from the state bank. Hadn't ought to +speak about it, 'cause the comp'ny's bein' awful secret. Hain't lettin' +it out." He glanced apprehensively at Mr. Bowman.</p> + +<p>"Needn't to be afraid of Mr. Bowman, John. What's the story?"</p> + +<p>"Bank shippin' bullion. Three chunks of it. Wuth fifty-odd thousand +dollars. I know, 'cause that's the comp'ny's liability wrote in black +and white.... Been stole," he said, after a brief pause.</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Out of my office, this mornin'. Not a trace. Jest up and disappeared. +Detectives and all can't run on to no clue. Might as well 'a' melted and +run through a crack. Jest gone, and that's all anybody kin find."</p> + +<p>"Mighty sorry to hear it, John. Hope you wasn't keerless, and don't +figger you was. Guess you won't be blamed when the facts comes out."</p> + +<p>"If they ever do," said John. "G' night, Mr. Baines. I'm mighty oneasy +in my mind."</p> + +<p>Scattergood turned the subject back at once to mining stocks.</p> + +<p>"You set me down for five thousand dollars. Don't let nobody else have +it. Got jest that sum comin' due tomorrer. You and me'll drive over to +git it, and you fetch them stock certificates along. Got 'em in that +little satchel you're always carryin'?"</p> + +<p>"No," smiled Mr. Bowman. "That's my purse. I take no chances on robbers, +like your express agent spoke of. I don't mind telling you that I have +fifteen thousand dollars in that bag—and I intend to keep it there."</p> + +<p>"Do tell!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Wa-al, you know your business. Now, +then, if you want to drive over six mile with me to-morrer, well git us +that money and I'll take the stock."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Mr. Bowman. "An early start. Can I take a train from there? +I'll be through here, I think."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Mighty funny thing about that gold, now +wa'n't it? Three bars. Wuth fifty thousand! Mighty slick work—to spirit +it off and nobody never find a trace."</p> + +<p>"The criminal classes," said Mr. Bowman, "have produced some remarkable +intellects. Good night, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"See you early in the mornin'," replied Scattergood.</p> + +<p>After a breakfast which Mr. Bowman watched Scattergood dispose of with +admiration and astonishment, the pair entered the old buggy and started +across the hills. In addition to his small bag Mr. Bowman brought a +large suitcase containing his apparel, so it was apparent he was leaving +the county seat for good. The morning came off hot and humid. +Scattergood kept his eyes open for a spring, but it was not until they +had driven some miles that an opportunity to find water appeared.</p> + +<p>"Calculate we kin git a drink there," said Scattergood, pointing to a +little shanty in a clearing by the roadside. He stopped his horse, and +they alighted and knocked. There was no reply. Scattergood pushed open +the door and then stepped back suddenly, for within were three +individuals of disreputable appearance, and one of them regarded +Scattergood over the leveled barrels of a shotgun.</p> + +<p>"Come right in and set," invited this individual, and Scattergood, +followed by Mr. Bowman, entered. On a table of pine wood, unconcealed, +lay three enormous bars of gold.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood, faintly, and leaned against the wall. "You +would come rammin' in," said the gentleman with the shotgun. "Now I +calc'late you got to stay."</p> + +<p>Scattergood grinned amiably. "Vallyble loaves of bread you got there," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Gold," said the man, succinctly.</p> + +<p>"Hain't no mines around here, be there?"</p> + +<p>"We hain't sayin'. But that there gold come from a mine, all +right—sometime."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late you been robbin' a train or somethin'," said Scattergood, +mildly. "Now don't git het up. 'Tain't none of my business. Doin' +robbin' for a reg'lar livin'?" he asked, innocently.</p> + +<p>"Hain't never done none before—" began one of the men, but his +companion directed him to "shut up and stay shut."</p> + +<p>"No harm talkin' 's I kin see. We got these fellers here and here they +stay till we git clean off. Kind of like to tell somebody the joke."</p> + +<p>"I'm doggone int'rested," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The rough individual with the gun laughed loudly. "May's well tell you," +he said, raucously. "Me and the boys was in town yestiddy, calc'latin' +to ship some ferns by express. Went into the office. Agent wa'n't there. +Safe was. Open. Ya-as, wide open. We seen three gold chunks inside, and +nobody around watchin'. Looked full better 'n ferns, so we jest took a +notion to carry 'em out to the wagin and drive off.... Now we got it, +I'm dummed if I know what to do with it. Hear tell it's wuth fifty +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowman spoke. "You'll find it mighty hard to dispose of."</p> + +<p>"Don't need to worry you."</p> + +<p>"Suppose you could sell it for a fair price, cash, and get away with the +money?"</p> + +<p>"That's our aim."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Bowman, "there's money in this if you aren't too +particular."</p> + +<p>"Hain't p'tic'lar a-tall. How you mean?"</p> + +<p>"What would you say to buying this gold—at a reasonable price? I can +dispose of it—through channels I am acquainted with. You can put in the +money we were going for, and I'll put in some more. Ought to show a +handsome profit."</p> + +<p>"Might nigh double my money, maybe, eh? Figger that? Gimme twict as much +to buy stock with."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed."</p> + +<p>"Let's dicker."</p> + +<p>"What will you men take to walk away and leave that gold?"</p> + +<p>"Forty thousand."</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks. I'll give you ten—and you're clear of the whole mess."</p> + +<p>There was a wrangle. For half an hour the dicker went on, and finally a +price of fifteen thousand dollars was agreed upon. Mr. Bowman was to pay +over the money, and Scattergood was to contribute his five thousand +dollars as soon as they got it. For one third of the profits.</p> + +<p>The money was paid over; the three robbers disappeared with alacrity, +leaving Scattergood and Bowman with the stolen gold.</p> + +<p>"We can take it along in the buggy, covered with ferns," said Bowman. +"Nobody'll suspect <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Be safe as a church," said Scattergood, boldly. "Lug her out."</p> + +<p>So they carried the gold to the buggy, covered it snugly with ferns, and +drove toward the next town, Scattergood talking excitedly of profits and +of how much mining stock he could purchase with the money received, and +of ample wealth from the transaction. Mr. Bowman smiled with the faint, +quiet smile of one whose soul is at peace. Just before they got to town +Scattergood suggested that they stop to make sure the gold was +completely concealed.</p> + +<p>They drove into the woods a few rods and uncovered the treasure. +Scattergood gloated over it.</p> + +<p>"I've heard tell you kin cut real gold like cheese," he said, and opened +his jackknife. With it he hacked off a shaving and held it up to the +light.</p> + +<p>"Is all gold this here way?" he asked. "Don't look to me to be the same +color all the way through. Looks like silver or suthin' inside."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowman snatched the shaving, scrutinized it, and uttered language in +a loud voice. He snatched Scattergood's knife and tested all three +ingots.</p> + +<p>"Lead!" he said, savagely. "Nothing but lead! We've been swindled!"</p> + +<p>"You mean it hain't gold a-tall?"</p> + +<p>"It's lead, I tell you."</p> + +<p>"I vum!... Them fellers stole lead! And they got off with all your +money. Gosh! I'm glad I didn't have none along." His eyes were mirthless +and his face vacuous. "Beats all. Never heard tell of nothin' sim'lar."</p> + +<p>They got into the buggy and drove silently into town. Mr. Bowman tried +to recover his spirits, but they were at low ebb. He did manage to hint +that Scattergood should stand his share of the loss, but in his heart he +knew that to be vain. Still, he could get that five thousand dollars for +the mining stock. It would be five thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," he said, "you're fortunate. You still can buy the stock and +make your pile."</p> + +<p>"This here deal," said Scattergood, "has kind of made me figger. 'Tain't +safe to buy gold chunks till you <i>know</i> they're gold. Likewise 'tain't +safe to buy mine stock till you know there's a mine. Calc'late I'll do a +mite of investigatin' 'fore I pungle over that five thousand.... Where +kin I leave you, Mr. Bowman? I'm calc'latin' to drive home from here. +Maybe I'll see you later. But I got to investigate."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowman made himself unpleasant for a brief time, but Scattergood was +vacuously stubborn. Presently he drove away, leaving Mr. Bowman on the +veranda of the hotel, scowling and uttering words of strength and +meaning. Mr. Bowman was very unhappy.</p> + +<p>Scattergood drove as rapidly as his horse could travel, arriving at +Coldriver just after the supper hour. He went directly to his store, +which had been left in charge of Mr. Spackles. Three men were waiting +there for him. They handed him a leather bag and he satisfied himself +that it contained fifteen thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged, boys," he said. "Do as much f'r you, some day. G'-by."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Spackles," he said, "kin you fetch Grandmother Penny over +here—right now?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate I kin," said Mr. Spackles, and he proved himself able to keep +his word.</p> + +<p>"Grandmother Penny," said Scattergood, when she arrived, "you and Mr. +Spackles up and made a investment. I been a-lookin' after that +investment f'r you—and f'r these other dum fools in town. Best I could +do f'r them others was to git their money back—every cent of it. But I +took keer to do a mite more f'r you and Mr. Spackles. I got your five +hunderd f'r you—and then I seen a way to git ten thousand more. Here +she be. Count it.... I don't guess there's any way this here money could +be put to better use."</p> + +<p>"F'r us? Ten thousand—"</p> + +<p>"I'll handle it f'r you. Give you int'rest of six hunderd a year. You +kin marry like you planned, and if your childern objects you kin tell +'em to go to blazes.... You'll want a place to live. Wa-al, I got twenty +acre back of town and a leetle house and furniture. Took it on a deal. +You kin move in and work it on shares. Ought to be able to live blamed +well."</p> + +<p>Grandmother Penny was crying.</p> + +<p>"You done all this f'r us, f'r James and me! There hain't no reason f'r +it. 'Tain't believable.... There hain't no way to say thankee."</p> + +<p>"I hain't wantin' you to say thankee, Grandmother Penny. Jest mog along +and marry this old coot, and git what joy you kin out of livin'."</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles was inquisitive in addition to being grateful.</p> + +<p>"What I want to know," he demanded, "is how you managed it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Scattergood, "jest made use of the sayin' about curin' with +the hair of the dog that bit you. Figgered a swindler wouldn't never +suspect nobody of swindlin' him with one of his own tricks. This here +Mr. Baxter, or Mr. Bowman, or whatever his name is, used to make a +livin' sellin' gold bricks. When I found that there fact out I jest +calc'lated he was ripe to do a mite of gold-brick buyin' himself.... +Which he done."</p> + +<p>"Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny, "I'm a-goin' to kiss you."</p> + +<p>Scattergood presented his cheek, and Grandmother Penny threw her arms +around his neck and pressed her lips to his weather-beaten face. He +smiled, but as if he were smiling at somebody not present. When they had +gone their way to find marriage license and parson he went out on to his +piazza and looked up at the moonlit sky.</p> + +<p>"Grandma Baines," he said, after a moment, "if you kin see down from +where you be, I hope you hain't missin' that I done this f'r you. I was +pertendin' all the time that you was Grandmother Penny...."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines sat on the piazza of his hardware store and twiddled +his bare toes reflectively. He was not thinking of to-day nor of +to-morrow, but of days a score of years distant and of plans not to come +to maturity for twenty years. That was Scattergood's way. From his +history, as it is to be gathered from the ancient gossips of Coldriver, +one is forced to the conclusion that few of his acts were performed with +reference to the immediate time. If he set on foot some scheme, one +learns to study it and to endeavor to see to what outcome it may lead +ten years after its inception. He looked always to the future, and more +than once one may see where he has forgone immediate profit in order to +derive that profit a hundredfold a generation later.</p> + +<p>So, as Scattergood twiddled his reflective toes, he looked far ahead +into the future of Coldriver Valley; he saw that valley as his own, +developed as few mountain valleys are ever developed. Its stage line, +already his property, was replaced by a railroad. The waters of its +river and tributaries were dammed to give a cheap and constant power +which should be connected in some way to this electricity of which he +heard so much and about which he always desired to hear more. He saw +factories springing up. In short, he saw his valley as the center of the +state's commercial life, and himself as the center of the valley.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was well aware that there always will exist those who will +clog the road of progress and attempt to stem any tide arising for the +public good—unless they can see for themselves an individual benefit. +He knew that it is not uncommon for those whose business is the common +good—such individuals as legislators and governors and judges—to +assume some such attitude, and he knew that it was regarded as expensive +to win their favor. He did not grow especially angry at this condition, +but accepted it as a condition and studied to see what he could do about +it—for he knew he must do something about it.</p> + +<p>He must take it into consideration, because one does not build railroads +without legislative sanction, nor does one dam streams nor carry out +wide commercial programs. The consent of the <i>people</i> must be had, and +the people had handed over their consent in trust to their elected +representatives. Scattergood saw at once that it was preferable to be +one from whom governors and legislators and judges asked favors and +looked to for guidance, than to be one to come a suppliant before those +personages, and as soon as he saw that clearly he reached his +determination.</p> + +<p>"Calculate," said he, to the shoes which he held in his hand, "that I +got to git up and stir around in politics some."</p> + +<p>From that moment Scattergood scrutinized the bowl of politics to +discover when and where he could dip in his spoon.</p> + +<p>The opportunity to dip, it soon became apparent, would be at the time of +the fall town meetings, for there was a fight on in the state and its +preliminary rumblings were already making themselves audible. Hitherto +the state had been held securely by certain political gentlemen, who in +turn had been held securely by a certain other and greater political +gentleman—Lafe Siggins. Other non-political gentlemen who represented +<i>money</i> and <i>business</i> had seen, as Scattergood did, the necessity for +becoming political, and had chosen their moment to endeavor to take the +state away from Messrs. Siggins & Co. and to hold it thereafter for +their own benefit and behoof. They were, therefore, laying their plans +to win the legislature by winning the town meetings of the fall, and to +win they had decided to make their fight upon the total prohibition of +liquor in the state. It was not that they cared ethically whether drinks +of a spirituous nature were dispensed or not, but it was the best +available issue. If it did not work out to their satisfaction they could +reverse themselves when they came into power.</p> + +<p>So they made an issue of prohibition, and planned astutely to go to the +town meetings on that platform, for a majority of the towns voted local +option with regularity. The new powers would first sweep the town +meetings for local option, and in the wave of enthusiasm put into office +at the same time legislators chosen by themselves.</p> + +<p>Scattergood saw the trend of affairs early and gave them his earnest +consideration. That his ancient ill wishers, Messrs. Crane & Keith, were +identified with the new and rising power may not have been the least of +the considerations which determined him to dip in his spoon on the side +of Siggins and the old order. But there was one obstacle. Scattergood +desired local option, for he was now the employer of many men, both in +the woods and in other enterprises, and he knew well that labor and hard +liquor are disturbing bedfellows.... He considered and reached the +conclusion that for this one time, perhaps, he could both have his cake +and eat it.</p> + +<p>He could have his cake and still eat it only by the results of an +election which should not be a victory for the new powers nor for the +old, but for another minor power differing from each. In other words, +Scattergood saw the wisdom of defeating both the contenders locally, and +then of throwing in with Siggins as to the fight for state control.... +But of this determination he notified not a soul. Judging from his +actions, it may be safely said that he was at some pains to conceal the +fact that he was interested in politics in any manner or degree +whatever.</p> + +<p>But Scattergood was a chatty body, and Coldriver would have been +surprised if he did not talk politics, as did all its other male +inhabitants. It came about that more politics than hardware was +discussed on Scattergood's piazza, but to the casual listener it seemed +only purposeless discussion. But Scattergood was a master of purposeless +discussion. His methods were his own and worthy of notice.</p> + +<p>Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle sauntered past and paused to mention the +weather.</p> + +<p>"Goin' to be lots of politics this year," said Scattergood. "Jest got in +a line of gardenin' tools, Bogle."</p> + +<p>"Town's goin' to be het up for certain," said Mr. Bogle, waggling his +ancient head. "Calc'late to have all the tools I need."</p> + +<p>"Who's figgerin' on runnin' for legislature, Marvin?"</p> + +<p>"Guess Will Pratt's puttin' up Pazzy Cox ag'in." Pratt was postmaster +and local party leader.</p> + +<p>"Anybody calc'latin' to run ag'in' him, Marvin? Any opposition +appearin'?"</p> + +<p>"Goin' to be a fight, Scattergood. Big doin's in the state. Tryin' to +upset Lafe Siggins. Uh-huh! Wuth watchin', says I."</p> + +<p>"I hear tell the lawless elements is puttin' up Jim Allen on a whisky +platform," said Old Man Bogle, acidly.</p> + +<p>"Them all the candidates, Bogle? Hain't no others?"</p> + +<p>"Nary."</p> + +<p>"Coldriver's got to take whatever candidates them outsiders chooses, eh? +Coldriver hain't got no say who'll represent her in the legislature?"</p> + +<p>"Don't 'pear so. All done by party machinery, Scattergood. We got +nothin' to do but pick between parties."</p> + +<p>"Looks so.... Looks that way," said Scattergood. "Too bad there hain't +one more party that hain't controlled so folks could git a chance.... +What's this here Prohibition party I been hearin' some of in other +parts?"</p> + +<p>"'S fur's I know it's all right, only it hain't got no votes, and votes +is necessary in politics."</p> + +<p>"Licker enters into this here campaign, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Backbone of it."</p> + +<p>"Seems like these Prohibition fellers ought to take a hand. Any of 'em +in Coldriver?"</p> + +<p>"Don't seem like I ever heard speak of one."</p> + +<p>"Could be, couldn't there? 'Tain't impossible?"</p> + +<p>"S'pose one could be got up—if anybody was int'rested."</p> + +<p>"Need a strong candidate, wouldn't they? Have to have a man to head it +up that would command respect?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't git fur with it. Parties too well organized."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Lemme show you a new hand seeder I jest got in. Labor savin'. +Calc'late it's a bargain."</p> + +<p>"Don't hold with them newfangled notions, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"S'prised at you, Marvin. Folks expects progress of you. Look up to you, +kind of. Take their idees from you."</p> + +<p>"I dunno," said Marvin, visibly pleased, but deprecatory.</p> + +<p>"Careful, cautious—but most gen'ally right, that's what I hear folks +say. Quite a bit of talk goin' around about you. Politics. Uh-huh! Heard +several say it was a pity Marvin Towne couldn't be got to go to the +legislature. Heard that, hain't you, Bogle?"</p> + +<p>"Don't call it to mind, but maybe I have. Maybe I have. Anyhow, I +calc'late it's true."</p> + +<p>"There you be, Marvin. Now it behooves a man that's looked up to for to +keep in the lead. Ought to look into that seeder, Marvin. Folks'll say: +'Marvin Towne's got him one of them seeders. Darn progressive farmer. +Gits him all the modern improvements.'"</p> + +<p>"Suthin' in what you say, Scattergood. Calculate I might examine into +that tool one of these days."</p> + +<p>"Hain't much choice between Pazzy Cox and Jim Allen, eh? Hain't neither +of 'em desirable lawmakers, eh? That what you was sayin'?"</p> + +<p>"Them's my idees," said Marvin.</p> + +<p>"Too bad we're forced to take one or t'other. Now if they was some way +for you to step in and run."</p> + +<p>"Hain't."</p> + +<p>"Sh'u'd think you'd look over them Prohibitionists. Draw all the best +citizens after you. Set a example to the state.... Step back and look at +that there seeder, Marvin."</p> + +<p>Marvin looked at the seeder judicially. "Calc'late to guarantee it, +Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"Put it in writin'," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I'll have to have it. Considerin' everything, guess I'll take +it along."</p> + +<p>"Knowed you would, Marvin. Sich men as you is to be depended on. Folks +realizes it."</p> + +<p>"If I thought they was a call for me to go to the legislature—"</p> + +<p>"Call?" said Scattergood. "Marvin, I'm tellin' you it's dum near a +shout."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Where could I git to find out about this here Prohibitionist +party?"</p> + +<p>Presently Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle went along. Scattergood gazed +after them speculatively, and as he gazed his hands went automatically +to his shoes, which he removed to give play to his reflective toes. +"Um!..." he grunted. "If nothin' more comes of it I made a profit of +three dollar forty on that seeder."</p> + +<p>Pliny Pickett, stage driver, was a frequent caller at Scattergood's +store, first as an employee, but more importantly as a dependable +representative who could carry out an order without asking questions, +especially when no definite order had been given.</p> + +<p>"Pliny," said Scattergood, "know Marvin Towne, don't you? Brought up +with him, wasn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Know him like the palm of my hand."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Strange he hain't never been talked up for the legislature, +Pliny. Strange there hain't talk about him on the stagecoach. Ever hear +any?"</p> + +<p>"Some, lately."</p> + +<p>"Could hear more, couldn't you? If you listened.... Set around the post +office, evenin's, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Some."</p> + +<p>"Discussin' topics? Ever discuss this Prohibition party?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>could</i>," said Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Seems like a shame folks here can't run the man they want for office. +Strike you that way?"</p> + +<p>"Certain sure. Calc'late they want Marvin bad?"</p> + +<p>"They <i>could</i>," said Scattergood. "G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>Ten days later a third party made its appearance in the politics of +Coldriver, and Marvin Towne was announced as its candidate for the +legislature. It seemed a spontaneous excrescence, but, nevertheless, it +caused a visit from that great man and citizen, Lafe Siggins, as well as +a call from Mr. Crane, of Crane & Keith. Both astute gentlemen viewed +the situation, and their alarm subsided. Indeed, both perceived where it +could be turned to advantage. A canvass of the situation showed them +that the new Prohibitionists, though they talked loud and long, were +made up mainly of the discontented and of a few men always ready to +join any novel movement, and promised at best to poll not to exceed +forty votes of Coldriver's registered three hundred and eighty. It +really simplified the situation to Lafe and to Crane, for it removed +from circulation forty doubtful votes and left the real battle to be +fought between the regulars. Wherefore Messrs. Siggins and Crane +departed from the village in satisfied mood.</p> + +<p>Scattergood sat on his piazza as usual, the morning after the portentous +visit, and called a greeting to Wade Lumley, dry-goods merchant, as that +prominent citizen passed to his place of business.</p> + +<p>"How's the geldin' this mornin', Wade?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Feelin' his oats. Got to take him out on the road this evenin'. Time to +begin shapin' him up for the county fair."</p> + +<p>"Three-year-old, hain't he?"</p> + +<p>"Best in the state."</p> + +<p>"Always figgered that till I heard Ren Green talkin'. Ren calculates +he's got a three-year-old that'll make any other hoss in these parts +look like it was built of pine."</p> + +<p>Wade was eager in a moment. "Willin' to back them statements with money, +is he?"</p> + +<p>"Said somethin' about havin' a hunderd dollars that wasn't workin' +otherwise, seems as though," said Scattergood. "Jest half a mile from +Pettybone's house to the dam," he continued, with apparent irrelevance. +"Level road."</p> + +<p>"And my geldin' kin travel that same road spryer 'n Green's hoss—for a +hunderd dollars," said Wade, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Dunno," said Scattergood. "Hoss races is uncertain. G'-by, Wade. See +you later."</p> + +<p>A similar conversation with Ren Green during the day resulted in a +meeting between the horsemen, an argument, loud words, and a heated +offer to wager money, which was accepted with like heat.</p> + +<p>"From Pettybone's to the dam—half a mile," shouted Wade.</p> + +<p>"Suits me to a T," bellowed Ren; "and now you kin step across with me +and deposit that there hunderd dollars ag'in' mine with Briggs of the +hotel."</p> + +<p>So, terms and conditions having been arranged, the bets were made, and +the money locked in the hotel safe. News of the matter swept through +Coldriver, and for the evening politics were forgotten and excitement +ran high. Next day it arose to a higher pitch, for Town-marshal Pease +had forbidden the race to be run through the public streets of +Coldriver, viewing it as a menace to life, limb, and the public peace. +Scattergood had conversed sagely with Pease on the duties of a town +marshal.</p> + +<p>Marvin Towne had formed the habit of stopping to chat with Scattergood +daily, totally unconscious that to all intents and purposes he had been +ordered by Scattergood to make daily reports to him. He seemed depressed +as he leaned against a post of the piazza.</p> + +<p>"Lookin' peaked, Marvin. Hain't all goin' well? Gittin' uneasy?"</p> + +<p>"It's this dum hoss race," said Marvin. "Everybody's het up over it so's +nobody'll talk politics. How's a feller goin' to win votes if he can't +git nobody to talk to him, that's what I want to know? Seems like there +hain't nothin' in the world but Wade Lumley's geldin' and that hoss of +Green's."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Sort of distressing hain't it? Know Kent Pilkinton perty well, +Marvin?"</p> + +<p>"Brother-in-law."</p> + +<p>"Holds public office, don't he?"</p> + +<p>"Chairman of the Board of Selectmen's what he is."</p> + +<p>"Good man fur't," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "Calculate to be +on good terms with him, Marvin? Perty good terms?"</p> + +<p>"Good enough so's he kin ask me to loan him two thousand dollars he's +needin' a'mighty bad."</p> + +<p>"Give it to him, Marvin?"</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Marvin, eloquently.</p> + +<p>"If I was to indorse his note, think you could see your way clear?"</p> + +<p>"Certain sure."</p> + +<p>"See him ag'in, won't you? Perty soon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What d'you calc'late to tell him?"</p> + +<p>"What you said?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't say nothin', did I? Jest asked a question. It was you <i>said</i> +something Marvin, wa'n't it? Said you'd lend on my indorsement."</p> + +<p>"That what you want me to tell him?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't say so, did I? Jest asked a question. G'-by, Marvin. Lemme know +what he says."</p> + +<p>It was unnecessary for Marvin to report, for early next morning Kent +Pilkinton, owner of a hill farm on the out-skirts of a village—a farm +on which he succeeded in raising the most ample crop of whiskers in +Coldriver, and little else, came diffidently up to Scattergood as he sat +in front of his hardware store.</p> + +<p>"Morning Kent," said Scattergood. "Come to look at mowin' machines, I +calc'late."</p> + +<p>"Might <i>look</i> at one," said Kent.</p> + +<p>"Need one, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Bad."</p> + +<p>"Need quite a mess of implements, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Could do with 'em if I had 'em.... 'Tain't what I come fur, though, +Scattergood. Been tryin' to borrow money off of my brother-in-law, but +he don't calclate to lend without I git an indorser, and seems like he +sets store by your name on a note."</p> + +<p>"Does, eh? Any reason I should indorse for you? Know any reason?"</p> + +<p>"Nary," said Kent, and started to move off.</p> + +<p>"Hold your bosses. What you need the money for?"</p> + +<p>"Pay off a thousand-dollar mortgage and another thousand to git the farm +in shape to run."</p> + +<p>"Calculate you kin run it, then?"</p> + +<p>"If I git the tools."</p> + +<p>"I figger maybe you kin. Like to see you git ahead. Where d'you +calculate to buy them implements?"</p> + +<p>"Off of you."</p> + +<p>"I got 'em to sell. When you got to have the money?"</p> + +<p>"Two weeks to-morrow."</p> + +<p>This was the day after the town meeting.</p> + +<p>"Come in and pick out your implements," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Meanin' you'll indorse?"</p> + +<p>"Meanin' that—pervidin' nothin' unforeseen comes up between now and +then."</p> + +<p>Half a day was spent selecting tools and implements for the farm, and +though Pilkinton did not know it, it was Scattergood's selection that +was purchased. Scattergood knew what was necessary and what would be +economical, and that was what Pilkinton got, and nothing more. It netted +Scattergood a pleasant profit, and Kent got the full equivalent of his +money.</p> + +<p>"Preside at town meetin', don't you?"</p> + +<p>"My duty," said Kent.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to <i>do</i> your duty?"</p> + +<p>"Always done so."</p> + +<p>"Comin' to see you do it," said Scattergood. He paused. "Next mornin' +we'll fix up the note. G'-by, Kent." During the fourteen days that +followed Coldriver was happy; between politics and the forbidden horse +race, it had such food for conversation that even cribbage under the +barber shop languished, and one had to walk into the road to pass the +crowd at the post office of evenings. As to the horse race, it resembled +a boil. Daily it grew more painful. Like a boil, such a horse race as +this must burst some day, and it was reaching the acute stage. But +Town-marshal Pease was vigilant and spoke sternly of the majesty of the +law.</p> + +<p>As to the election, it grew even more dubious. Scattergood privately +took stock of the situation. Marvin Towne and the Prohibitionists might +count now on a vote or two more than fifty. Postmaster Pratt appeared +certain of better than a hundred, and so did the opposing party. One or +the other of them was certain to win as matters lay, and Marvin's case +seemed hopeless. Marvin conceived it so and was for withdrawing, but +Scattergood saw to it that he did not withdraw.</p> + +<p>"Keep your votes together," he said. "Stiffen 'em." It was his first +direct order. "Fetch 'em to the meetin' and be sure of every one."</p> + +<p>On town-meeting day Coldriver filled with rigs from the surrounding +township. Every rail and post was utilized for hitching, and +Town-marshal Pease, his star displayed, patrolled the town to avert +disorder. He patrolled until the meeting went into session, and then he +took his chair just under the platform, and, as was his duty, guarded +the sacredness of the ballot.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was present, sitting in a corner under the overhang of the +balcony, watching, but discouraging conversation. If one had studied his +face during the early proceedings he would have read nothing except a +genial interest, which was the thing Coldriver expected to see on +Scattergood's face. Town questions were decided, matters of sidewalks, +of road building, of schools, and every instance Marvin Towne's +fifty-two voted as a unit, swinging from one side to the other as their +peculiar interest dictated. On all minor questions it was Marvin Towne's +Prohibitionists who decided, because they carried the volume of votes +necessary to control. But when it came to major affairs, such as the +election of officers, there would be a different story. Then they could +join with neither party, but must stand alone as a unit, far outvoted.</p> + +<p>So the regulars disregarded them, or if they gave them any attention it +was jocular. Even Marvin viewed the day as lost, but Scattergood held +him to the mark with a word passed now and then. It came three o'clock +of the afternoon before nominations for the high office of legislator +were the order of proceeding. Jim Allen and Pazzy Cox were placed before +the meeting as candidates amid the stimulated applause of their +adherents. Marvin Towne's name was received with laughter and such jeers +as the New England breed of farmer and townsman has rendered his own, +and at which he is a genius surpassed by none.</p> + +<p>Chairman Pilkinton arose, as befitted the moment.</p> + +<p>"Feller townsmen, we will now proceed to cast our ballots for the office +of representative in the legislature. The polls is open, and overlooked +by Town-marshal Pease. The ballotin' will begin."</p> + +<p>And then....</p> + +<p>At that instant there was an uproar on the stairs. Pliny Pickett burst +into the room, his hat missing, his eyes gleaming with excitement.</p> + +<p>"It's a-comin' off. They've stole a march. Hoss race!... Hoss race!... +Ren Green and Wade Lumley's got their hosses up to Deacon Pettybone's +and they're goin' to race to the dam. Everybody out. Hoss race!... Hoss +race!..." He turned and ran frantically down the stairs, and on his +heels followed the voters of Coldriver. But one or two remained; men too +rheumatic to chance rapid movement, or those whose positions compelled +them to consider as non-existent such a matter as a race between +quadrupeds.</p> + +<p>But no sooner had the hall cleared than men began to return, in couples, +in squads, and to take their seats. Scattergood was standing up now, +counting. Fifty-two he counted, and remained standing.</p> + +<p>"Polls is open, Mr. Chairman," says he.</p> + +<p>"They was declared so, but—er—the voters has gone. I hain't clear how +to perceed."</p> + +<p>"Do your duty, chairman, like you said. Town meetings don't calculate to +take account of hoss races, do they? Eh?... None of your affair, is it?"</p> + +<p>Pilkinton looked at Scattergood, who smiled genially and said: "Duty's +duty, Pilkinton. If you was to fail in your duty as a public officer, +folks might git to think you wasn't the sort of citizen that could be +trusted. Might even affect sich things as credit and promissory notes."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilkinton no longer hesitated.</p> + +<p>"The polls is open," he said.</p> + +<p>The fifty-two, ballots ready in their hands, started for the box, but +Town-marshal Pease, awakened from his astonishment, lifted his voice.</p> + +<p>"I got to stop that hoss race. Stop the votin' till I git back. That +hoss race has got to be stopped."</p> + +<p>"Seems to me like votes was more important than hoss races," said +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"The town marshal will stay right where he is, and guard the ballot +box," said the chairman.</p> + +<p>The voters moved to the front, and as they deposited their ballots, +sounds from without, indicating excitement and delight, were carried +through the windows to their ears. The fifty-two voted and returned to +their seats.</p> + +<p>"If everybody present and desirin' to vote has done so," said +Scattergood, "I move you them polls be closed."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilkinton put the motion, and it was carried with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Tellers," suggested Scattergood.</p> + +<p>As was the custom, the votes were counted immediately. The result stood, +Marvin Towne: fifty-three votes; Jim Allen, two votes; Pazzy Cox, four +votes.</p> + +<p>"I declare Marvin Towne elected our representative to the legislature," +said Chairman Pilkinton, weakly, and sat down, mopping his brow.</p> + +<p>"That bein' the final business of this meetin'," said Scattergood, "I +move we adjourn."</p> + +<p>The story swept the state. Twenty-four hours later Lafe Siggins visited +Coldriver and was driven to Scattergood Baines's hardware store. +Scattergood sat on the piazza, and as soon as the visitor was identified +the male inhabitants of the village began to gather.</p> + +<p>"Kin we talk in private?" said Mr. Siggins.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no need for privacy. Folks is welcome to listen to all I got +to say."</p> + +<p>Mr. Siggins frowned, but, being a politician and partially estimating +the quality of his man, he did not protest.</p> + +<p>"You beat us clever," said he.</p> + +<p>"Calculated to," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"In politics for good?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to be."</p> + +<p>"What you aim to do?"</p> + +<p>"Kind of look after the politics in Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"Be you fur me or ag'in' me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm fur you till my mind changes."</p> + +<p>"How about this here Prohibition party?"</p> + +<p>"Don't figger it's necessary after this."</p> + +<p>"Guess we kin agree," said Siggins. "You can figger the party +machinery's behind you. So fur's <i>we're</i> concerned, <i>you're</i> Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated to be," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Some day," said Siggins, in not willing admiration, "you're goin' to +run the state."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to," said Scattergood, and thereby rather took Mr. Siggins's +breath. "Figger on makin' politics kind of a side issue to the hardware +business. Find it mighty stimilatin'. Politics took in moderation, +follerin' a meal of business, makes an all-fired tasty dessert.... +G'-by, Siggins, g'-by."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a><h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"Calc'late both them young folks was guilty of an error of jedgment when +they up and married each other," said Will Pratt, postmaster of +Coldriver, in the judicial tone which he had affected since his +elevation to office.</p> + +<p>"Mean Marthy Norton and Jed Lewis, Will? Referrin' to them especial?" +Scattergood peered after the young couple who had the moment before +passed his hardware store, not walking jovially in the enjoyment of each +other's presence as young married folks should walk, but sullenly and in +silence.</p> + +<p>"They be the <i>i</i>-dentical ones," Will declared. "Naggin' and quarrelin' +and bickerin' from sunup to milkin' time. Used to do it private like, +but it's been gittin' so lately you can't pass the house without hearin' +'em referrin' to each other mighty sharp and searchin'."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Difficulty appears to be what, Will? Got any idee where lies the +seat of the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"They jest hain't habitually suited to one another," said Will. +"Whatever one of 'em is fur the tother's ag'in'. Looks like they go to +bed spiteful and wake up acr'monious. 'Tain't like as if Jed was the +breed of feller that beats his wife, or that Marthy was the kind that +looks out of the corner of her eye at drummers stoppin' to the hotel."</p> + +<p>"Jest kind of irritate one another, eh?" said Scattergood, thoughtfully. +"Kind of git on each other's nerves, you might say. Um!... I call to +mind when they was married, five year ago. 'Twan't indicated them days. +Jed he couldn't set easy if Marthy wasn't nigh, and Marthy went around +lookin' as if she'd swallered a pin and it hurt if Jed was more 'n forty +rod off. If ever two young folks was all het up over each other, Jed and +Marthy was them young folks.... And 'twan't but five year ago...."</p> + +<p>"End by separating" said the postmaster.</p> + +<p>"There's the stage a-rattlin' in," Scattergood said, suddenly. "Better +git ready f'r distributin' the mail, Will. G'-by, Will; and, Will, if +'twas me I dunno but what I'd kind of keep my mouth shet about Marthy +and Jed. Outside gabblin' hain't calc'lated to help matters none. G'-by, +Will."</p> + +<p>The postmaster recognized his dismissal; he knew that the manner which +had fallen upon Scattergood portended that something was on his mind and +that he wanted to be alone and think, so he withdrew hastily and plodded +across the dusty road to the office of which he was the executive head.</p> + +<p>As for Scattergood, he pressed his double chin down upon his bulging +chest, closed his eyes, and gave himself up enthusiastically to looking +like a gigantic figure of discouragement. He waggled his head dubiously.</p> + +<p>"Wonder if it kin be laid to my door," he said to himself. "I figgered +they was about made f'r each other, and I brung 'em together.... +Somethin's got crossways. Um!... Take them young folks separate, and +you couldn't ask for nothin' better.... Don't understand it a mite.... +Anyhow, things has turned out as they be, and what kin I do about it?"</p> + +<p>His reinforced chair creaked under the shifting of his great weight as +he bent mechanically to remove his shoes. With his toes imprisoned in +leather, Scattergood's brain refused to function, a characteristic +which greatly chagrined his wife, Mandy—so much so that she had +considered sewing him up in his footwear, as certain mothers in the +community sewed their children in their underwear for the winter.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had amassed a fortune that might be called handsome, but it +had not made him effete. His income had never warranted him in +purchasing a pair of socks, so now, upon the removal of his shoepacs, +his toes were fully at liberty to squirm and wriggle in the most +soul-satisfying manner. He sat thus, battling with his problem, until +Pliny Pickett, driver of the stage, and Scattergood's man, rattled up to +the store in his dust-whitened conveyance.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, Scattergood," he said, in a manner which he endeavored to +make as like his employer's as possible.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, Pliny. Successful trip, Pliny? Plenty of passengers? Eh? Any +news down the valley?"</p> + +<p>"Done middlin' well. Hain't much news, 'ceptin' that young Widder Conroy +down to Tupper Falls died of somethin' the matter with her stummick and +folks is wonderin' what'll become of her baby."</p> + +<p>"Baby? What kind of a baby did she calc'late to have?"</p> + +<p>"A he one—nigh onto two year old. Neighbors is lookin' after him."</p> + +<p>"Got relatives?"</p> + +<p>"Not that anybody knows of."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's house, was you?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't figger to."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's, was you?" Scattergood repeated, +insistently.</p> + +<p>"I could."</p> + +<p>"Um!... If you was to, and if you seen Jed, what was you figgerin' on +sayin' to him?"</p> + +<p>Pliny scratched his head and pondered.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I'd mention the heat some, and maybe I might say suthin' +about national politics."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't mention me, would you, Pliny? Don't figger my name might come +up?"</p> + +<p>"It might."</p> + +<p>"If it did, what 'u'd you say, eh? Hain't no reason for mentionin' that +I might want to talk to him, is there? Hain't said so, have I?"</p> + +<p>"You hain't," said Pliny, at last enlightened as to Scattergood's desire +in the matter.</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>An hour later Jed Lewis sauntered past the store and stopped. "Pliny +Pickett says you want to see me, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Said that, did he? Told you I said I wanted to see you?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, maybe not exactly. Not in so many words. But he kind of hinted +around and pecked around till I figgered that was what the ol' coot was +gittin' at."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Didn't tell him nothin' of the kind, but as long's you're here +you might as well set. Hain't seen much of you lately. How's the +hayin'?"</p> + +<p>"Too much rain. Got her cocked twice and had to spread her ag'in to +dry."</p> + +<p>"Hear any politics talked around, Jed?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin' special."</p> + +<p>Jed was brief in his answers. He seemed depressed, and conducted himself +like a man who had something on his mind.</p> + +<p>"Any fresh news from anywheres?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't heard none."</p> + +<p>"Hear about the Packinses down to Bailey?"</p> + +<p>"Never heard tell of 'em." There was excellent reason for this, because +no such family as the Packinses existed in Bailey or anywhere else, to +Scattergood's knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Goin' to separate," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Jed looked up quickly, bit his lip, and looked down again.</p> + +<p>"What fur?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nobody kin figger out. Jest agreein' to disagree. Can't git along, +nohow. Always naggin' at each other and squabblin' and hectorin'.... +Nice young folks, too. Used to set a heap of store by one another. Can't +figger how they come to disagree like they do!"</p> + +<p>"Nobody kin figger it out," said Jed, with sudden vehemence. "All to +once you wake up and things is that way, and you dunno how they come to +be. It jest drifts along. Fust you know things has went all to smash."</p> + +<p>"Um!... You talk like you knowed somethin' about it."</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows more," said the young man, bitterly. He was suddenly +conscious that he wanted to talk about his domestic affairs; that he +wanted to loose the story of his troubles and dwell upon them in all +their ramifications.</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Scattergood, with an inflection of astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Marthy and me has about come to the partin' of our roads," said Jed. +"It's come gradual, without our noticin' it, but it's here at last. +Seems like we can't bear the sight of each other—when we git together. +And yit—sounds mighty funny, too—I calc'late to be as fond of Marthy +as ever I was. But the minute we git together we bicker and quarrel till +there hain't no pleasure into life at all."</p> + +<p>"All Marthy's fault, hain't it? Kind of a mean disposition, hain't she?"</p> + +<p>"No sich thing, Scattergood, and you know it dum well. There didn't use +to be a sweeter-dispositioned girl in the state than Marthy.... +Somethin's jest went wrong. They's times when I git mad and it all +looks to be her fault, and then I ketch my own self startin' some +hectorin' meanness. 'Tain't all her fault, and 'tain't all my fault. The +whole sum and substance of it is that we can't git along with each other +no more."</p> + +<p>"So you calc'late to separate?"</p> + +<p>"Been talkin' it up some."</p> + +<p>"Marthy willin'?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't neither of us willin'. We fix it up and agree to try over ag'in, +and then, fust thing we know, we're right into the middle of another +squabble. I want Marthy, and I guess Marthy wants me, but we want each +other like we was five year back and not like we be now."</p> + +<p>"Been married five year, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Five year last April."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wa-al, I hope nothin' comes of it, Jed. But if it has to it +will. Better live happy separate than unhappy together.... G'-by, Jed."</p> + +<p>Scattergood did not discuss this problem with Mandy, his wife, as it was +his custom to discuss business problems. He did not mention the young +Lewises because the first rule of Mandy's life was "Mind your own +business," and it irritated her beyond measure to see Scattergood poking +his finger into every dish that offered. He did talk the matter over +with Deacon Pettybone, but got little enlightenment for his pains.</p> + +<p>"Don't seem natteral," Scattergood said, "f'r young folks to git to +quarrelin' and bickerin' ontil life hain't endurable no longer. 'Tain't +natteral a-tall. Somethin' must be all-fired wrong somewheres."</p> + +<p>"It's human nature to quarrel," said the deacon, gloomily. "Nothin' +onusual about it."</p> + +<p>"Human nature," said Scattergood, "gits blamed f'r a heap of things that +ought to be laid at the door of human cussedness."</p> + +<p>"Same thing," said the deacon. "If you're human you're cussed. Used to +be so in the Garden of Eden, and it'll keep on bein' so till Gabriel +blows his final trump."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't no more natteral to bicker than 'tis to have dispepsy. +Quarrelin' and hectorin' hain't nothin' but a kind of dispepsy that +attacks families instid of stummicks. In both cases it means somethin' +is wrong."</p> + +<p>"Can't cure a unhappy family with a dose of calomel," said the deacon, +acidly.</p> + +<p>"Hain't so sure. Bet that identical remedy' u'd fix up three out of ten. +But somethin' else is wrong with them young Lewises. A dose of somethin' +'u'd cure 'em, if only a feller could figger out what 'twas."</p> + +<p>"Might try soothin' syrup," said the deacon, with an ironic grin. +"Sounds like it ought to git results.... Soothin' syrup—eh? Have to +tell the boys that one. Soothin' syrup. Perty good f'r an old man. Don't +call to mind makin' no joke like that f'r twenty year."</p> + +<p>"Do it often, Deacon," said Scattergood, gravely. "You won't have to +take so much sody followin' meals to sweeten you up.... G'-by, +Deacon.... Soothin' syrup. Um!... I swanny...."</p> + +<p>He looked across the square and saw that Pliny Pickett was delighting an +audience with apochryphal reminiscences, doubtless of a gallant and +spicy character. It is characteristic of Scattergood that he waited +until Pliny had reached his climax, shot it off, and was doubled up with +laughter at his own narration, before he lifted up his voice and +summoned the stage driver.</p> + +<p>"Hey, Pliny! Step over here a minute."</p> + +<p>"Comin'," said Pliny, with alacrity. Then in an aside to his audience: +"See that? Can't let an evenin' pass without a conference with me. Sets +a heap of store by my judgment."</p> + +<p>"Sets more store by your laigs," said Old Man Bogle. "They kin run +errants, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Pliny hastened across the square, and in careful imitation of +Scattergood said, "Evening Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Evening Pliny. Flow of language good as usual to-night? Didn't meet +with no trouble sayin' what you had to say?"</p> + +<p>"Not a mite, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Come through Bailey to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Calculated to."</p> + +<p>"Any news?"</p> + +<p>"Nary."</p> + +<p>"What's become of that What's-his-name baby you was a-tellin' about? The +one that lost his ma and was bein' cared for by neighbors?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin' hain't become of him. Calc'late he'll be took to a +institution."</p> + +<p>"Um! Likely-lookin' two-year-old, was he? Take note of any blemishes?"</p> + +<p>"I hear tell by them that knows as how he was sound in wind and limb."</p> + +<p>"Who's keepin' him, Pliny?"</p> + +<p>"Mis' Patterson's sort of shuffled him in with her seven. Says she don't +notice no difference to speak of. Claims 'tain't possible f'r eight +childern to be no noisier 'n what seven be."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Pliny. Ever deal in facts over there to the post office? +Ever have occasion to mention facts?"</p> + +<p>"Er—not <i>reg'lar</i> facts, Scattergood. You needn't to worry about my +talkin' too free."</p> + +<p>"Seems like a feller that talks as much as you do would <i>have</i> to +mention a fact once in a while. G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>It was two or three days later that Postmaster Pratt alluded again to +Martha and Jed Lewis.</p> + +<p>"They're gittin' wuss and wuss," he said, with some gratification. +"Last night they was a rumpus you could 'a' heard forty mile. Ended up +by him threatenin' to leave her, and by her tellin' him that if he +didn't she'd lock him out of the house. Looks to me like that family +fracas was about ripe to bust."</p> + +<p>"Signs all p'int that way, Will. Too bad, hain't it? There's a reason +f'r it, I calculate. Ever look f'r the reason, Will? Ever think about it +at all?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't had no time. Post office keeps me thinkin' night and day."</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>have</i>. Figgered a heap."</p> + +<p>"Any results, Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"Some—<i>some</i>."</p> + +<p>"What be they?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood's eyes twinkled in the darkness. "I got it all figgered +out," he said, "that them young folks needs a dose of soothin' syrup."</p> + +<p>"I want to know," said the postmaster, breathlessly and with +bewilderment. "Soothin' syrup! I swan to man!... Hain't been out in the +heat, have you, Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood made no reply to this question. He merely waggled his head +and said: "G'-by, Will. G'-by."</p> + +<p>Next morning Scattergood walked past the Lewis place. He passed it three +times before he made up his mind whether to go in or not, but finally he +turned through the gate and walked around to the kitchen door. Inside he +saw Martha ridding up the kitchen, not with a morning song on her lips, +but wearing a sullen expression which sat ill on her fine New England +face.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Marthy," he called.</p> + +<p>She looked up and smiled suddenly. The change in her face was +astonishing.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Mr. Baines. Set right down on the porch. ... Let me fetch you +a hot cup of coffee. 'Twon't take but a minute to make."</p> + +<p>"Can't stop," said Scattergood. "I was lookin' for Jed."</p> + +<p>"Jed's gone," she replied, shortly, the sullen expression returning to +her face. "'He won't be back 'fore noon."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I calc'late I kin keep on drawin' my breath till +then—if you kin. I call to mind the time when you was all-fired oneasy +if Jed got away from you for six hours in a stretch."</p> + +<p>"Them times is gone," she said, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"They be," she said, fiercely. "Hain't no use tryin' to hide it. Jed and +me is about through. Nothin' but fussin' and backbitin' and +maneuvering'. He don't care f'r me no more like he used to, and—"</p> + +<p>"You don't set sich a heap of store by him," Scattergood interrupted.</p> + +<p>Martha hesitated. "I do," she said, slowly. "But I can't put up with it +no more."</p> + +<p>"Jed's fault—mostly," said Scattergood, as one speaks who utters an +accepted fact.</p> + +<p>"No more 'n mine," she said, with a sudden flash. "I dunno what's got +into us, Mr. Baines, but we no sooner git into the same room than it +commences. 'Tain't no-body's fault—it jest <i>is</i>."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Kinder like to have things the way they used to be?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baines!" Her eyes filled. "Them first two-three years! Jed was +the best man a woman ever had."</p> + +<p>"Hain't drinkin', is he?"</p> + +<p>"Never touches a drop."</p> + +<p>"Jest his nasty temper," said Scattergood, casually.</p> + +<p>"No sich thing.... It's jest happened so. We can't git on, and I'm +through tryin'. One of us is gain' to git out of this house. I've made +up my mind." She started untying her apron. "I'm a-goin' right now. +It'll be off'n my mind then, and I kin sort of git a fresh start. I'm +goin' right now and pack."</p> + +<p>"Kind of hasty, hain't you?... Now, Marthy, as a special favor to me I +wish you'd stay, maybe two days more. I got a special reason. If you was +to go this mornin' it 'u'd upset my plans. After Sattidy you kin do as +you like, and maybe it's best you should part. But I do wisht you could +see your way to stayin' till Sattidy."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why, Mr. Baines, but if it'll be any good to <i>you</i>, I'll +do it. But not a minute after Sattidy—now mind that!"</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged, Marthy. G'-by, Marthy. G'-by."</p> + +<p>On Friday Scattergood was invisible in Coldriver village, for he had +started away before dawn, driving his sway-backed horse over the +mountain roads to the southward. He notified nobody of his going, unless +it was Mandy, his wife, and even to her he did not make apparent his +errand.</p> + +<p>Before noon he was in Bailey and stopping before the small white house +in which Mrs. Patterson managed by ingenuity to fit in a husband, a +mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy +orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done +it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes +containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once +removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some one +who knows the secret.</p> + +<p>Scattergood entered the house, remained upward of an hour, and then +reappeared, followed by Mrs. Patterson, seven children, an old man, and +an old woman—and in his arms was a baby whose lungs gave promise of a +healthy manhood.</p> + +<p>"Do this much, does he?" Scattergood asked, uneasily.</p> + +<p>"Not more 'n most," said Mrs. Patterson.</p> + +<p>"Um!... If he lets on to be hungry, what's the best thing to feed him +up on? I got a bag of doughnuts and five-six sandriches and nigh on to +half a apple pie in the buggy."</p> + +<p>"Feed him them," said Mrs. Patterson, "and you'll be like to hear some +real yellin'. What he's doin' now hain't nothin' but his objectin' to +you a-carryin' him like he was a horse blanket.... You wait right there +till I git a bottle of milk. And I'll fix you some sugar in a rag that +you kin put into his mouth if he acts uneasy. It'll quiet him right +off."</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged. Hain't had much experience with young uns. Might's well +start now. Bet me 'n this here one gits well acquainted 'fore we reach +Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"'Twouldn't s'prise me a mite," replied Mrs. Patterson, with something +that might have been a twinkle in her tired eyes. "I almost feel I +should go along with you."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mrs. Patterson," said Scattergood, hastily, and he climbed into +his buggy clumsily, placing the baby on the seat beside him, and holding +it in place with his left arm. "G'-by."</p> + +<p>The buggy rattled off. The baby hushed suddenly and began to look at the +horse.</p> + +<p>"Kind of come to your senses, eh?" said Scattergood. "Now you and me's +goin' to git on fine if you jest keep your mouth shet. If you behave +yourself proper I dunno but what I kin find a stick of candy f'r you +when we git there."</p> + +<p>Presently Scattergood looked down to find the baby asleep. He drove +slowly and cautiously, whispering what commands he felt were +indispensable to his horse. This delightful situation continued for +upward of two hours, and Scattergood said to himself that folks who +bothered about traveling with infants must be very easily worried.</p> + +<p>"Jest as soon ride with this one clean to the Pacific coast," he said.</p> + +<p>And then the baby awoke. It blinked and looked about it; it rubbed its +eyes; it stared severely up at Scattergood; it opened its mouth +tentatively, closed it again, and then—and then it uttered such an +ear-piercing, long-drawn shriek that the old horse jumped with fright.</p> + +<p>"Hey, there!" said the startled Scattergood. "Hey! what's ailin' you +now?"</p> + +<p>The baby closed his eyes, clenched his fists, kicked out with his legs, +and gave himself up whole-heartedly to the exercise of his voice.</p> + +<p>"Quit that," said Scattergood. "Now listen here; that hain't no way to +behave. You won't git that candy—"</p> + +<p>Louder and more piercing arose the baby's cries. Scattergood dropped the +reins, lifted the baby to his knee, and jounced it up and down +furiously, performing an act which he imagined to be singing, a thing he +had heard was interesting and soothing to babies. It did not even +attract this one's attention.</p> + +<p>"Sufferin' heathen!" Scattergood said. "What in tunket was it that woman +said I sh'u'd do? Hain't they no way of shuttin' him off? Look-ee here, +young feller, you jest quit it.... B'jing! here's my watch. You kin +listen to it tick."</p> + +<p>The baby tried the watch on his toothless gums, found it not to his +taste, and flung it from him with such vehemence that it would have +suffered permanent injury but for the size and strength of the silver +chain which attached it to Scattergood. The cries became more maddening. +Scattergood was not hungry, so it did not occur to him that the infant +might be thinking of food. He dandled it, he whistled, he sang, he +pointed out the interesting attributes of his horse, and promised to +direct attention to a rabbit or even a deer in a moment, but nothing +availed. Perspiration was pouring down Scattergood's face, and his +expression was that of a man who devoutly wishes he were far otherwise +than he is.</p> + +<p>Half an hour of this seemed to Scattergood like the length of a sizable +day—and then he remembered the milk. Frantically he fished it out of +the basket and thrust it toward the young person, who did with it what +seemed right to him, and, with a gurgle of satisfaction, settled down to +business. Scattergood sighed, wiped his forehead, and revised his +opinion of folks who were worried at the prospect of travel with an +infant.</p> + +<p>The rest of that drive was a nightmare to Scattergood. When the baby +yelled he was in torment. When the baby slept he was in torment lest he +wake it, so that it would commence again to cry. He sweat cold and he +sweat hot, and he wished wishes in his secret heart and blamed himself +for many things—chief of which was that he had not brought Mandy along +to bear the brunt of the adventure.</p> + +<p>But at last, long after nightfall, with baby fast asleep, Scattergood +drove into Coldriver by deserted and circuitous roads. He stopped his +horse in a dark spot on the edge of the village, and, with the baby +cautiously held in his arms, he slunk through back ways and short cuts +to the house where Jed and Martha Lewis made their home. With meticulous +stealth he passed through the gate, laid the baby on the doorstep, rang +the bell long and determinedly, and then, with astonishing quiet and +agility, hid himself in the midst of a clump of lilacs.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and a light shone through upon the squirming bundle +that lay upon the step. A tentative cry issued from the baby; a bass +exclamation issued from Jed Lewis. "My Gawd! Marthy, somebody's left a +baby here!"</p> + +<p>Martha pushed past her husband and lifted the baby in her arms. She said +no word, but Scattergood could see her press it close, and, in the +light that came through the door, could see the expression of her face. +It satisfied him.</p> + +<p>"What we goin' to do with the doggone thing?" Jed demanded.</p> + +<p>Martha pushed past him into the house, and he followed, wordless, +closing the door after them.... Scattergood remained for some time, and +then slunk away....</p> + +<p>Postmaster Pratt gave the news to Scattergood in the morning.</p> + +<p>"Somebody went and left a baby on to Jed Lewis's stoop last night," he +declared. "Hain't nobody been able to identify it. Nary a mark nor a +sign on to it no place. ... Whatever possessed anybody to leave a baby +<i>there</i> of all places?"</p> + +<p>"I want to know!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Girl er boy?"</p> + +<p>"Boy, I'm told."</p> + +<p>"What's Jed say?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't sayin' much. Jest sets and kind of hangs on to his head, and +every once in a while he gits up and looks at the baby and then goes +back to holdin' his head."</p> + +<p>"How about Marthy?"</p> + +<p>"Marthy," said Postmaster Pratt. "I can't make out about Marthy, but I +heard her a-singin' this mornin' 'fore breakfast. Fust time I heard her +sing for more 'n a year."</p> + +<p>"Might 'a' been singin' to the baby," Scattergood suggested.</p> + +<p>"Naw, it was while she was gittin' breakfast. Jest the time she and Jed +quarrels most powerful."</p> + +<p>During the day all of Coldriver called to see the mysterious infant. +Nobody could give a clue to its identity, and it was decided unanimously +that it had been brought from a distance. As to the intentions of the +Lewises regarding its disposition, they were noncommittal. It was +universally accepted as fact, however, that the baby would be sent to +an institution.</p> + +<p>Thereupon Scattergood called upon the First Selectman.</p> + +<p>"What's the town goin' to do about that baby?" he demanded. +"Taxpayers'll be wantin' to know. Seems like the town's liable f'r its +support."</p> + +<p>"Calculate we be.... Calculate we be. I been figgerin' on what steps to +take."</p> + +<p>"Better go across to Jed's and notify 'em," said Scattergood. "They'll +be expectin' you to take action prompt. I'll go 'long with you."</p> + +<p>They walked down the street and rapped at the Lewises' door.</p> + +<p>"Come on official business," said the First Selectman, pompously, to +Jed, "connected with that there foundlin'."</p> + +<p>Martha came hastily into the room. "What you want?" she demanded, in a +dangerous voice.</p> + +<p>"Come to tell you we would take that baby off'n your hands and send it +to a institution. Git it ready, and we'll take it to-morrer."</p> + +<p>"Take that baby!... Did you hear him, Jed Lewis? Did you hear that man +say as how he was goin' to take away my baby?" She stumbled across the +room to Jed and clutched the lapels of his coat. Scattergood noticed +with some pleasure that Jed's arm went automatically about her waist. +"Make 'em git out, Jed. Tell 'em they can't take this baby.... You want +we should keep it, don't you, Jed?... We wanted one. You know how we +wanted one.... You're goin' to let us keep it, hain't you, Jed?"</p> + +<p>Jed put Martha aside gently and walked over to a makeshift crib in the +corner, where the baby was asleep, where he stood for a moment looking +down at it with a curious expression. Then he turned suddenly, strode to +the door, opened it, and pointed. "Git!" he said to the First Selectman +and Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Jed ... Jed ... darlin'," Martha cried, and as Scattergood passed out +he saw from the corner of his eye that she was sobbing on her husband's +hickory shirt and that he was patting her back with awkward gentleness.</p> + +<p>"Looked a mite like Jed wanted we should go," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I'll have the law on to him. He'll be showed that he can't stand up to +the First Selectman of this here town, I'll—"</p> + +<p>"You'll go home and set down in the shade and cool off," said +Scattergood, merrily, "and while you're a-coolin' you might sort of +thank Gawd that there's sich things as human bein's with human feelin's, +and that there's sich things as babies ...that sometimes gits themselves +left on the right doorstep.... G'-by, Selectman. G'-by."</p> + +<p>A week later Scattergood was passing the Lewis home early in the +evening. In the side yard was a hammock under the trees which had been +unoccupied this year past, but to-night it was occupied again. Martha +was there with the baby against her breast, and Jed was there, his arm +tightly about his wife, and one of the baby's hands lying on his +calloused palm.... As Scattergood watched he saw Jed bend clumsily and +kiss the tiny fingers ... and Martha turned a trifle and smiled up into +her husband's eyes.</p> + +<p>Scattergood passed on, blinking, perhaps because dust had gotten in his +eyes. He stopped at the post office and spoke to Postmaster Pratt.</p> + +<p>"Call to mind my speakin' of soothin' syrup and Jed Lewis and his wife?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"Seems like I mind it, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Jest walk past their house, Postmaster. Calc'late you'll see I figgered +clost to right.... Marthy's a-sittin' there with Jed in the hammick, +and they're a-holdin' on their lap the doggondest best soothin' syrup +f'r man and wife that any doctor c'u'd perscribe.... Calculate it's one +of them nature's remedies.... Go take a look, Postmaster.... G'-by."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a><h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines, as he sat with shirt open at the throat, his huge +body sagged down in the chair that had been especially reinforced to +sustain his weight, seemed to passing Coldriver village to be drowsing. +Many people suspected Scattergood of drowsing when he was exceedingly +wide awake and observant of events. It was part of his stock in trade.</p> + +<p>At this moment he was looking across the square toward the post office. +A large, broad-shouldered young man, with hair sun-bleached to a ruddy +yellow, had alighted from a buggy and entered the office. He was a fine, +bulky, upstanding farmer, built for enduring much hard labor in times of +peace and for performing feats of arms in time of war. He looked like a +fighter; he was a fighter—a willing fighter, and folks up and down the +valley stepped aside if it was noised about that Abner Levens had broken +loose. It was not that Abner delighted in the fruit of the vine nor the +essence of the maize; he was a teetotaler. But it did seem as if nature +had overdone the matter of providing him with the machinery for creating +energy and had overlooked the safety valve. Wherefore Abner, once or +twice a year, lost his temper.</p> + +<p>Now, losing his temper was not for Abner a matter of uttering a couple +of oaths and of wrapping a hoe handle around a tree. He lost his temper +thoroughly and seemed unable to locate it again for days. He rampaged. +He roared up and down the valley, inviting one and all to step up and +be demolished, which the inhabitants were very reluctant to do, for +Abner worked upon his victims with thoroughness and enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>When Abner was in his normal humor he was a jovial, noisily jovial young +man, who would dance with the girls until the cock tired of crowing; who +would give a day's work to a friend; who performed his civic and +religious duties punctiliously, if gayly; who was honest to the fraction +of a penny; and who would have been the most popular and admired youth +in the valley among the maidens of the valley had it not been for their +constant, uneasy fear that he might suddenly turn Berserk.</p> + +<p>It was this young man whom Scattergood eyed thoughtfully, and, one might +say, apprehensively, for Scattergood liked the youth and feared the +germs of disaster that lay quiescent in his powerful body.</p> + +<p>Pliny Pickett lounged past, stopped, eyed Scattergood, and seated +himself on the step.</p> + +<p>"Abner Levens 's in town," he said.</p> + +<p>"Seen him," answered Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late Asa'll be in?"</p> + +<p>"Bein' 's it's Sattidy night, 'most likely he'll come."</p> + +<p>"Hope Abner's feelin' friendly, then," said Pliny with an anticipatory +twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction +to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be +wrastlin' all over town and pushin' down houses."</p> + +<p>"They hain't never fit yet," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Nor won't if Asa has the say of it.... He's full as big as Abner, too. +Otherwise they don't resemble twins none."</p> + +<p>"Hain't much brotherly feelin' betwixt 'em."</p> + +<p>"I hain't clear as to the rights of the matter," said Pliny, "but they +hain't nothin' like a will dispute to make bad blood betwixt +relatives.... Asa got the best of <i>that</i> argument, anyhow. Don't seem +fair, exactly, is my opinion, that Old Man Levens should up and +discriminate betwixt them boys like he did—givin' Asa a hog's share."</p> + +<p>"Dunno's I'd worry sich a heap about that," said Scattergood, "if they +hadn't both got het up about the same gal. Looks to me like one or +tother of 'em took up with that gal jest to make mischief.... Seems like +Abner was settin' out with her fust."</p> + +<p>"Some says both ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner +he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to +the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate betwixt them boys."</p> + +<p>"And trouble'll come of it.... Wonder which of 'em Mary Ware favors? If +she favors either of 'em, and trouble comes, it'll mix her in."</p> + +<p>"Hope Abner gits him. Better for her, says I, to take up with a man like +Ab, that's a good feller fifty weeks out of the year, and goes on a tear +two weeks, than to be married to a cuss like Asa that jest goes along +sort of gloomy and <i>still</i> and seekin'. I hain't never heard Asa laugh +with no real enjoyment into it yet. He grins and shows his teeth. He's +too dum quiet, and always acts like a feller that's afraid you'll find +out what he's got in mind."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Mary's about the pertiest girl in Coldriver," said Pliny. "Dunno but +what she could handle Abner all right, too. Call to mind the firemen's +picnic last year when she went with Abner, and he busted loose on that +feller with the three shells and the leetle ball?"</p> + +<p>"When the feller had robbed Half-wit Stenens of nigh on to twenty +dollars? I call to mind."</p> + +<p>"Abner was jest on the p'int of separatin' that feller into chunks and +dispersin' the chunks over the county when Mary she steps up and puts +her hand en his arm, and says, 'Abner!' ... Jest like that she said it, +quiet and gentle, but firm. Abner he let loose of the feller and turned +to look at her, and in a minute all the fight went out of his face and +his eyes like somebody had drained it off. He kind of blushed and hung +his head, and walked away with her.... She didn't tongue-lash him, +neither, jest kept a-touchin' his arm so's he wouldn't forgit she was +there."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Here comes Asa." He lifted himself from his +creaking chair and started across the bridge. "If it's a-comin' off," he +said to Pliny, "I want to git where I kin git a good view."</p> + +<p>In the post office the twin brothers came face to face. Scattergood saw +Abner's thin lips twist in a provocative sneer. Abner halted suddenly, +at arm's length from his brother, and eyed him from head to foot, and +Asa returned an insolent stare.</p> + +<p>"You sneakin' hound," said Abner, without heat, as was his way in the +beginning, always. "You're lower'n I thought, and I thought you was +low." Scattergood took in these words and pondered them. Did they mean +some new cause for enmity between the brothers? Suddenly Abner's eyes +began to kindle and to blaze. Asa crouched and his teeth showed in a +saturnine, crooked smile. No man could look upon him and accuse him of +being afraid of Abner or of avoiding the issue.</p> + +<p>"I know what you've been up to, you slinkin' varmint ... I know where +you was Tuesday." Scattergood took possession of this sentence and +placed it in the safety-deposit box of his memory. Where had Asa been +Tuesday, he wondered, and what had Asa been doing there?</p> + +<p>"I've put up with a heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I +hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But +now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's nobody kin put you +together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake." +With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm struck Asa +across the mouth.</p> + +<p>Asa licked his lips and continued to smile his crooked, saturnine smile.</p> + +<p>"Hain't scarcely room in here," he said, softly.</p> + +<p>"Git outside and take off your coat," said Abner, "for I'm goin' to fix +you so's nobody kin ever accuse flesh and blood of mine of doin' agin +what I've ketched you doin'."</p> + +<p>"What's gnawin' you," said Asa, softly, "is that I got the best farm and +that I'm a-goin' to git your girl."</p> + +<p>There was a stark pause. Abner stiffened, grew tense, as one becomes at +the moment of bursting into dynamic action, but he did not stir. +Scattergood was surprised, but he was more surprised by Abner's next +words. "I hain't goin' to half kill you on account of your lyin' to +father, nor on account of her—it's on account of <i>her</i>." The sentence +seemed without sense or meaning, but Scattergood placed it with his +other collected sentences; he did not perceive its meaning, but he did +perceive that the first 'her' and the second 'her' were pronounced so +that they became different words, like names, indicating, identifying, +different persons. That was Scattergood's notion.</p> + +<p>Asa turned on his heel and walked into the square, removing his coat as +he went; Abner followed. They faced each other, crouching. Abner's face +depicting wrath, Asa's depicting hatred.... Before a blow was struck, a +girl, tall, slender, deep-bosomed, fit mate for a man of might, pushed +through the circle of spectators. Her face was pale and distressed, but +very lovely. Her brown eyes were dark with the emotion of the moment, +and a wisp of wavy brown hair lay unnoticed upon her broad forehead.... +She walked to Abner's side and touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"Abner!" she said, gently.</p> + +<p>He turned his blazing eyes upon her. "Not this time" he said. "Go away, +Mary." Even in his rage he spoke to her in a voice of reverence.</p> + +<p>"Abner!" she repeated.</p> + +<p>He turned to his brother. "You get off this time," he said, evenly, "but +there will be another time.... Asa, I think I am going to kill you...."</p> + +<p>Asa laughed mockingly, and Abner took a threatening step toward him, but +Mary touched his arm again. "Abner!" she said once more; and obediently +as some well-trained mastiff he followed her through the gaping ring, +she still touching his arm, and together they walked slowly up the road.</p> + +<p>Two days later, about eight o'clock in the morning, Sheriff Ulysses +Watts bustled down the street wearing his official, rather than his +common, or meat-wagon, air. He paused, to speak excitedly to +Scattergood, who sat as usual on the piazza of his hardware store.</p> + +<p>"They've jest found Asa Levens's body," he ejaculated. "A-layin' clost +to the road it was, with a bullet through the head. Clear case of +murder.... I'm gatherin' a posse to fetch in the murderer."</p> + +<p>"Murderer's known, is he?" said Scattergood, leaning forward, and eying +the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Abner, of course. Who else would 'a' done it? Hain't he been +a-threatenin' right along?"</p> + +<p>"Anybody see him fire the shot, Sheriff? Any witnesses?"</p> + +<p>"Nary witness. Nothin' but the body a-layin' where it fell."</p> + +<p>"What was the manner of this shootin', Sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"All I know's what I've told you."</p> + +<p>"Gatherin' a posse, Ulysses? Who be you selectin'?"</p> + +<p>"Various and sundry," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Any objection to deputizin' me?" said Scattergood. "Any notion I might +help some?"</p> + +<p>"Glad to have you, Scattergood.... Got to hustle. Most likely the +murderer's escapin' this minute."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Need any catridges or anythin' in the +hardware line, Sheriff? Figgerin' on goin' armed, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Dunno but what the boys'll need somethin'. You keep open till I gather +'em here."</p> + +<p>"I carry the most reliable line of catridges in the state," said +Scattergood. "Prices low.... I'll be waitin', Sheriff."</p> + +<p>In twenty minutes a dozen citizens of the vicinage gathered at +Scattergood's store, each armed with his favorite weapon, rifle or +double-barreled shotgun, and each wearing what he fancied to be the air +of a dangerous and resolute citizen.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late he'll be desprit," said Jed Lewis. "He won't be took without +a fight."</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of Scattergood that he delayed the setting out of +the posse until, by his peculiar methods of salesmanship, he had pressed +upon various members lethal merchandise to a value of upward of twenty +dollars. This being done, they entered a big picnic wagon with parallel +seats and set out for the scene of the crime. Coroner Bogle demanded +that the body should be viewed officially before the man-hunt should +begin. Scattergood threw the weight of his opinion with the coroner.</p> + +<p>The body was found lying beside a narrow path leading from the road +through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with +arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun +shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and +insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields +themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready +for the harvest. Scattergood looked about him at the trappings of the +day, and the thought came unbidden that it was a pleasant spot in which +to die ... perhaps more pleasant than the dead man deserved.</p> + +<p>"Shot from behind." said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"By somebody a-layin' in wait," said Jed Lewis.</p> + +<p>"It was murder—cold-blooded murder," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>Scattergood stepped forward as the coroner turned the face up to the +light of the sun.</p> + +<p>"It was a death by violence," said Scattergood. "It may be murder.... +Asa Levens wears, as he lies, the face of a man who troubled God...."</p> + +<p>There was none in that little group to comprehend his meaning.</p> + +<p>"There was no struggle," said the coroner.</p> + +<p>"He never knowed he was shot," said Jed Lewis.</p> + +<p>"Be you still a-goin' to arrest Abner Levens?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"To be sure. He done it, didn't he? Who else would 'a' killed Asa?"</p> + +<p>"Who else?" said Scattergood, solemnly.</p> + +<p>They raised Asa Levens and carried him to his house. Having left him in +proper custody, the posse re-entered its picnic van and drove with no +small trepidation toward Abner Levens's farm, a mile away. Abner Levens +was perceived from a distance, hoeing in a field.</p> + +<p>"He's goin' to face it out," said the sheriff; "or maybe he wasn't +expectin' Asa to be found yet."</p> + +<p>The picnic van stopped beside the field and the armed posse scrambled +out, holding its weapons threateningly; but as Abner was armed with +nothing more lethal than a hoe there was some appearance of +embarrassment among them, and more than one man endeavored to make his +shooting iron invisible by dropping it in the long grass.</p> + +<p>"Come on," said the sheriff, and in a body the posse advanced across the +field toward Abner, who leaned upon his hoe and waited for them. "Abner +Levens," said the sheriff, in a voice which was not of the steadiest, "I +arrest you for murder."</p> + +<p>Abner looked at the sheriff; Abner looked from one to another of the +posse in silence. It seemed as if he were not going to speak, but at +last he did speak.</p> + +<p>"Then Asa Levens is dead," he said.</p> + +<p>It was not a question; it was a statement, made with conviction. +Scattergood Baines noted that Abner called his brother by name as if +desiring to avoid the matter of blood kindred; that he made no denial.</p> + +<p>"You know it better than anybody," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>Abner looked past the sheriff, over the uneven fields, with their rock +fences, and beyond to the green slopes of the mountains as they upreared +distinct, majestic, imposing in their serene permanence against the +undimmed summer sky.</p> + +<p>"Asa Levens is dead," said Abner, presently. "Now I know that God is not +infinite in everything.... His patience is not infinite."</p> + +<p>"It's my duty to warn you that anythin' you say kin be used ag'in' you," +said the sheriff. "Be you comin' along peaceable?"</p> + +<p>"I'm comin' peaceable," said Abner. "If God's satisfied—I be."</p> + +<p>Abner Levens was locked in the unreliable jail of Coldriver village, and +a watch placed over him. Those who saw him marveled at his demeanor; +Scattergood Baines marveled at it, for it was not the demeanor of a +man—even of an innocent man—accused of a crime for which the penalty +was death. Abner sat upon the hard bench and looked quietly, even +placidly, out at the brightness of day, as it was apparent beyond flimsy +iron bars, and his expression was the expression of <i>contentment</i>.</p> + +<p>He had not demanded the benefit of legal guidance; he had neither +affirmed nor denied his guilt; indeed, he had uttered no word since the +door of the jail had closed behind him.</p> + +<p>Mary Ware spoke to the young man through the window of the jail in full +view of all Coldriver.</p> + +<p>"You didn't do it, Abner. I know you didn't do it," she said, so that +all might hear, "and if you still want me, Abner, like you said, I'll +stick by you through thick and thin."</p> + +<p>"Thank ye, Mary," Abner replied. "Now I guess you better go away."</p> + +<p>"What shall I do, Abner—to help you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing Mary. Looks like God's took aholt of matters. Better let him +finish 'em in his own way."</p> + +<p>That was all; neither Mary Ware nor any other could get more out of him, +and it was said by many to be a confession of guilt.</p> + +<p>"Realizes there hain't no use makin' a defense. Calc'lates on takin' his +medicine like a man," said Postmaster Pratt.... There were those in town +who voiced the wish that it had been some other than Abner who had +killed Asa Levens. "His gun's been shot recent," said the sheriff. It +was the final gram of evidence necessary to complete assurance of +Abner's guilt.</p> + +<p>Mary Ware was observed by many to walk directly from the jail window to +Scattergood Baines's hardware store, and there to stop and address +Scattergood, who sat barefooted, and therefore in deep thought, before +the door of his place of business.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Mary, "you've helped other folks. Will you help me?"</p> + +<p>"Help you how, Mary? What kin I do for you?"</p> + +<p>"Abner isn't guilty, Mr. Baines"</p> + +<p>"Tell you so?... Abner tell you so?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... 'F he was innocent, wouldn't he deny it, Mary?" He did not +permit her to reply, but asked another question. "What makes you say he +hain't guilty, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Because I know it," she replied, simply.</p> + +<p>"How do you know it, Mary? It's mighty hard to <i>know</i> anythin' on earth. +How d'you <i>know</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Because I know," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"'Twon't convince no jury."</p> + +<p>Mary stood in silence for a moment, and then turned away, not tearful, +not despairing.</p> + +<p>"Hold your hosses," said Scattergood. "Kin you think of anythin' that +might convince a <i>stranger</i> that Abner is innocent?"</p> + +<p>Mary considered. "Asa was shot," she said.</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded.</p> + +<p>"From behind," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded again.</p> + +<p>"Asa never knew who shot him," said Mary, and again Scattergood moved +his head. "If Abner had killed Asa," she went on, "he would have done it +with his hands. He would have wanted Asa to know who was killing him."</p> + +<p>"Might convince them that knows Abner," said Scattergood, "but the +jury'll be strangers." He paused, and asked, suddenly, "Why did you let +Asa Levens come to court you?"</p> + +<p>"Because I hated him," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Abner say anythin' to you?"</p> + +<p>"He said God had taken hold of matters and we'd better let him finish +them."</p> + +<p>"When God takes holt of human affairs he mostly uses human bein's to do +the rough work," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Abner's innocent," said Mary, stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"Mebby so.... Mebby so."</p> + +<p>"Will you help me clear him, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"I'll help you find out the truth, Mary, if that'll keep you +satisfied. Calculate I'd like to know the truth myself. Had a look at +Asa's face a-layin' there by the road, and it interested me."</p> + +<p>"Did you see that?" Mary asked, with sudden excitement.</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Scattergood, curiously.</p> + +<p>"The mark.... Sometimes it showed plain. It was a mark put on Asa +Levens's face as a warning to folks that God mistrusted him."</p> + +<p>"When he was dead it was different," said Scattergood, with solemnity. +"It said he had r'iled God past endurance."</p> + +<p>Mary nodded. She comprehended. "The truth will do," she said, +confidently.</p> + +<p>"Did Abner mention last Tuesday to you?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Where was Asa Levens last Tuesday? Do you know, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why did Abner say to Asa yesterday, 'It's not on account of her, it's +on account of <i>her</i>'?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mary. G'-by." It was so Scattergood always ended a conversation, +abruptly, but as one became accustomed to it it was neither abrupt nor +discourteous.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Mary, and she went away obediently.</p> + +<p>As the afternoon was stretching toward evening, Scattergood sauntered +into Sheriff Ulysses Watts's barn.</p> + +<p>"Who's feedin' and waterin' Asa Levens's stock?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Dummed if I didn't clean forgit 'em," confessed the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Any objection if I look after 'em, Sheriff? Any logical objection? Hoss +might need exercisin'. Can't never tell. Want I should drive up and do +what's needed to be done?"</p> + +<p>"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts.</p> + +<p>Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the +stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare. +He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap," +he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out +of the gate and turned toward town. Scattergood let the reins lie, +attempting no guidance. At the next four corners the mare hesitated, +slowed, and, feeling no direction from her driver, turned to the left. +Scattergood nodded his head.</p> + +<p>The mare trotted on, following the slowly lifting mountain road for a +matter of two miles, and then turned again down a highway that was +little more than a tote road. Half a mile later she stopped with her +nose against the fence of a shabby farmhouse, and sagged down, as is the +custom of horses when they realize they are at their destination and +have a rest of duration before them. Scattergood alighted and fastened +her to the fence.</p> + +<p>As he swung open the gate a middle-aged man appeared in the door of the +house, and over his shoulder Scattergood could see the white face of a +woman—staring.</p> + +<p>"Evening Jed," said Scattergood. "Evening Mis' Briggs."</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Baines? Wa'n't expectin' to see <i>you</i>. What fetches you this +fur off'n the road?"</p> + +<p>"Sort of got here by accident, you might say. Didn't come of my own free +will, seems as though. Kind of tired, Jed. Mind if I set a spell?... +How's the cannin', Mis' Briggs?"</p> + +<p>"Done up thutty quarts to-day, Mr. Baines," said the young woman, who +was Jed Briggs's wife, a woman fifteen years his junior, comely, +desirable, vivid.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Got a hoss out here. Want you should both come and look her +over." He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and +his wife to the fence.</p> + +<p>"Likely mare," said Scattergood, blandly.</p> + +<p>Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman +laughs in great fear.</p> + +<p>"Gawd!" said Jed Briggs, "it's—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scattergood, gently. "It's Asa Levens's mare. Was she here +last Tuesday?"</p> + +<p>"She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines," said Jed Briggs. "What's the +meanin' of this?"</p> + +<p>"I knowed she was somewheres Tuesday," Scattergood said, impersonally. +"Didn't know where, but I mistrusted she'd been to that place frequent. +Jest got in and give her her head. She brought me.... Asa Levens is +dead."</p> + +<p>"Dead!" said Jed Briggs in a hushed voice.</p> + +<p>"He deserved to die.... He deserved to die.... He deserved to die ..." +the young woman repeated shrilly, hysterically.</p> + +<p>"Was you in town to lodge Tuesday night, Jed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Asa come every lodge night, Mis' Briggs?"</p> + +<p>"He always came—when Jed was here and when Jed was away.... When Jed +was here he'd jest set eyin' me and eyin' me ... and when Jed was gone +he—he talked...."</p> + +<p>"Asa owned the mortgage on the place," said Jed, as if that explained +something. Scattergood nodded comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Keep up your int'rest, Jed?"</p> + +<p>"Year behind. Asa was threatenin' foreclosure."</p> + +<p>"Threatened to throw us offn the place ... ag'in and ag'in he +threatened—and we'd 'a' starved, 'cause Jed hain't strong. It's me does +most of the work.... What we got into this place is all we got on +earth ... and he threatened to take it."</p> + +<p>"He come Tuesday night," said Scattergood, as a prompter speaks.</p> + +<p>"Hush, Lindy," said Jed.</p> + +<p>"I calculate you'd best both of you talk," said Scattergood. "You'd +better tell me, Jed, jest why you shot Asa Levens."</p> + +<p>Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs +stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes.</p> + +<p>"It'll be best for you to tell. I'm standin' your friend, Jed +Briggs.... Better tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here +Tuesday night...."</p> + +<p>"He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too, +laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come +home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly, +pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home, +and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I +coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me—and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause +he wa'n't fit to live."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But +what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What +about Abner?"</p> + +<p>"Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday +when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his +hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and +then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he +was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one +of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed. +That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix +up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and +there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin' +God's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you +punished f'r it...."</p> + +<p>Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest +over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy, +his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of +their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken. +The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words:</p> + +<p>"We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of God, and that there +are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter."</p> + +<p>And so it stands in the imperishable records of the township; legal +authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his +rougher sort of work.</p> + +<p>"I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and +unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself."</p> + +<p>Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by +accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated God meant to destroy +us Levenses, root and branch.... It was his business, not mine."</p> + +<p>"I've took note," said Scattergood, "that them that was most strict +about mindin' their own business was gen'ally most diligent about doin' +God's—all unbeknownst to themselves."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a><h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>HE INVESTS IN SALVATION</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From Scattergood Baines's seat on the piazza of his hardware store he +could look across the river and through a side window of the bank. +Scattergood was availing himself of this privilege. As a member of the +finance committee of the bank Scattergood was naturally interested in +that enterprise, so important to the thrifty community, but his interest +at the moment was not exactly official. He was regarding, speculatively, +the back of young Ovid Nixon, the assistant cashier.</p> + +<p>His concern for young Ovid was sartorial. It is true that a shiny alpaca +office coat covered the excellent shoulders of the boy, but below that +alpaca and under Scattergood's line of vision were trousers—and +carefully stretched over a hanger on a closet hook was a coat! There was +also a waistcoat, recognized only by the name of <i>vest</i> in Coldriver, +and that very morning Scattergood had seen the three, to say nothing of +a certain shirt and a necktie of sorts, making brave young Ovid's +figure.</p> + +<p>Ovid passed Scattergood's store on the way to his work. Baines had +regarded him with interest.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Ovid" he said.</p> + +<p>"Morning, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?"</p> + +<p>Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head.</p> + +<p>"Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said +Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Got 'em in the city," said Ovid.</p> + +<p>"I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured +special fer you?"</p> + +<p>"Best tailor there was," said Ovid.</p> + +<p>"Must 'a' come to quite a figger, includin' the shirt and necktie."</p> + +<p>"Forty dollars for the suit," Ovid said, proudly, "and it busted a +five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie."</p> + +<p>Scattergood waggled his head admiringly. "Must be a satisfaction," he +said, "to be able to afford sich clothes."</p> + +<p>Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood's voice was so interested, +so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed.</p> + +<p>"How's your ma?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"Pert," answered Ovid. "Ma's spry. Barrin' a siege of neuralgy in the +face off and on, ma hain't complainin' of nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Has she took to patronizin' a city tailor, too?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"Mostly," said Ovid, "ma makes her own."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded.</p> + +<p>"Still does sewin' for other folks?"</p> + +<p>"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it passes the time."</p> + +<p>"Passes consid'able of it, don't it? Passes the time right up till she +gits into bed?"</p> + +<p>"Ma's industrious."</p> + +<p>"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to +Coldriver; credit to the bank."</p> + +<p>Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them.</p> + +<p>"Been spendin' Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, +hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around."</p> + +<p>"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently.</p> + +<p>"Girl?" said Scattergood—one might have noticed that it was hopefully.</p> + +<p>"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse +ourselves Sundays."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Ovid."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and +visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one +personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had +been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to +be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be +devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor +organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This dénouement +had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those +who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you +could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and +hear all the organ music a body needed to hear.</p> + +<p>So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, +setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars +a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly +trips down the line on the "three-o'clock."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver. +Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial +concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the +bank after Ovid's graduation from high school—and had watched him, with +some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position +which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a +young man to hold. To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings +Bank was to have achieved both social and business success.</p> + +<p>Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated +on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had +attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer. But latterly he had done a +deal of thinking. In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon +to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in +the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more +engrossed by himself and by interests "down the line."</p> + +<p>It was Scattergood's opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was +suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its +run ... if no serious complication set in. Scattergood was watching for +symptoms of the complication.</p> + +<p>Three weeks later Ovid took the "three-o'clock" down the line of a +Saturday afternoon and failed to return Sunday night. Indeed, he did not +appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him. Mrs. Nixon +could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of +a spell of neuralgia, was distracted.</p> + +<p>Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, +recalling in time that he was seated in a lady's parlor, restrained his +impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his +thoughts by wriggling his toes.</p> + +<p>"Likely," he said, "it's nothin' serious. Then, ag'in, you can't +tell.... You do two things, Mis' Nixon: go out to the farm and stay with +my wife—Mandy'll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet."</p> + +<p>"You'll find him, Mr. Baines?... You'll fetch him back to me?"</p> + +<p>"If I figger he's wuth it," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>He went from Mrs. Nixon's to the bank, where the finance committee were +gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid's +disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable assets of +the institution. There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, +Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne—Scattergood made up the full committee.</p> + +<p>"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its +protest at the burden.</p> + +<p>"What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin' +suspicious?"</p> + +<p>"Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some +acidity.</p> + +<p>"You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it—not yit. +Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the +cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault +an overhaulin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of +the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be +discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by +an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a +caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his +progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination +that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he +had looted clumsily—and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose +the vault for his peculiar task.</p> + +<p>It is a comparatively easy task to count the cash reserve in the vault +of so small a bank. Even a matter of thirty-odd thousand dollars can be +checked by one man alone in half an hour, for the small silver is packed +away in rolls, each roll containing a stated sum; the larger silver is +bagged, each bag bearing a label stating the amount of its contents, and +the currency is wrapped in packages containing even sums.... +Scattergood went to work. He went over the cash carefully, and totaled +the sums he set down on a bit of paper.... He found the amount to be +inadequate by exactly three thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Scattergood to himself. "Ovid hain't no hawg."</p> + +<p>One might have thought the young man had dropped in Scattergood's +estimation. It would have been as easy to make away with twenty thousand +dollars as with three thousand, and the penalty would not have been +greater.</p> + +<p>"Kind of a childish sum," said Scattergood to himself. "'Tain't wuth +bustin' up a life over—not three thousand.... Calc'late Ovid hain't +<i>bad</i>—not at a figger of three thousand. Jest a dum fool—him and his +tailor-made clothes...."</p> + +<p>In the silence of the vault Scattergood removed his shoes and sat on a +pile of bagged silver. His pudgy toes worked busily while he reflected +upon the sum of three thousand dollars and what the theft of that amount +might indicate. "Looked big to Ovid," he said to himself. Then, "Jest a +dum young eediot...."</p> + +<p>He replaced the cash and, carrying his shoes in his hand, left the vault +and closed it behind him. His four fellow committeemen were sweating +over the books, but all looked up anxiously as Scattergood appeared. He +stood looking at them an instant, as if in doubt.</p> + +<p>"What d'you find?" asked Atwell.</p> + +<p>"She checks," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The four drew a breath of relief. Scattergood wished that he might have +joined them in the breath, but there was no relief for him. He had +joined his fortunes to those of Ovid Nixon—and to those of Ovid's +mother; had become <i>particeps criminis</i>, and the requirements of the +situation rested heavily upon him.</p> + +<p>It was past midnight before the laborious four finished their review of +the books and joined with Scattergood in giving Ovid a clean bill of +health.</p> + +<p>"Didn't think Ovid had it in him to steal," said Kettleman.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no business stirrin' us up like this for nothin'," said +Atwell, acrimoniously.</p> + +<p>"Maybe," suggested Scattergood, "Ovid's come down with a fit of +suthin'."</p> + +<p>"Hope it's painful," said Lafe, "I'm a-goin' home to bed."</p> + +<p>"What'll we do?" asked Deacon Pettybone.</p> + +<p>"Nothin'," said Scattergood, "till some doin' is called fur. Calc'late I +better slip on my shoes. Might meet my wife." Mandy Scattergood was +doing her able best to break Scattergood of his shoeless ways.</p> + +<p>"Guess we'll let Ovid git through when he comes back," said Deacon +Pettybone, harshly, making use of the mountain term to denote discharge. +There no one is ever discharged, no one ever resigns. The single phrase +covers both actions—the individual "gets through."</p> + +<p>"I always figgered," said Scattergood, urbanely, "that it was allus +premature to git ahead of time.... I'm calc'latin' on runnin' down to +see what kind of a fit of ailment Ovid's come down with."</p> + +<p>Next morning, having in the meantime industriously allowed the rumor to +go abroad that Ovid was suddenly ill, Scattergood took the seven-o'clock +for points south. He did not know where he was going, but expected to +pick up information on that question en route. His method of reaching +for it was to take a seat on a trunk in the baggage car.</p> + +<p>The railroad, Scattergood's individual property and his greatest step +forward in his dream for the development of the Coldriver Valley, was +but a year old now. It was twenty-four miles long, but he regarded it +with an affection only second to his love for his hardware store—and +he dealt with it as an indulgent parent.... Pliny Pickett once stage +driver, was now conductor, and wore with ostentation a uniform suitable +to the dignity, speaking of "my railroad" largely.</p> + +<p>"Hear Ovid Nixon's sick down to town" said Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Sich a rumor's come to me."</p> + +<p>"Likely at the Mountain House?" ventured Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't be s'prised."</p> + +<p>"That's where he mostly stopped," said Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wonder what ailment Ovid was most open to git?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood and Pliny talked politics for the rest of the journey, and, +as usual, Pliny received directions to "talk up" certain matters to his +passengers. Pliny was one of Scattergood's main channels to public +opinion. At the junction Scattergood changed for the short ride to town, +and there he carried his ancient valise up to the Mountain House, where +he registered.</p> + +<p>"Young feller named Nixon—Ovid Nixon—stoppin' here?" he asked the +clerk.</p> + +<p>"Checked out Monday night."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Monday night, eh? Expect him back? I was calc'latin' on meetin' +him here to-day."</p> + +<p>"He usually gets in Saturday night.... You might ask Mr. Pillows, over +there by the cigar case. He and Nixon hang out together."</p> + +<p>Scattergood scrutinized Mr. Pillows and did not like the appearance of +that young man; not that he looked especially vicious, but there was a +sort of useless, lazy, sponging look to him. Baines set him down as the +sort of young man who would play Kelly pool with money his mother earned +by doing laundry, and, in addition, catalogued him as a "saphead." He +acted accordingly.</p> + +<p>Walking lightly across the lobby, he stopped just behind Pillows, and +then said, with startling sharpness, "Where's Ovid Nixon?"</p> + +<p>The agility with which Mr. Pillows leaped into the air and descended, +facing Scattergood, did some little to raise him in the estimation of +Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One +might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and +was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to +snatch at him. Scattergood grinned.</p> + +<p>"Figgered he'd be a mite skittish," he said to the girl behind the cigar +counter.</p> + +<p>"I <i>thought</i> something sneaking was going on," said the young woman, as +if to herself.</p> + +<p>Scattergood gave her his attention. She had red hair, and his respect +for red hair was a notable characteristic. There was a freckle or two on +her nose, her eyes were steady, and her mouth was firm—but she was +pretty. Scattergood continued to regard her in silence, and she, not +disconcerted, studied him.</p> + +<p>"You and me is goin' to eat dinner together this noon," he said, +presently.</p> + +<p>"Business or pleasure?" Her rejoinder was tart.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"If it's business, we eat. If it's pleasure, you've stopped at the wrong +cigar counter."</p> + +<p>"I knowed I was goin' to take to you," said Scattergood. "You got +capable hair.... This here was to be business."</p> + +<p>"Twelve o'clock sharp, then," she said.</p> + +<p>He looked at the clock. It lacked half an hour of noon.</p> + +<p>"G'-by," he said, and went to a distant corner, where he seated himself +and stared out of the window, trying to imagine what he would do if he +were Ovid Nixon, and what would make him appropriate three thousand +dollars.... At twelve o'clock he lumbered over to the cigar case. "C'm +on," he said. "Hain't got no time to waste."</p> + +<p>The girl put on her hat and they walked out together.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"Pansy O'Toole.... You're Scattergood Baines—that's why I'm here.... I +don't eat with every man that oozes out of the woods."</p> + +<p>Scattergood said nothing. It was a fixed principle of his to let other +folks do the talking if they would. If not he talked himself—deviously. +Seldom did he ask a direct question regarding any matter of importance, +and so strong was habit that it was rare for him to put any query +directly. If he wanted to know what time it was he would lead up to the +subject by mentioning sun dials, or calendars, or lunar eclipses, and so +approach circuitously and by degrees, until his victim was led to +exhibit his watch. Pansy did not talk.</p> + +<p>"See lots of folks, standin' back of that counter like you do?" he +began.</p> + +<p>"Lots."</p> + +<p>"Um!... From lots of towns?... From Boston?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"From Tupper Falls?"</p> + +<p>"Some."</p> + +<p>"From Coldriver?"</p> + +<p>"If you want to know if I know Ovid Nixon, why don't you ask right out?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked at her admiringly.</p> + +<p>"I know him," she said.</p> + +<p>"Like him?"</p> + +<p>"He's a nice boy." Scattergood liked the way she said "nice." It +conveyed a fine shade of meaning, and he thought more of Ovid in +consequence. "But he's awful young—and green."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late he is—calc'late he is."</p> + +<p>"He needs somebody to look after him," she said, sharply.</p> + +<p>"Thinkin' of undertakin' the work?... Favor undertakin' it?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him a moment speculatively. "I might do worse. He'd be +decent and kind—and I've got brains. I could make something of him...."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Ovid's up and made somethin' of himself."</p> + +<p>"What?" She spoke quickly, sharply.</p> + +<p>"A thief."</p> + +<p>Scattergood glanced sidewise to study the effect of this curt +announcement, but her face was expressionless, rather too +expressionless.</p> + +<p>"That's why you're looking for him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"To put him in jail?"</p> + +<p>"What would <i>you</i> calc'late on doin' if you was me?"</p> + +<p>"Before I did anything," she said, slowly, "I'd make up my mind if he +was a thief, or if he just happened to take whatever it was he has +taken.... I'd be sure he was <i>bad</i>. If I made up my mind he'd just been +green and a fool—well, I'd see to it he never was that kind of a fool +again.... But not by jailing him."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Three thousand's a lot of money."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar +counter—and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon <i>could</i> be is worth more than +that."</p> + +<p>"Mebby so.... Mebby so. But if I was investin' in Ovid, I'd want some +sort of a guarantee with him. Would you be willin' to furnish the +guarantee? And see it was kept good?"</p> + +<p>"If you mean what I think you do—yes," she said, steadily. "I'd marry +Ovid to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Him bein' a thief?"</p> + +<p>"Girls that sell cigars aren't so select," she said, a trifle bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that +was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and +married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've +kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein' +crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any +other woman you ever see. I call to mind a number.... Ovid some attached +to you, is he?"</p> + +<p>"He's never made love to me, if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>"Think you could land him—for his good and yourn?"</p> + +<p>"I—why, I think I could," she said.</p> + +<p>"Is it a bargain?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"For, and in consideration of one dollar to you in hand paid, and the +further consideration of you undertakin' to keep an eye on him till +death do you part, I agree to keep him out of jail—and without nobody +knowin' he was ever anythin' but honest—and a dum fool."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand and Scattergood took it.</p> + +<p>"What's got Ovid into this here mess?"</p> + +<p>"Bucket shop," she said.</p> + +<p>"Um!... They been lettin' him make a mite of money—up to now, eh? So he +calc'lated on gittin' rich at one wallop. Kind of led him along, I +calc'late, till they got him to swaller hook, line, and sinker ... and +then they up and jerked him floppin' on to the bank.... Who owns this +here bucket shop?"</p> + +<p>"Tim Peaney."</p> + +<p>"Perty slick, is he?"</p> + +<p>"Slick enough to take care of Ovid and sheep like him—but I can't help +thinking he's a sheep himself."</p> + +<p>"He got Ovid's three thousand, or Ovid 'u'd 'a' come back Sunday +night.... Got to find Ovid—and got to git that money back."</p> + +<p>"I've an idea Ovid's right in town. If you're suspicious, and keep your +eyes open, you can tell when something's going on. That Pillows man you +scared knows, and Peaney acts like the man of mystery in one of the kind +of plays we get around here. It's breaking out all over them.... I'll +bet they've fleeced Ovid, and now they're hiding him—to save themselves +more than him."</p> + +<p>"And Ovid's the kind that would let himself be hid," said Scattergood. +"Do you and me work together on this job?"</p> + +<p>"If I can help—"</p> + +<p>"You bet you kin.... We'll jest let Ovid lie hid while we kind of +maneuver around Peaney some—commencin' right soon. Peaney ever aspire +to take you to dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Git organized to go with him to-night...."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was in the neighborhood of five o'clock when Mr. Peaney came into the +Mountain House and stopped at the cigar counter for cigarettes.</p> + +<p>"Any more friendly to-day, sister?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Pansy smiled and leaned across the case. "The trouble with you," she +said, in a low tone, "is that you're a piker."</p> + +<p>"Piker—me?"</p> + +<p>"Always after small change."</p> + +<p>"Just show me some real money once," he said, flamboyantly.</p> + +<p>"It would scare you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Show me some—you'd see how it would scare me."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she said, musingly, "if you have the nerve?"</p> + +<p>"For what?" he said, with quickened interest.</p> + +<p>"To go after a wad that I know of?"</p> + +<p>"Say," he said, his eyes narrowing, his face assuming a look of cupidity +and cunning, "do you know something? If you do, come on out where we can +eat and talk. If there's anything in it I'll split with you."</p> + +<p>"I know you will," she said, promptly. "Fifty-fifty.... In an hour, at +Case's restaurant."</p> + +<p>At the hour set Pansy and Mr. Peaney found a corner table in the little +restaurant, and when they had ordered Peaney asked, "Well, what you got +on your mind?"</p> + +<p>"A big farmer from the backwoods—with a trunkful of money. Don't know +how he got it. Must have sold the family wood lot, but he's got it with +him ... and he came down to invest it."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Honest Injun."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"From what he said it's more than ten thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Lead me to him."</p> + +<p>"He'll need some playing with—thinks he's sharp.... But I've been +talking to him. Guess he took a liking to me. Wanted to take me to +dinner—and he did."</p> + +<p>"Say!" exclaimed Mr. Peaney, in admiration, "I had you sized all wrong."</p> + +<p>"It'll take nerve," Pansy said.</p> + +<p>"It's what I've got most of."</p> + +<p>"He's no Ovid Nixon."</p> + +<p>"Eh?... What d'you know about Ovid Nixon?"</p> + +<p>"I know he was too green to burn and that you and he were together a +lot.... Isn't that enough?"</p> + +<p>He smiled complacently, seeing a compliment. "He was easy—but he got to +be a nuisance."</p> + +<p>"Making trouble?"</p> + +<p>"No.... Scared."</p> + +<p>"I <i>see</i>," she nodded, wisely. "Lost more than he had, was that it? And +then helped himself to what he didn't have?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not supposed to know where it came from. None of my business."</p> + +<p>"Of course not"—her tone was rank flattery. "Wants you to take care of +him. Threatens to squeal. I know.... So you've got to hide him out."</p> + +<p>"You are a wise one. Where'd you get it?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't always sell cigars for a living.... He isn't apt to break +loose and spoil this thing, is he?"</p> + +<p>"Too scared to show his face.... If we can pull this across he can show +it whenever he wants to—I'll be gone."</p> + +<p>So Ovid Nixon was here—in town. It was as she had reasoned. If here, he +was somewhere in the building Mr. Peaney occupied as a bucket shop.</p> + +<p>"It's understood we divide—if I introduce my farmer to you—and show +you how to get it."</p> + +<p>"You bet, sister."</p> + +<p>"Have you any money? Nothing makes people so confident and trustful as +the sight of money?"</p> + +<p>"I've got it," he said, complacently.</p> + +<p>"Then you come to the hotel this evening.... Just do as I say. I'll +manage it. In a couple of days—if you have the nerve and do exactly +what I say—you can forget Ovid Nixon and take a long journey."</p> + +<p>Two hours later, when Peaney entered the lobby of the Mountain House, he +saw a very fat, uncouthly dressed backwoodsman talking to Pansy. She +signaled him and he walked over nonchalantly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Pansy, "here's the gentleman I was speaking about. He +can advise you. He's a broker, and everybody trusts him." She lowered +her voice. "He's very rich, himself. Made it in stocks. I guess he +knows what's going on right in Mr. Rockefeller's private office.... You +couldn't do better than to talk business with him.... Mr. Peaney, Mr. +Baines."</p> + +<p>"Very glad to meet you, sir," said Peaney, in his grandest manner.</p> + +<p>"Much obleeged, and the same to you," said Scattergood, beaming his +admiration. "Hear tell you're one of them stock brokers."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. That's my business."</p> + +<p>"Guess you and me had better talk some. I'm a-lookin' for somebody to +gimme advice about investin'. I got a sight of money to invest +some'eres—a sight of it. Railroad stocks, or suthin'. Calc'late on +makin' myself well off."</p> + +<p>"I'm not taking any new clients, Mr. Baines. I'm very busy indeed." He +glanced at Pansy. "But if you are a friend of Miss O'Toole's possibly I +can break my rule.... About how much do you wish to invest?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, say fifteen to twenty thousand. Figger on doublin' it up, or mebby +better 'n that. Folks does it. I've read about 'em."</p> + +<p>"To be sure they do—if they are properly advised. But one has to know +the stock market—like a book."</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Peaney knows it like a book," said Pansy.</p> + +<p>Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents—men in the offices of great +corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock +manipulation is coming off—and my clients profit by it."</p> + +<p>"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice. +"My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities +Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the +stock up five points."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?"</p> + +<p>"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock +went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand +dollars besides."</p> + +<p>"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no +fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I +don't know this here girl very well—though I kinder took to her at the +first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is +to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust.... +Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree. +Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, +then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger +I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars."</p> + +<p>"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney. +"Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, +to-morrow—say for a thousand dollars?... If you—come out right, then +you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real +information you can jump right in and make a fortune."</p> + +<p>"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand—charge it up +to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars +jest by settin' down and takin' it."</p> + +<p>"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney.</p> + +<p>"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt.</p> + +<p>"Why, you'd <i>see</i> it," said Pansy, with another grimace at Peaney. "You +put your thousand dollars on the counter, and Mr. Peaney puts five +thousand right beside it. You see it all the time. If you come out +right, you just pick up the money and walk off."</p> + +<p>"No!... <i>Say</i>! That's slick, hain't it? Wisht you'd come along when we +try, Miss O'Toole. Somehow I'd feel easier in my mind if you was +along.... See you early in the mornin'.... Got to git to bed, now. +Always aim to be in bed by nine.... G' night."</p> + +<p>"Say," expostulated Mr. Peaney, "do you expect me to hand over five +thousand to that hick? He might walk off with it."</p> + +<p>"He might walk off with the hotel.... I told you you hadn't any +nerve.... Why, give that fat man a taste of easy money and you couldn't +drive him away. Let him sleep all night with five thousand dollars that +came as easy as that, and you couldn't drive him away from your office +with a gun.... Besides, I'm here to take care of him ...or are you a +quitter?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty thousand dollars," Mr. Peaney said to himself. "Then I'll show +you how good my nerve is. Bring on your fat man...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was up at his accustomed early hour, and before breakfast +had examined Mr. Peaney's premises from front and rear. The bucket shop +was in a small wooden building. The ground floor consisted of a large +office where was visible the big blackboard upon which stock quotations +were posted, and of a back room whose interior was invisible from the +street. A corner of the main office had been partitioned off as a +private retreat for Mr. Peaney. What was upstairs Scattergood could not +tell with accuracy, but he judged it to be a single room or perhaps two +small rooms.... It was here, he felt certain, Ovid was secreting +himself, and, with a certain grimness, he hoped the young man was not +happy in his surroundings.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that Ovid, bein' shet up with his +own figgerin's and imaginin's, hain't in no jubilant frame of mind.... +Meanest punishment you kin give a feller is to lock him in for a spell +with himself, callin' himself names...." When the office opened, +Scattergood and Pansy were at the door, where Mr. Peaney welcomed them, +not without a certain uneasiness at the prospect of intrusting his money +to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Let's git started right off," Scattergood said. "I'd like to tell it to +the folks how I gained five thousand dollars in one mornin'—jest doin' +nothin' but settin'."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Mr. Peaney. "You buy a thousand shares of +International Utilities on a one-point margin.... Sign this order slip."</p> + +<p>"And you set out five thousand dollars right where I kinn see it," said +Scattergood, with anxious fatuity.</p> + +<p>"Certainly.... Certainly."</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney deposited on his desk a bundle of currency which Scattergood +counted meticulously, and then laid his own thousand beside it.</p> + +<p>"It's as good as yours, right now," said Pansy.</p> + +<p>"We'll stay right here in my private room," said Peaney. "We can watch +the board from here, and nobody will disturb us."</p> + +<p>"I'd kinder like to have folks see me makin' all this money," complained +Scattergood, but he acquiesced, and presently quotations commenced to be +posted on the board. International Utilities opened at seventy-six. +Presently they advanced half a point, lingered, and returned to their +original position.</p> + +<p>"Kind of slow, hain't it?" Scattergood said, a worried look beginning to +appear on his face. "Maybe them folks hain't goin' to do what you said."</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney went out into the back room, and presently the ticker began +to click furiously. International Utilities leaped a whole point. In ten +minutes they ascended a half point, and at every advance Scattergood +figured his profit, and hesitated as to whether or not it would be best +to close the transaction then and there, but Pansy cajoled him +skillfully, making evident to Mr. Peaney the power of her influence over +the old fellow.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was the picture of the fatuous countryman. He was childlike +in his ignorance and in his delight. He exclaimed, he slapped his thigh, +he laughed aloud at each advance. "It's a-comin'. Next time she h'ists, +the money's mine.... And 'tain't been two hours. What'll the folks say +to that, eh? Me doin' nothin' but settin' here and makin' five thousand +dollars in two hours.... Nothin' short of a million's goin' to satisfy +me—and when I get that million, Mr. Peaney, I'm a-goin' to show you how +much obleeged I be. I'm a-goin' to git you a whole box of them cigars. +Pansy knows which ones. They come at a nickel apiece...."</p> + +<p>Then ...then International Utilities touched eighty-one. Scattergood +slapped Peaney on the back. He laughed. He acted like a boy with a new +jackknife.</p> + +<p>"It's all mine now, hain't it? Mine? Fair and square? It's my +money—every penny of it?"</p> + +<p>"It's yours, Mr. Baines. And I congratulate you. I myself have made a +matter of fifty thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Wisht I'd put up every cent I got.... But there'll be other chances, +won't they? I kin git in ag'in?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. To-morrow. Possibly this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"And I kin take this now?" Scattergood had his hands on the six thousand +dollars; was handling it greedily.</p> + +<p>"It's yours," said Mr. Peaney.</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated it was," said Scattergood. "Calc'lated it was.... Now +where's Ovid?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney stared. Something had happened suddenly to this countryman. +He was no longer fatuous, futile. His face was no longer foolish and +good-natured; it was; granite—it was the face of a man with force, and +the skill to use that force.</p> + +<p>"Where's Ovid?" he demanded again.</p> + +<p>"Ovid ... Ovid who? I don't know any Ovid."</p> + +<p>He became suddenly alarmed and blocked the way to the door. +Scattergood's eyes twinkled. "If I was you I wouldn't git in the way to +any extent. Feelin' the way I do I sh'u'dn't be s'prised if I got a +certain amount of satisfaction out of tramplin' over you."</p> + +<p>"Hey, you put that money back ..."</p> + +<p>"Mine, hain't it? Gained it lawful, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>He walked slowly toward the door, and Mr. Peaney, still barring the way, +found himself sitting suddenly in an adjacent corner. Scattergood walked +calmly past and made for the back room.</p> + +<p>"Stop him!" shouted Mr. Peaney. "Don't let him go in there."</p> + +<p>But Scattergood proceeded methodically, leaving no less than three of +Mr. Peaney's employees in recumbent postures along his line of march.... +Pansy followed him closely, pale, but resolute. He ascended the stairs, +and, finding the door at the top fastened from within, he removed it +bodily by the application of a calk-studded boot.... Ovid Nixon was +disclosed cowering against the wall, pale, terrified.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Ovid?" said Scattergood, as if he had met the young man casually +on the street. "How d'you find yourself?"</p> + +<p>Ovid remained mute.</p> + +<p>"Fetched a friend to see you, Ovid," said Scattergood. "This is her." He +pushed Pansy forward. "Find her better comp'ny than you been havin' +recent," he said. "She's got suthin' fer you.... When she gits through +visitin' with you, I calculate to have a word to say.... Here, Pansy, +you kin give this here to Ovid." He counted off three thousand dollars +before the young man's staring eyes.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm glad I'm found," Ovid said, tremulously. "I was making up my +mind to give myself up...."</p> + +<p>"What fer?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You know—you know I took three thousand dollars out of the vault."</p> + +<p>"Vault don't show nothin' short," said Scattergood, waggling his head. +"Counted it myself. Did look for a minute like they was three thousand +short, but I kind of put that amount in, and then counted ag'in, and, +sure enough, it was all there...."</p> + +<p>Ovid stared, took a step forward. "You mean.... What do you mean, Mr. +Baines?"</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to step outside of what used to be the door," said +Scattergood, "and let Pansy do the explainin'.... What I do after that +depends a heap on ... Pansy...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went outside and waited, his eyes on the stairs, but nobody +offered to ascend. He could hear the conversation within, but it was +only toward the end that it interested him.</p> + +<p>"Ovid," said Pansy, "you've been hanging around my counter a good +deal—and asking me to dinners, and to go driving on Sunday. What for?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because I liked you awful well, Pansy, but now—now that I've +done this—"</p> + +<p>"If you hadn't done this? If you had made money instead of losing it?"</p> + +<p>"I—oh, what's the use of talking about it? I wanted you should marry +me, Pansy."</p> + +<p>"But you don't want me any more?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody'd marry me—knowing what you know."</p> + +<p>"Ovid," said Pansy, sharply, "there's nothing wrong with you except +that—you haven't enough brains all by yourself. You need to be looked +after ...and I'm going to do it."</p> + +<p>"Looked after?"</p> + +<p>"Ovid Nixon, do you like me well enough to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"I—"</p> + +<p>"Do you? Yes or no ... quick!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then ask me," said Pansy.</p> + +<p>Presently the three emerged into the street from the deserted offices of +Mr. Peaney. Scattergood Baines held in his hands two thousand dollars in +bills, representing net profit on the transaction. He regarded the money +with a frown.</p> + +<p>"Somethings got to be done to you to make you fit to tetch," he said to +it.</p> + +<p>Out of an adjoining store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a +tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. +"Salvation Army, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Hold it out," he said, motioning to the tambourine.</p> + +<p>She obeyed, and he dropped into it the package of bills, and, looking +into her startled, almost frightened eyes, he said: "It come from fools +to sharpers.... I calculate nothin' but a leetle salvation'll kill the +cussedness in it.... Make it do all the salvagin' it kin...."</p> + +<p>Whereupon he passed on, leaving a bewildered woman to stare after him.</p> + +<p>Next morning, Scattergood, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Ovid Nixon, +alighted from the train in Coldriver. Deacon Pettybone happened to be +standing on the depot platform.</p> + +<p>"Make you acquainted with Mis' Nixon," said Scattergood, with gravity. +"She's what Ovid come down with.... Can't blame a young feller for +forgittin' work a day or two when he's got him sich a wife.... Deacon, +this here girl's performed a service for Coldriver. Increased our +population by two—her and Ovid. And, Deacon, Ovid hain't the fust man +that ever was made so's he was wuth countin' in the census by marryin' +him a wife...."</p> + +<p>"Dummed if she hain't got red hair," was the deacon's astonished +contribution. It was as near to congratulations as the deacon ever came.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE SON THAT WAS DEAD</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"The ox is dressed and hung," said Pliny Pickett, with the air of a man +announcing that the country has been saved from destruction.</p> + +<p>"Uh!... How much 'd he dress?" asked Scattergood Baines, moving in his +especially reinforced armchair until it creaked its protest.</p> + +<p>"Eight hunderd and forty-three—accordin' to Newt Patterson's scales."</p> + +<p>"Which hain't never been knowed to err on the side of overweight," said +Scattergood, dryly.</p> + +<p>"The boys has got the oven fixed for roastin' him, and the band gits in +on the mornin' train, failin' accidents, and the dec'rations is up in +the taown hall—'n' now we kin git ready for a week of stiddy rain."</p> + +<p>"They's wuss things than rain," said Scattergood, "though at the minnit +I don't call to mind what they be."</p> + +<p>"Deacon Pettybone's north mowin' is turned into a baseball grounds, and +everybody in town is buyin' buntin' to wrap their harnesses, and +Kittleman's fetched in more 'n five bushels of peanuts, and every young +un in taown'll be sick with the stummick ache."</p> + +<p>"Feelin' extry cheerful this mornin', hain't ye? Kind of more +hopeful-like than I call to mind seein' you fer some time."</p> + +<p>"Never knowed no big celebration to come off like it was planned, or +'thout somebody gittin' a leg busted, or the big speaker fergittin' what +day it was, or suthin'. Seems like the hull weight of this here falls +right on to me."</p> + +<p>"Responsibility," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in his eye, "is a +turrible thing to bear up under. But nothin' hain't happened yit, and +folks is dependin' on you, Pliny, to see 't nothin' mars the party."</p> + +<p>"It'll rain on to the <i>pe</i>-rade, and the ball game'll bust up in a +fight, and pickpockets'll most likely git wind of sich a big gatherin' +and come swarmin' in.... Scattergood," he lowered his voice +impressively, "it's rumored Mavin Newton's a-comin' back for this here +Old Home Week."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Mavin Newton.... Um!... Who up and la'nched that rumor?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody's a-talkin' it up. Folks says he's sure to come, and then +what in tunket'll we do? The sheriff's goin' to be busy handlin' the +crowds and the traffic and sich, and he won't have no time fer extry +miscreants, seems as though.... Folks is a-comin' from as fur 's Denver, +and we don't want no town criminal brought to justice in the middle of +it all. Though Mavin's father 'd be glad to see his son ketched, I +calc'late."</p> + +<p>"Hain't interviewed Mattie Strong as ree-gards <i>her</i> feelin's, have ye?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Pliny, with intense interest, "if Mattie's ever heard +from him? But she's that close-mouthed."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't a common failin' hereabouts," said Scattergood. "How long since +Mavin run off?"</p> + +<p>"Eight year come November."</p> + +<p>"The night before him and Mattie was goin' to be married."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh! Takin' with him that there fund the Congo church raised fer a +new organ, and it's took them eight year to raise it over ag'in."</p> + +<p>"And in the meantime," said Scattergood, "I calc'late the tunes off of +the old organ has riz about as pleasin' to heaven as if 'twas new. +Squeaks some, I'm told, but I figger the squeaks gits kind of filtered +out, and nothin' but the true meanin' of the tunes ever gits up to Him." +Scattergood jerked a pudgy thumb skyward.</p> + +<p>"More 'n two hunderd dollars, it was—and Mavin treasurer of the church. +Old Man Newton he resigned as elder, and hain't never set foot in church +from that day to this."</p> + +<p>"Bein' moved," said Scattergood, "more by cantankerousness than grief."</p> + +<p>"I'll venture," said Pliny, "that there'll be more'n five hunderd old +residents a-comin' back, and where in tunket we're goin' to sleep 'em +all the committee don't know."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Pliny," said Scattergood, suddenly, and Pliny, +recognizing the old hardware merchant's customary and inescapable +dismissal, got up off the step and cut across diagonally to the post +office, where he could air his importance as a committeeman before an +assemblage as ready to discuss the events of the week as he was himself.</p> + +<p>It was a momentous occasion in the life of Coldriver; a gathering of +prodigals and wanderers under home roofs; a week set aside for the +return of sons and daughters and grandchildren of Coldriver who had +ventured forth into the world to woo fortune and to seek adventure. +Preparations had been in the making for months, and the village was +resolved that its collateral relatives to the remotest generation should +be made aware that Coldriver was not deficient in the necessary "git up +and git" to wear down its visitors to the last point of exhaustion. +Pliny Pickett, chairman of numerous committees and marshal of the +parade, predicted it would "lay over" the Centennial in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>The greased pig was to be greasier; the barbecued ox was to be larger; +the band was to be noisier; the speeches were to be longer and more +tiresome; the firemen's races and the ball games, and the fat men's +race, and the frog race, and the grand ball with its quadrilles and +Virginia reels and "Hull's Victory" and "Lady Washington's Reel" and its +"Portland Fancy," were all to be just a little superior to anything of +the sort ever attempted in the state. Numerous septuagenarians were +resorting to St. Jacob's oil and surreptitious prancing in the barn, to +"soople" up their legs for the dance. It was to be one of those +wholesome, generous, splendid outpourings of neighborliness and good +feeling and wonderful simplicity and kindliness, such as one can meet +with nowhere but in the remoter mountain communities of old New England, +where customs do not grow stale and no innovation mars. If any man would +discover the deep meaning of the word "welcome," let him attend such a +Home-coming!</p> + +<p>Though Coldriver did not realize it, the impetus toward the Home-coming +Week had been given by Scattergood Baines. He had seen in it a +subsidence of old grudges and the birth of universal better feeling. He +had set the idea in motion, and then, by methods of indirection, of +which he was a master, he had urged it on to fulfillment.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went inside the store and leaned upon the counter, taking no +small pleasure in a mental inventory of his heterogeneous stock. He had +completed one side, and arrived at the rear, given over to stoves and +garden tools, when a customer entered. Scattergood turned.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Mattie," he said. "What kin I help ye to this time?"</p> + +<p>"I—I need a tack hammer, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Got three kinds: plain, with claws, and them patent ones that picks up +tacks by electricity. I hold by them and kin recommend 'em high."</p> + +<p>"I'll take one, then," said Mattie; but after Scattergood wrapped it up +and gave her change for her dollar bill, she remained, hesitating, +uncertain, embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Was they suthin' besides a tack hammer you wanted, Mattie." Scattergood +asked, gently.</p> + +<p>"I—No, nothing." Her courage had failed her, and she moved toward the +door.</p> + +<p>"Mattie!"</p> + +<p>She stopped.</p> + +<p>"Jest a minute," said Scattergood. "Never walk off with suthin' on your +mind. Apt to give ye mental cramps. What was that there tack hammer an +excuse for comin' here fer?"</p> + +<p>"Is it true that <i>he's</i> coming back, like the talk's goin' around?"</p> + +<p>"I calc'late ye mean Mavin. Mean Mavin Newton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, faintly.</p> + +<p>"What if he did?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I don't know.... Oh, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Want he should come back?"</p> + +<p>"He—If he should come—"</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Calc'late I kin appreciate your feelin's. +Treated you mighty bad, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"He treated himself worse," said Mattie, with a little awakening of +sharpness.</p> + +<p>"So he done. So he done.... Um!... Eight year he's been gone, and you +was twenty when he went, wa'n't ye? Twenty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hain't never had a feller since?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I'm an old maid, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"I've heard tell of older," he said, dryly. "Wisht you'd tell me why you +let sich a scalawag up and ruin your life fer ye?"</p> + +<p>"He wasn't a scalawag—till <i>then</i>."</p> + +<p>"You hain't thinkin' he was accused of suthin' he didn't do?"</p> + +<p>"He told me he took the money. He came to see me before he ran away."</p> + +<p>"Do tell!" This was news to Scattergood. Neither he nor any other was +aware that Mavin Newton had seen or been seen by a soul after the +commission of his crime.</p> + +<p>"He told me," she repeated, "and he said good-by.... But he never told +me why. That's what's been hurtin' me and troublin' me all these years. +He didn't tell me why he done it, and I hain't ever been able to figger +it out."</p> + +<p>"Um!... <i>Why</i> he done it? Never occurred to me."</p> + +<p>"It never occurred to anybody. All they saw was that he took their organ +money and robbed the church. But why did he do it? Folks don't do them +things without reason, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't tell you?"</p> + +<p>"I asked him—and I asked him to take me along with him. I'd 'a' gone +gladly, and folks could 'a' thought what they liked. But he wouldn't +tell, and he wouldn't have me, and I hain't heard a word from him from +that day to this.... But I've thought and figgered and figgered and +thought—and I jest can't see no reason at all."</p> + +<p>"Took it to run away with—fer expenses," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"There wasn't anything to run away from until <i>after</i> he took it. I +<i>know</i>. Whatever 'twas, it come on him suddin. The night before we was +together—and—and he didn't have nothin' on his mind but plans for him +and me ... and he was that happy, Mr. Baines!... I wisht I could make +out what turned a good man into a thief—all in a minute, as you might +say. It's suthin', Mr. Baines, suthin' out of the ordinary, and always I +got a feelin' like I got a right to know."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scattergood, "seems as though you had a right to know."</p> + +<p>"Folks is passin' it about that he's comin' home. Is there any truth +into it?"</p> + +<p>"I calc'late it's jest talk," said Scattergood. "Nobody knows where he +is."</p> + +<p>"He'll come sometime," she said.</p> + +<p>"And you calc'late to keep on waitin' fer him to come?"</p> + +<p>"Until I'm dead—and after that, if it's allowed."</p> + +<p>"I wisht," said Scattergood, "there was suthin' I could do to mend it +all."</p> + +<p>"Nobody kin ever do anythin'," she said.... "But if he should venture +back, calc'latin' it had all blown over and been forgot!... His father'd +see him put in prison—and I—I couldn't bear that, it seems as though."</p> + +<p>"There's a bad thing about borrowin' trouble," said Scattergood. "No +matter how hard you try, you can't ever pay it back. Wait till he +croaks, and then do your worryin'."</p> + +<p>"I've got a feelin' he's goin' to come," she said, and turned away +wearily. "I thought maybe you'd know. That's why I came in, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mattie. G'-by. Come ag'in when you feel that way, and you +needn't to buy no tack hammer for an excuse."</p> + +<p>Scattergood slumped down in his chair on the store's piazza, and began +pulling his round cheeks as if he had taken up with some new method of +massage. It was a sign of inward disturbance. Presently a hand stole +downward to the laces of his shoes—a gesture purely automatic—and in a +moment, to the accompaniment of a sigh of relief, his broad feet were +released from bondage and his liberty-loving toes were wriggling with +delight. Any resident of Coldriver passing at that moment could have +told you Scattergood Baines was wrestling with some grave difficulty.</p> + +<p>"It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that ever'body has a reason +for ever'thing, except lunatics, and lunatics think they got a reason. +Now, Mavin he wa'n't no lunatic. He wouldn't have stole church money and +run off the night before his weddin' jest to exercise his feet. They +hain't no reason, as I recall it, why he needed two hunderd dollars. +Unless it was to git married on.... And instid of that, it busted up the +weddin'. I calc'late that matter wa'n't looked into sharp enough ... and +eight years has gone by. Lots of grass grows up to cover old paths in +eight year."</p> + +<p>A small boy was passing at the moment, giving an imitation of a cowboy +pursuing Indians. Scattergood called to him.</p> + +<p>"Hey, bub! Scurry around and see if ye kin find Marvin Preston. Uh-huh! +'F ye see him, tell him I'm a-settin' here on the piazza."</p> + +<p>The small boy dug his toes into the dust and disappeared up the street. +Presently Marvin Preston appeared in answer to the indirect summons.</p> + +<p>"How be ye, Marvin? Stock doin' well?"</p> + +<p>"Fust class. See the critter they're figgerin' on barbecuin'? He's a +sample."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Lived here quite a spell, hain't you, Marvin? Quite a spell?"</p> + +<p>"Born here, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Know lots of folks, don't ye? Got acquainted consid'able in town and +the surroundin' country?"</p> + +<p>"A feller 'u'd be apt to in fifty-five year."</p> + +<p>"Call to mind the Meggses that used to live here?"</p> + +<p>"Place next to the Newton farm. Recollect 'em well."</p> + +<p>"Lived next to Ol' Man Newton, eh? Forgot that." Scattergood had not +forgotten it, but quite the contrary. His interest in the Meggses was +negligible; his purpose in mentioning them was to approach the Newtons +circuitously and by stealth, as he always approached affairs of +importance to him.</p> + +<p>"Know 'em well? Know 'em as well's you knowed the Newtons?"</p> + +<p>"Not by no means. I've knowed Ol' Man Newton better 'n 'most anybody, +seems as though."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Le's see.... Had a son, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Run off with the organ money," said Marvin, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Remembered suthin' about him. Quite a while back."</p> + +<p>"Eight year. Allus recall the date on account of sellin' a Holstein +heifer to Avery Sutphin the mornin' follerin' ... fer cash."</p> + +<p>"Him that was dep'ty sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"That's the feller."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Ever git a notion what young Mavin up and stole that money fer?"</p> + +<p>"Inborn cussedness, I calc'late."</p> + +<p>"Allus seemed to me like Ol' Man Newton might 'a' made restitution of +that there money," said Scattergood, tentatively.</p> + +<p>"H'm!" Marvin cleared his throat and glanced up the street. "Seein's how +it's you, I dunno but what I kin tell you suthin' you hain't heard, nor +nobody else. Young Mavin sent that there money back to his father in a +letter to be give to the church—and the ol' man <i>burned</i> it. That's +what he up and done. Two hunderd good dollars went up in smoke. Said +they was crimes that was beyond restitution or forgiveness, and robbin' +the House of God was one of 'em."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Now, Marvin, I'd be mighty curious to learn if the ol' man got +that information from God himself or if it come out of his own head.... +No matter, I calc'late. 'Twan't credit with the church young Mavin was +after when he sent back the money, and the Lord <i>he</i> knows the money +come, if the organ fund never did find it out."</p> + +<p>"Guess I'll take a walk down to Spackles's and look over the steer. They +tell me he dressed clost to nine hunderd. Hope they contrive to cook him +through and through. Never see a barbecued critter yit that was done.... +Folks is beginnin' to git here. Guess they won't be a spare bedroom in +town that hain't full up."</p> + +<p>Scattergood pulled on his shoes and, leaving his store to take care of +itself, walked up the road, turned across the mowing which had been +metamorphosed into an athletic field, trusted his weight to the +temporary bridge across the brook, and scrambled up the bank to the +great oven where the steer was to be baked, and where the potato hole +was ready to receive twenty bushels of potatoes and the arch was ready +to receive the sugar vat in which two thousand ears of corn were to be +steamed. Pliny Pickett was in charge, with Ulysses Watts, sheriff, and +Coroner Bogle as assistants. They had fired up already, and were sitting +blissfully by in the blistering heat, bragging about the sort of meal +they were going to purvey, and speculating on whether the imported band +would play enough, and how the ball games would come out, and naming +over the folks who were expected to arrive from distant parts.</p> + +<p>"This here town team hain't what it was ten year ago," said the sheriff. +"In them days the boys knowed how to play ball. There was me 'n' Will +Pratt and Pliny here 'n' Avery Sutphin, that was sheriff 'fore I +was...."</p> + +<p>"What ever become of Avery?" Pliny asked.</p> + +<p>"Went West. Heard suthin' about him a spell back, but don't call to mind +what it was. Wonder if he'll be comin' back with the rest?"</p> + +<p>"Dunno. Think there's anythin' in the rumor that Mavin Newton's comin'?" +"Hope not," said the sheriff, assuming an official look and feeling of +the suspender to which was affixed his badge of office. "Don't want to +have no arrestin' to do durin' Old Home Week."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to take him in if he comes?"</p> + +<p>"Duty," said Sheriff Watts, "is duty."</p> + +<p>"When it hain't a pleasure," said Scattergood. "Recall what place Avery +Sutphin went to?"</p> + +<p>"Seems like it was Oswego. Some'eres out West like that."</p> + +<p>"Wisht all the town 'u'd quit traipsin' over here," said Pliny. "Never +see sich curiosity. They needn't to think they're goin' to git a look at +the critter while he's a-cookin'. No, siree. Nobody but this here +committee sees him till he's took out final, ready fer eatin'."</p> + +<p>All that day visitors arrived in town. They drove in, came by train and +by stage—and walked. There was no house whose ready hospitality was not +taxed to its capacity, and the ladies in charge of the restaurant in +Masonic Hall became frantic and sent out hysterical messengers for more +food and more help. Every house was dressed in flags and bunting. Even +Deacon Pettybone, reputed to be the "nearest" inhabitant of the village, +flew one small cotton flag, reputed to have cost fifteen cents, from his +front stoop. The bridge was so covered with red, white, and blue as to +quite lose its identity as a bridge and to become one of the wonders of +the world, to be talked about for a decade. As one looked up the street +a similarity of motion, almost machinelike, was apparent. It was an +endless shaking of hands as old friend met old friend joyously.</p> + +<p>"Bet ye don't know who I be?"</p> + +<p>"I'd 'a' know'd you in Chiny. You're Mort Whittaker's wife—her that was +Ida Janes. Hair hain't so red as what it was."</p> + +<p>"You've took on flesh some, but otherwise—'Member the time you took me +to the dance at Tupper Falls—"</p> + +<p>"An' we got mired crossin'—"</p> + +<p>"An' Sam Kettleman come in a plug hat."</p> + +<p>This conversation, or its counterpart, was repeated wherever resident +and visitor met. Old days lived again. Ancient men became middle-aged, +and middle-aged women became girls. The past was brought to life and +lived again. Sometimes it was brought to life a bit tediously, as when +old Jethro Hammond, postmaster of Coldriver twenty years ago, made a +speech seventy minutes long, which consisted in naming and locating +every house that existed in his day, and describing with minute detail +who lived in it and what part they played in the affairs of the +community. But the audience forgave him, because it knew what a good +time he was having.... Houses were invaded by perfect strangers who +insisted in pointing out the rooms in which they were born and in which +they had been married, and in telling the present proprietors how +fortunate they were to live in dwellings thus blessed.</p> + +<p>The band arrived and met with universal satisfaction, though Lafe Atwell +complained that he hadn't ever see a snare drummer with whiskers. But +their coats were red, with gorgeous frogs, and their trousers were sky +blue, with gold stripes, and the drum major could whirl his baton in a +manner every boy in town would be imitating with the handle of the +ancestral broom for months to come.... Through it all Scattergood Baines +sat on the piazza and beamed upon the world, and rejoiced in the +goodness thereof.</p> + +<p>Only one resident took no part in the holiday making, and that was Old +Man Newton, who had closed his house, drawn the blinds, and refused to +make himself visible while the celebration lasted. He took a savage +pleasure in thus making himself conspicuous, knowing well how his +conduct would be discussed, and viewing himself as a righteous man +suffering for the sins of another.</p> + +<p>In the darkness of the evening street Mattie Strong accosted Scattergood +that evening, clinging to his arm tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," she whispered, affrightedly, "he's come!"</p> + +<p>"Who's come?"</p> + +<p>"Mavin Newton—he's here, in town."</p> + +<p>Scattergood frowned. "See him?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't seen him, but he's here. I kin feel him. I knowed it the minute +he come."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I've seen everybody here, and <i>I</i> hain't seen him."</p> + +<p>"He's here, jest the same. I'm a-lookin' fer him. Whatever name he come +under, or however he looks, I'll know him. I couldn't make no mistake +about Mavin."</p> + +<p>"Mattie, I hope 'tain't so.... I hope you're mistook."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know whether I hope so or not. I—Oh, Mr. Baines, I'd rather +be with him, a-comfortin' him and standin' by him, no matter what he +done—"</p> + +<p>Scattergood patted her arm. "I calc'late," he said, softly, "that God +hain't never invented no institution that beats the love of a good +woman.... I'll look around, Mattie.... I'll look around."</p> + +<p>It was the next morning, at the ball game, when Mattie spoke to +Scattergood again.</p> + +<p>"I've seen him," she whispered, and there was a note of happiness in her +voice and a look of renewed youth in her eyes. "He's here, like I said."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>Mattie lowered her voice farther still. "Look at the band," she said.</p> + +<p>"Nobody resembles him there," said Scattergood, after a minute.</p> + +<p>"Wait till they stop playin'—and then see if they hain't somebody +there that takes holt of the fingers of his right hand, one after the +other, and kind of twists 'em.... Look sharp. Mavin he allus done that +when he was nervous—allus. I'd know him by it, anywheres."</p> + +<p>Scattergood watched. Presently the "piece" ended and the musicians laid +down their instruments and eased back in their chairs.</p> + +<p>"Look," said Mattie.</p> + +<p>The bearded snare drummer was performing a queer antic. It was as if his +fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he +drummed. No, he was tightening them so they wouldn't fall off. One +finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to +make certain they were secure.</p> + +<p>"I—knowed he'd come," Mattie said, happily.</p> + +<p>"Um!... This here's kind of untoward. You keep your mouth shet, Mattie +Strong. Don't you go near that feller till I tell you. We don't want a +rumpus to spoil this here week."</p> + +<p>"But he's here.... He's here."</p> + +<p>"So's trouble," said Scattergood, succinctly.</p> + +<p>The rest of that day Scattergood busied himself in searching out old +friends and neighbors of the Newtons. Nothing seemed to interest him +which happened later than eight years before, but no event of that +period was too slight or inconsequential to receive his attention and to +be filed away in his shrewd old brain. He was looking for the answer to +a question, and the answer was piled under the rubbish of eight years of +human activities—a hopeless quest to any but Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Comedy and tragedy were alike interesting to him. Just as he lost no +detail of the old man's conduct when his boy disappeared, so he listened +and laughed when Martin Banks recalled to a group how Old Man Newton had +fallen under the suspicion of bootlegging and how the town had seethed +with the downfall of an elder of the church—and all because the old man +had imported two cases, each of a dozen bottles of the Siwash Indian +Stomach Bitters recommended to cure his dyspepsia. There had been a +moment, said Banks, when the town expected to see Newton shut up in the +calaboose under the post office—until the true contents of those cases +was revealed.</p> + +<p>During the afternoon Scattergood sent six telegrams to as many different +cities. Late that night he received replies, and sent one long message +to an individual high in office in the state. It was an urgent message, +amounting to a command, for in his own commonwealth Scattergood Baines +was able to command when the need required.</p> + +<p>"It's an off chance," he said to himself, "but it's what might 'a' +happened, and if it might 'a' happened, maybe it did happen...."</p> + +<p>Wednesday afternoon the band was thrown into consternation, and the town +into a paroxysm of excitement and speculation, when Sheriff Watts +ascended the platform of the musicians and, placing a heavy hand on the +shoulder of the snare drummer, said, loudly, "Mavin Newton, I arrest ye +in the name of the law."</p> + +<p>Not a soul in that breathless crowd was there who failed to see Mattie +Strong point her finger in the face of Scattergood Baines, and to hear +her utter the one word, "<i>Shame!</i>" Nor did any fail to see her take her +place at the side of the bearded drummer, with her fingers clutching his +arm, and walk to the door of the jail under the post office with the +prisoner.</p> + +<p>Then the word was passed about that the hearing would take place before +Justice of the Peace Bender that very evening. So great was the public +clamor that the justice agreed to hold court in the town hall instead of +in his office; and it was rumored that Johnnie Bones, Scattergood +Baines's own lawyer, had been appointed special prosecutor by the +Governor of the state.</p> + +<p>Opinion ran against Scattergood. It was free and outspoken. Townsfolk +and visitors alike felt that Scattergood had done ill in bringing the +young man to justice—especially at such a time. He should have let +sleeping dogs lie.... And when it heard that Sheriff Watts had carried a +subpoena to Mavin Newton's father, compelling his presence as a witness +against his own son, there arose a wind of disapproval which quite swept +Scattergood from the esteem of the community.</p> + +<p>But the town came to the hearing. In the beginning it was a +cut-and-dried affair. The facts of the crime were established with dry +precision. Then Johnnie Bones called the name of a witness, and the +audience stiffened to attention. Even Old Man Newton, sitting with bowed +head and scowling brow, lifted his eyes to the face of the young lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Avery Sutphin," said Johnnie Bones, and the former sheriff, wearing +such a haircut as Coldriver seldom saw within its corporate limits, and +clothed in such clothing as it had never seen there, was brought through +the door by two strangers of official look. He seated himself in the +witness chair.</p> + +<p>"You are Avery Sutphin, former sheriff of this town?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Where do you reside?"</p> + +<p>"In the state penitentiary," said Avery, seeking to hide his face.</p> + +<p>"Do you know Mavin Newton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When did you last see him?"</p> + +<p>"It was the night of June twelfth, eight year ago."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"In his father's barn."</p> + +<p>"What was he doing?"</p> + +<p>"Milkin'," said Avery.</p> + +<p>"You went to see him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"To git some money out of him."</p> + +<p>"Did he owe you money?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How much money did you go to get?"</p> + +<p>"Two hunderd dollars."</p> + +<p>"Did you get it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you know what money it was?"</p> + +<p>"Church-organ money. He told me."</p> + +<p>"Why did he give it to you?"</p> + +<p>"I made him."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Lemme tell it my own way—if I got to tell it.... He'd took my girl, +and I never liked him, anyhow.... There'd been rumors his old man was +bootleggin'. Nothin' to it, of course, and I knowed that. And I needed +some money. Bought a beef critter off'n Marvin Preston next day. So I +went to Mavin and says I was goin' to arrest his old man because I'd +ketched him sellin' liquor, and Mavin he begged me I shouldn't. I told +him the old man would git ten year, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"What did Mavin say to that?"</p> + +<p>"He jest bowed his head and kind of leaned against the stall."</p> + +<p>"Then what?"</p> + +<p>"I let on I needed money, and told him if he'd gimme two hunderd dollars +I'd destroy the evidence and let the old man go. He says he didn't have +the money, and I says he had the organ money. He didn't say nothin' for +a spell, and then he says, kind of low, and wonderin', 'Which 'u'd be +the worst? Which 'u'd be the worst?' Then I says, 'Worst what?' And he +says for his father to be ketched for a bootlegger or for him to be a +thief.... I jest let him think about it, and didn't say nothin', because +I knowed how he looked up to his old man.</p> + +<p>"Pretty soon he says: 'I'd be a thief, 'cause I couldn't explain. I'd +have to run off—and leave Mattie, that I'm a-goin' to marry +to-morrer.... I could pay it back, but that wouldn't do no good.... But +for father to be arrested, him an elder, and all, would kill him. I +couldn't bear for father to be shamed 'fore all the world or to be +thought guilty of sich a thing.... He's wuth a heap more 'n I be, and he +won't never do it ag'in.' Then he asks if I'll give a letter to his old +man, and I says yes. He walked up and down for maybe a quarter of an +hour, talkin' to himself, and kind of fightin' it out, but I knowed what +he'd do, right along. At the end he come over and says: 'This here means +ruinin' my life and breakin' Mattie's heart ... but I calc'late that's +better 'n holdin' father up to scorn and seein' him in jail.... If they +was only some other way!' His voice was stiddylike, but he was right +pale and his eyes was a-shinin'. I remember how they was a-shinin'. 'I +calc'late,' he says, 'that I kin bear it fer father's sake.' Then he +says to me, kind of fierce, 'If ever you let on to anybody why I done +this, if it's in a hunderd years, I'll come back and kill you.' For a +while he kept still again, and then he went in the house and got the +money, and wrote a letter to his old man, and I promised to give it to +him—but I tore it up."</p> + +<p>"What did the letter say?"</p> + +<p>"It just said somethin' to the effect that he was willin' to do what he +done if his old man would give over breakin' the law and go to livin' +upright like he always done, and that he hoped maybe God seen a +difference in stealin' on account of the reasons folks had for doin' +it—but if God didn't make no difference, why, he'd rather bear it than +have it fall on his old man."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I took the money and come away. And he run away. And that's all."</p> + +<p>The town hall was very still. The stillness of it seemed to pierce and +hurt.... Then it was broken by a cry, a hoarse cry, wrenched from the +soul of a man. "My boy!... My boy!..." Old Elder Newton was on his +feet, tottering toward his son, and before his son he sank upon his +knees and buried his hard, weathered old face upon Mavin's knees.</p> + +<p>Justice of the Peace Bender cleared his throat.</p> + +<p>"This here," he said, "looks to me to be suthin' the folks of this town, +the friends and neighbors of this here father and son, ought to settle, +instid of the law. Maybe it hain't legal, but I dunno who's to +interfere.... Folks, what ought to be done to this here boy that done a +crime and suffered the consequences of it, jest to save his father from +another crime the old man never done a-tall?"</p> + +<p>Neither Mavin nor his father heard. The old elder was muttering over and +over, "My boy that was dead and is alive again...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood arose silently and pointed to the door, and the crowd +withdrew silently, withdrew to group about the entrance outside and to +wait. They were patient. It was an hour before Elder Newton descended, +his son on one side and Mattie Strong on the other.... The band, with a +volunteer drummer, lifted its joyous voice, and, looking up, the trio +faced a banner upon which Scattergood had caused to be painted, "Welcome +Home, Mavin Newton."</p> + +<p>Coldriver had taken judicial action and thus voiced its decision.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jason Locker, who was Sam Kettleman's rival in Coldriver's grocery +industry, was a trifle too amenable to modern ideas at times. He took +notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could +do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and +make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade +he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two +parades.</p> + +<p>Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed +Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference +was as to when and exactly <i>how</i> Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They +were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to +sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the +counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of +olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and +pronounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which +Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew +accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was +rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered.</p> + +<p>But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably +pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current +fashions, made her appearance in a space cleared in the middle of the +store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new +brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far.</p> + +<p>It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being +demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It +came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the +young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner +of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country +making coffee for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wearing a smile for +everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore +observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her +frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger +women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the +advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from +their midst.</p> + +<p>But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette +Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped +about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no +pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst.</p> + +<p>"Looks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon +Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' <i>as</i> well <i>as</i> proper +follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be +expected to ensue."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say +it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette—that way. Looks like +French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for +seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask +her."</p> + +<p>"Names don't count," said Old Man Bogle, oracularly. "She hain't to +blame for pickin' her name. Her ma gave it to her out of a book, seems +as though. Nevertheless, 'tain't no fit name for a woman, and, so fur's +I kin see, she fits her name like Ovid Nixon's tailor pants fits his +laigs."</p> + +<p>"She's light," said the elder.</p> + +<p>"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she +was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly +wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't +nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her."</p> + +<p>"While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup," +said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to +me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John +the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a +deacon of the church."</p> + +<p>"She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was +willin'."</p> + +<p>"I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes, +"that she hain't no stranger to wearin' <i>tights.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the +deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty +satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite +different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a +clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em."</p> + +<p>"My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle, +tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly.</p> + +<p>"How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with +the wiles of it?"</p> + +<p>"He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the +path."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle, +waggling his head.</p> + +<p>"Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon. +"Look.... Comin' acrost the bridge. There's Locker's boy and that there +Wife-ette, and him lookin' like he'd enjoy divin' down her throat."</p> + +<p>"Poor Jason," said the elder, "he's reapin' the whirlwind."</p> + +<p>"Kin he be blind?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody ought to take Jason off to one side and give him warnin'."</p> + +<p>The deacon considered, puckering his thin lips and cocking a hard old +eye. "'Tain't fer us to meddle," he said, righteously. "They's a divine +plan in ever'thing, and we hain't able to see what's behind all this +here. We'll jest set and wait the outcome."</p> + +<p>That is what all Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with +ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or +gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went +undiscussed. Nobody in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the +coffee demonstrator—with the one exception of Homer's father, who was +too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice anything +else.</p> + +<p>On the fourth evening of Yvette's stay in Coldriver there was a dance in +the town hall. Especial interest immediately attached to this affair +because of the speculations as to whether Homer would be so rash as to +invite Yvette as his partner. The village refused to believe the young +man would fail them and remain away. That would be a calamity not easily +endured, so it set itself to plan its actions in case she made her +appearance. It wondered, how she would dress and how she would behave.</p> + +<p>Every girl in the village who possessed clear title to a young man knew +exactly how <i>she</i> would deport herself. The night before the dance no +less than a score of young men were informed with finality that they +were not to dance with the stranger, nor to be seen in her vicinity. +Norma Grainger expressed the will of all when she told Will Peasley that +if he danced one dance with that coffee girl she would up and go home +alone. In the beginning there was no definite concerted action; it was +assured, however, that Yvette would have few partners.</p> + +<p>Homer did not disappoint his friends. During the first dance he entered +the hall with Yvette, and the music all but stopped to stare. Undeniably +she was pretty. It was not her prettiness the women resented, however, +but her air and her clothes. Actually she wore a dress cut low at the +neck, and sleeveless. Coldriver had heard of such garments, and there +were those who actually believed them to exist and to be worn by certain +women in European society among kings and dukes and other frightfully +immoral people. But that one should ever make its appearance in +Coldriver, under their very eyes, was a thing so startling, so +outrageous, as almost to demand the spontaneous formation of a vigilance +committee.</p> + +<p>Even yet there was no concerted action, but sentiment was crystallizing. +Homer and Yvette danced three dances, and Homer's face began to wear a +scowl. No less than five young men approached by him with the purpose of +securing them as partners for Yvette declined with brevity.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you??" he demanded, belligerently. "There hain't +no pertier girl nor no better dancer on the floor."</p> + +<p>"Mebby so. Hain't noticed. Got all <i>my</i> dances took."</p> + +<p>"Me too. My girl she says—"</p> + +<p>"She says what?" snapped Homer.</p> + +<p>"She says she'll go home if I dance with yourn."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> say," said Homer, with set jaw, "that you fellers is goin' to +dance with Yvette, or there's goin' to be more fights in Coldriver 'n +Coldriver ever see before. That's <i>my</i> say."</p> + +<p>He announced he would be back after the next dance, and that <i>somebody</i> +would dance with Yvette. "The feller that refuses," said he, "goes +outside with me."</p> + +<p>He went back to Yvette, who, not lacking in shrewdness, sensed something +of the situation.</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't come," she said, uneasily.</p> + +<p>"I don't ... if you hain't got no objection to dancin' jest with me."</p> + +<p>"It'll look queer if I dance all of them with you."</p> + +<p>"Jest ask me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd +want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I +wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with +you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille."</p> + +<p>Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the +floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two +couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there. +All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in the middle."</p> + +<p>Homer and Yvette approached that square where three couples awaited the +fourth to complete their set. They took their places, to the manifest +embarrassment of the other six. Suddenly Norma Grainger whispered +something to her young man and tugged at his arm. He looked sidewise, +sheepishly, at Homer, and hung back.</p> + +<p>"You come right along," said Norma. "I hain't goin' to have it said of +me that I danced in no set with her."</p> + +<p>"Nor me," said Marion Towne, also tugging at her escort.</p> + +<p>The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast +glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and +walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left +standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes.</p> + +<p>Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then—for in his ungainly +body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without +which none may be called a gentleman—he offered his arm to Yvette. "I +guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful +shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood +Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from +the room.</p> + +<p>"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say."</p> + +<p>"It—it's not your fault," she said, tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have gone."</p> + +<p>"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the +pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with <i>me</i>, be you?"</p> + +<p>"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I—I ought to be used to it. I—" +She began to cry.</p> + +<p>It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but +he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a +pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to +press her to him none too gently.</p> + +<p>"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he +kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash +all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that +task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he +said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to +marry me, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know.... You—you don't know anything about me."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I know enough," he said.</p> + +<p>"Your folks wouldn't put up with it."</p> + +<p>"Huh!"</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Then she said, brokenly: "I must go away. I can't +ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and +talking about me.... I want to go away to-night."</p> + +<p>"You sha'n't. Nor no other time, neither."</p> + +<p>And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines's voice. +"Hain't calc'latin' to bust the gal, be you?... Jest happened along to +say the deacon's been talkin' to your pa about you 'n' her, and your +pa's het up consid'able. He's startin' out to look fer you. Lucky I come +along, wa'n't it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm of age," said Homer, aggressively.</p> + +<p>"Lots is," said Scattergood. "'Tain't nothin' to take special pride +in.... Homer, I've watched you raised from a colt, hain't I? Be you +willin' to kind of leave this here to me a spell? I sort of want to look +into things. You go along about your business and leave me talk to +Wife-ette here.... Made up your mind you want her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"She want you?"</p> + +<p>"I—What business is it of yours?" Yvette demanded, angrily. "Who are +you? What are you interfering for?"</p> + +<p>"Kind of a habit with me," said Scattergood, "and my wife hain't ever +been able to cure me, even puttin' things in my coffee on the sly.... +G'-by, Homer. And don't go lickin' nobody. G'-by."</p> + +<p>The habit of obedience to Scattergood's customary dismissal was strong +in Coldriver. For more than a generation the town had been trained to +heed it and to trust its affairs to the old hardware merchant. Homer +hesitated, coughed, mumbled good night to Yvette, and slouched away.</p> + +<p>"There," said Scattergood, "now you and me kin talk. We'll go up to your +room, where nobody kin disturb us." The conventions nor the tongue of +gossip was non-existent to Scattergood Baines, and Yvette, not reared in +a school where trust in men is easily learned, was shrewd enough to +recognize Scattergood's purpose and her own safety.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose you're the local Mr. Fix-it," she said, with sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose," said Scattergood, "that I've knowed Homer sence he was knee +high to a mouse's kitten, and I don't know nothin' about you a-tall. I +gather you're calc'latin' on marryin' Homer.... Mebby you be and mebby +you hain't.... Depends. Come along."</p> + +<p>He led the way to the hotel and allowed Yvette to precede him up the +stairs to her room, which she unlocked and stood aside for him to enter. +He looked about him in the sharp-eyed way characteristic of him, not +omitting to include in his survey the toilet articles on the dresser.</p> + +<p>"Hain't you perty enough without them?" he asked, indicating the lip +stick and rice powder. "Us folks hain't used to 'em, much.... Wunst we +give a home-talent play here, and there come a feller from Boston to +help out. Mis' Blossom was into it, and he come around to paint her up. +She jest give him one look, and says, says she, 'I hain't never painted +my face yit, and I don't calc'late to start in now.' ... I got to admit +she looked kind of pale and peeked amongst the rest, but she stuck to +her principles."</p> + +<p>Yvette stared at Scattergood, nonplused for the first time. What did he +mean? How was she to take him? His face was serene and there was no +glint of humor in his eye.... Yet, somehow, she gathered the idea he was +chuckling inwardly and that there resided in him a broad and tender +toleration for the little antics and makeshifts of mankind. Possibly he +was holding Mrs. Blossom up to her as a model of rectitude; perhaps he +was asking her to laugh with him at a foible of one of his own people. +She wished she knew which.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late on marryin' Homer?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I—"</p> + +<p>"Yes or no—quick."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, lifting her chin bravely.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Knowed him four days, hain't you? Think it's long enough? Plenty +of time to figger it all out?"</p> + +<p>She sat down on the bed, drooping wearily. "I'm tired," she said, "awful +tired. I can't stand this life any longer. I've got to have a place to +rest."</p> + +<p>"Hain't goin' to have Homer used for no sanitorium," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I like him," said Yvette.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't enough. Up this way folks mostly loves when they git +married—or owns adjoinin' timber."</p> + +<p>Again she was at a loss. What did he mean? If he would only smile!</p> + +<p>"I—I've got a feeling I could <i>trust</i> him," she said, "and he'd be good +to me."</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> would," said Scattergood. "I hain't worritin' about his dealin' +with you; it's your dealin' with him I'm questionin' into."</p> + +<p>"I'd—. He wouldn't be sorry."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Nate Weaver, back country a spell, is lookin' fer a wife. Hain't +young. Got lots of money, and the right woman could weasel it out of +him. Lots of it.... He'd like you fine. Homer won't have much, and if +his pa keeps on feelin' like he does, he won't have none.... If you're +lookin' fer a restin' place, you might consider Nate. I could fix it." +Her eyes flashed. "I haven't come to that yet," she said, sharply, and +then began to cry quietly.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." Scattergood gripped his pudgy hands together so that each might +restrain the other from patting her head comfortingly. "Um!... What's +your name?"</p> + +<p>"My name?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... 'Tain't Wife-ette Hinchbrooke. They hain't no sich name. +'Tain't human.... What's your real one?"</p> + +<p>"Eva Hopkins."</p> + +<p>"How'd you come to change?"</p> + +<p>"A girl's got a right to call herself anything she wants to," she said, +defensively.</p> + +<p>"Except Mrs. Homer Locker," said Scattergood, dryly. "Now jest come +off'n your high hoss, and we'll talk. When we git through, we'll +<i>do</i>.... Either you'll take the mornin' train out of Coldriver, or +you'll stay and we'll see. Depends on what I hear."</p> + +<p>"I could lie," she said.</p> + +<p>"Folks don't gen'ally lie to <i>me</i>," said Scattergood, gently. "They +found out it didn't pay—and I hain't much give to believin' nothin' but +the truth. We deal in it a lot up this here way."</p> + +<p>"I hate your people and their dealings."</p> + +<p>"Don't wonder at it. I seen what they done to you to-night.... But you +don't know 'em like I do. They's times when they act cold and ha'sh and +nigh to cruel, but that hain't when they're real. Them times they're +jest makin' b'lieve, 'cause they hain't got no idee what they ought to +do.... I've knowed 'em these thirty year—right down <i>knowed</i> 'em. Lemme +tell you they hain't a finer folks on earth, bar nobody. They don't show +much outside, but the insides is right. You kin find more kindness and +charity and long-sufferin' and tenderness and goodness right here +amongst the cantankerous-seemin' of Coldriver 'n you kin find anywheres +else on earth.... They're narrer, Eva, and they got sot notions, but +they got a power to do kindness, once you git 'em started at it, that +hain't to be beat.... I kind of calculate God hain't so disapp'inted +with the folks of Coldriver as a stranger might git the idee he is.... +Now we'll go ahead."</p> + +<p>When Scattergood had done asking questions and receiving answers, he sat +silent for a matter of moments. Automatically his hands strayed to the +lacing of his shoes, for his pudgy toes itched for freedom to wiggle. He +dealt with a problem whose complex elements were human emotions and +prejudices, and at such times he found his brain to act more clearly and +efficiently with shoes removed. He detected himself, however, in the act +of untying the laces, and sat upright with ludicrous suddenness.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." he said, in some confusion. "Mandy says I hain't never to do it +when wimmin is around. Dunno why.... Now they's some p'ints I got to +impress on you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Baines," said Yvette, who had reached a condition of respect +and confidence in Scattergood—as most people did upon meeting him face +to face.</p> + +<p>"Fust, Homer hain't no sanitorium for weary wimmin. When you kin come +and say, meanin' it from your heart, 'I love Homer,' then we'll see."</p> + +<p>She nodded acquiescence.</p> + +<p>"Second, it won't never and noways be possible fer you and Homer to live +here onless the folks takes to you. You got to win yourself a welcome in +Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"That means," she said, dully, "that I'd better go."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Hain't you got no backbone? You do like you're told. You stay +where you be. 'Tain't possible fer you to go back to Locker's store, and +that puts you out of a job, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hard up?"</p> + +<p>"I can live a few days—but—"</p> + +<p>"Hain't no buts. You kin live as long as I say so. You stay hitched to +this here hitchin' post, and I'll 'tend to the money. Jest don't do +nothin' but be where you be—and be makin' up your mind if Homer's the +boy you kin love and cherish, or if he's nothin' but a sort of shady +restin' place.... G'-by."</p> + +<p>He got up abruptly and went out. On the bridge he encountered three dark +figures, which, upon inspection, resolved themselves into Old Man Bogle, +Deacon Pettybone, and Elder Hooper.</p> + +<p>"Scattergood," said the elder, "somethin's happened."</p> + +<p>"Somethin' 'most allus does."</p> + +<p>"This here's special and horrifyin'."</p> + +<p>"Havin' to do with what?"</p> + +<p>"That coffee gal, that baggage, that hussy!"</p> + +<p>"Um!... Sich as?"</p> + +<p>"Recall that show Bogle was took to in Boston?"</p> + +<p>"Where the wimmin wore tights—that's been on his mind ever since? +Calc'late I do. Kind of a high spot in Bogle's life. Come nigh bein' the +makin' of him."</p> + +<p>"He claims he recognizes this here gal as one of them dancin' wimmin +that stood in a row with less on to them than any woman ever ought to +have with the lights turned on."</p> + +<p>"No!" exclaimed Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Yep!" said all three of them in chorus.</p> + +<p>"Stood right in front, as I recall it, a-makin' eyes and kickin' up her +heels that immodest you wouldn't b'lieve. Looked right at me, too. I +seen her."</p> + +<p>"Got your money's wuth, then, didn't ye? Wa-al?"</p> + +<p>"Suthin's got to be done."</p> + +<p>"Sich as?"</p> + +<p>"Riddin' the town of her."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead and rid it, then.... G'-by."</p> + +<p>"But we want you sh'u'd help us."</p> + +<p>"G'-by," said Scattergood again, as he moved off ponderously into the +darkness.</p> + +<p>The elder moved nearer Bogle and endeavored to peer into his face. "Be +you sure she's the same one?" he asked, in a confidential whisper.</p> + +<p>"Wa-al—they was about the same heft," said Bogle, "and if this hain't +her, it ought to be. I kin b'lieve it, can't I? Got a right to b'lieve +it, hain't I? Good fer the town to b'lieve it, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late 'tis."</p> + +<p>"All right, then. I aim to keep on b'lievin' it."</p> + +<p>Next day Homer Locker abandoned his work and with the utmost brazenness +hired a rig at the livery and drove to the hotel. A group of notables +assembled upon the bridge to watch the event. They saw him emerge from +the inn with Yvette, help her into the buggy with great solicitude, and +drive away. They did not return until supper time was long past.</p> + +<p>"I'm determined to git this settled one way or t'other," said Homer, +after a long pause. "Be you goin' to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you want me?" Yvette asked, fixing her eyes on his face. "Is it +just because you think I'm pretty?"</p> + +<p>He considered. It was a hard question for a young man not adept in the +use of words to answer. "'Tain't jest that," he said, finally. "I like +you bein' perty. But it's somethin' else. I hain't able to explain it, +exceptin' that I want you more'n I ever wanted anythin' in my life."</p> + +<p>"Maybe, when I tell you about myself, you won't want me at all."</p> + +<p>He paused again, while she studied his face anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I dunno.... I—. Tell ye what. I want you like I know you. I'm +satisfied. I don't want you to tell me nothin'. I don't want to know +nothin'." He turned and looked with clumsy gravity into her eyes, which +did not waver. "Besides," he said, "I don't believe you got anythin' +discreditable to tell."</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to hear," he said, simply. "I'd rather take you, jest +trustin' you and knowin' in my heart that you're good. Somehow I <i>know</i> +it."</p> + +<p>She bit her lip, her eyes were moist, and she sat very still for a long +time; then she said, softly: "I didn't know men like that lived.... I +didn't know."</p> + +<p>Then again, after the passage of minutes: "I was going to marry you, +Homer, just for a home and a good man and to get peace.... But I sha'n't +do it now. I can't come between you and all your folks—and they +wouldn't have me."</p> + +<p>"You're more to me than everybody else throwed together."</p> + +<p>"No, Homer. Before I didn't think I cared.... I do care, Homer. I—I +love you. I don't mind saying it now.... I'm going away in the morning."</p> + +<p>It was a point they argued all the day, but Yvette was not to be moved, +and Homer was in despair. As he drove into the village that evening, +glum and unhappy, Yvette said: "Stop at Mr. Baines's, please, Homer. I +want to speak to him."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was in his accustomed place before his store, shoes on the +piazza beside him, and his feet, guiltless of socks, reveling in their +liberty.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Yvette, "I've made up my mind to go away to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Um!... To-morrer, eh? Made up your mind you don't want Homer, have ye? +Don't blame ye. He's a mighty humble critter."</p> + +<p>"He's the best man in the world," said Yvette, softly, "and I love +him ... and that—that's why I'm going. I can't stay and make him +miserable."</p> + +<p>Scattergood studied her face a moment, and cleared his throat noisily. +"Hum!... I swan to man! Goin', be ye?... Mebby that's best.... But they +hain't no sich hurry. Be out of a job, won't ye? Uh-huh! Wa-al, you stay +till Thursday mornin' and kind of visit with Homer, and say good-by, and +then you kin go. Thursday mornin'.... Not a minute before."</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"Thursday mornin's the time, I said.... G'-by."</p> + +<p>Next morning Scattergood was absent. He had taken the early train out of +town, as Pliny Pickett reported, on a "whoppin' big deal that come up +suddin in the night." It appeared that for once Scattergood had allowed +business to distract him wholly from his favorite occupation of meddling +in other folks' affairs.... Nobody saw him return, for he drove into +town late Wednesday afternoon and went directly to his home.</p> + +<p>For forty-eight hours during his absence rumor had spread and increased +its girth to astounding dimensions. Old Man Bogle had released his +story. He now recollected Yvette perfectly, and when not restrained by +the modesty of some person of the opposite sex, he described her costume +in the play with minute detail. Hourly he remembered more and more, and +the mouth-to-ear repetitions of his tale embellished it with details +even Old Man Bogle's imagination could not have encompassed.... Before +Wednesday night Yvette had arisen in the estimation of the village to an +eminence of evil never before attained by any visitor to Coldriver.</p> + +<p>Jason Locker forbade his son his home if ever he were seen in the +hussy's company again, and Homer left by the front door.... He announced +his purpose of journeying to the South Seas or New York, or some other +equally strange and dangerous shore. The town seethed. It had been +years since any local sensation approached this high moment.... At half +past six Pliny Pickett, Scattergood's right-hand man and general errand +boy, was seen to approach Homer on the street and to whisper to him. +Pliny always enshrouded his most matter-of-fact errands with voluminous +mystery. "Scattergood wants you sh'u'd see him right off," he said, and +tiptoed away.</p> + +<p>Another sensation occurred that evening. Scattergood Baines went to +prayer meeting in the Methodist church. When word of this was passed +about, the Baptists and Congos deserted their places of worship in +whispering groups and invaded the rival edifice until it was crowded as +it had seldom been before. Scattergood in prayer meeting! Scattergood, +who had never been inside a church since the day of his arrival in +Coldriver, forty years before.... Even Yvette Hinchbrooke and her +affairs sank into insignificance.</p> + +<p>But the amazing presence of Scattergood in church was as nothing to the +epochal fact that, after the prayer and hymn, he was seen slowly to get +to his feet. Scattergood Baines was going to lift up his voice in +meeting!</p> + +<p>"Folks," he said, "I've knowed Coldriver for quite a spell. I've knowed +its good and its bad, but the good outweighs the bad by a darn sight." +The congregation gasped.</p> + +<p>"I run on to a case to-day," he said, and then paused, apparently +thinking better of what he was going to say and taking another course. +"They's one great way to reach folks's hearts and that's through their +sympathy. All of you give up to furrin missions to rescue naked fellers +with rings in their noses. That's sympathy, hain't it? Mebby they hain't +needin' sympathy and cast-off pants, but that's neither here nor there. +You <i>think</i> they do.... Coldriver's great on sympathy, and it's a +doggone upstandin' quality." Again the audience sucked in its breath at +this approach to the language of everyday life.</p> + +<p>"If I was wantin' to stir up your sympathy, I'd tell you about a leetle +feller I seen yestiddy. Mebby I will. He wa'n't no naked heathen, and he +didn't have no ring into his nose. He was jest a boy. Uh-huh! Calculate +he might 'a' been ten year old. Couldn't walk a step. Suthin' ailed his +laigs, and he had to lay around in a chair in one of these here kind of +cheap horspittles. Alone he was. Didn't have no pa nor ma.... But he had +to be looked after by somebody, didn't he? Somebody had to pay them +bills."</p> + +<p>Scattergood blew his nose gustily. "Mebby he could 'a' been cured if +they was money to pay for costly doctorin', but they wa'n't. It took all +that could be got jest to pay for his food and keep.... Patient leetle +feller, too, and gentlelike and cheerful. Kind of took to him, I did."</p> + +<p>He paused, turned slowly, and surveyed the congregation, and frowned at +the door of the church. He coughed. He waited. The congregation turned, +following his eyes, and saw Mandy, Scattergood's ample-bosomed wife, +enter, bearing in her arms the form of a child. She walked to +Scattergood's pew and handed the boy to him. Scattergood held the child +high, so all could see.</p> + +<p>He was a red-haired little fellow, white and thin of face, with +pipe-stem legs that dangled pitifully.</p> + +<p>"I fetched him along," said Scattergood. "I wisht you'd look him over."</p> + +<p>The audience craned its neck, exclaiming, dropping tears. The heart of +Coldriver was well protected, it fancied, by an exterior of harshness +and suspicion, but Coldriver was wrong. Its heart lay near the surface, +easy of access, warm, tender, sympathetic. "This is him," said +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>He turned his face to the child. "Sonny," he said, kindly, "you hain't +got no pa nor ma?" "No, sir," said the little fellow.</p> + +<p>"And you live in one of them horspittles?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"It costs money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"How do you git it, sonny? Tell the folks."</p> + +<p>"Sister," said the child. "She's awful good to me. When she kin, she +stays whole days with me, but she can't stay much on account of havin' +to earn money to pay for me. It takes 'most all she earns.... She's had +to do kinds of work she don't like, on account of it earnin' more money +than nice jobs. We're savin' to have me cured, and then I'm goin' to go +to work and keep <i>her.</i> I got it all planned out while I was layin' +there."</p> + +<p>"Is your sister a bad woman?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody dast say that, even if I hain't got legs. I'd grab somethin' and +throw it at 'em."</p> + +<p>"Was this here sister ever one of them actoresses?"</p> + +<p>"Once, when I was sicker 'n usual ... it was awful costly. That time she +was in a show, 'cause she got more money there. She got enough to pay +for what I needed."</p> + +<p>"Wear tights, sonny? Calc'late she wore tights?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. She told me. She said to me it wasn't wearin' tights that done +harm, and she could be jest as good in tights as wearin' a fur coat if +her heart wasn't bad. That's what she said. Yes, sir, she said she +wouldn't wear nothin' if it had to be done to git me medicine."</p> + +<p>"Um!... What's this here sister's name?"</p> + +<p>"Eva Hopkins."</p> + +<p>Scattergood turned again toward the door. "Homer," he called, and Homer +Locker entered, almost dragging Yvette by the arm.... The congregation +heard one sound. It was a glad, childish cry. "Eva!... Eva!... Here I +am."</p> + +<p>Then it saw Yvette Hinchbrooke wrench free from Homer and run down the +aisle to snatch the child from Scattergood's arms into her own.</p> + +<p>Scattergood stood erect, looking from face to face in silence. It was a +full minute before he spoke.</p> + +<p>"There ..." he said. "You kin see the evil of passin' jedgments. You kin +see the evil of old coots traffickin' in rumors.... What you've heard +the boy tell is all true.... That's the girl you was ready to tar and +feather and run out of town.... Now what you think of yourselves?"</p> + +<p>It was Deacon Pettybone, blinking a mist from his watery blue eyes, who +arose to the moment. "Folks," he said, huskily, "I'm goin' to pass among +you directly, carryin' the collection plate. 'Tain't fer furrin +missions. It's fer that child yonder—to git them legs fixed.... And +standin' here I want to acknowledge to sin in public. I been hard, and +lackin' in charity. I been passin' jedgments, contrairy to God's word. I +been stiff-backed and obdurate, and I calc'late they's others a-sittin' +here that needs prayers for forgiveness.... Now I'm a-comin' with the +plate. Them that hain't prepared to give to-night kin whisper to me what +they'll give to-morrer—and have no fear of my forgittin' the amounts +they pledge.... And I'm askin' forgiveness of the young woman and hopin' +she won't hold it ag'in' an old man—when she settles down here amongst +us, like I hope she'll do."</p> + +<p>"Like she's a-goin' to do," said Jason Locker, with a voice and air of +pride. "Why, folks, that there gal is goin' to be my daughter-in-law!"</p> + +<p>Scattergood patted Yvette on the back heavily, but jubilantly. "I've +diskivered," he said, "that if you can't crack a hick'ry nut with a pad +of butter, you better use a hammer.... Sometimes Coldriver's a nut +needin' a sledge—but when it cracks it's full of meat."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines lounged back in his armchair, reinforced by iron +crosspieces to sustain his weight, and basked in the warmth from the +Round Oak stove, heated to redness by the clean, dry maple within. He +was drowsy. For the time he had ceased even to search for a scheme +whereby he could rid his hardware stock of one dozen sixteen-pound +sledge hammers acquired by him at a recent auction down in Tupper Falls. +His eyes were closed and his soul was at peace.</p> + +<p>Somebody rattled the door knob and then rapped on the door. This was so +unusual a method of seeking entrance to a hardware store that +Scattergood sat up abruptly, blinking.</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," he said, tartly, "be you comin' in, or be you goin' to stand +out there wagglin' that door knob all day?"</p> + +<p>"I'm coming in, Mr. Baines, as soon as I can contrive to open the door," +replied a male voice, a voice that appeared incapable of expressing +impatience; a gentle voice; the voice of a man who would dream dreams +but perform few actions.</p> + +<p>"Um!... It's you, hey? What d'you allus carry books under your arm for? +How d'you calculate to be able to open doors, with both hands full?"</p> + +<p>The knob turned at last, and Nahum Pound, long schoolmaster in the +little district school on Hiper Hill, came in hesitatingly, clutching +with each arm half a dozen books which struggled to escape with the +ingenuity of inanimate objects. Nahum's hair was white; his face was +vague—lovably vague.... A man of considerable, if confused, learning, +he was.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Scattergood. "Got suthin' on to your mind? Commence +unloadin' it before it busts your back."</p> + +<p>"It's Sarah," said Nahum, helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Sairy, eh? What's Sairy up to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to gather, Mr. Baines. She's—she's difficult. Something +seems to be working in her head."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two, hain't she? Twenty-two?... Prob'ly a number of things +a-workin' in her head. Got any special symptoms?"</p> + +<p>"She—she wants to leave home, Mr. Baines." Nahum said this with mild +amazement. His amazement would have been no greater—and not a whit less +mild—had his daughter announced her intention to swim from New York to +Liverpool, or to marry the chef of the Czar of Russia.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Can't say's that's onnatural—so's to require callin' in a +doctor. Live five mile from town, don't you? Nearest neighbor nigh on to +a mile. Sairy gits to see company only about so often or not so seldom +as that, eh?" Scattergood shut his eyes until there appeared at the +corners of them a network of little wrinkles. "I'm a-goin' to astonish +you, Nahum. This here hain't the first girl that ever come down with the +complaint Sairy's got!... They's been sev'ral. Complaint's older 'n you +or me.... Dum near as old as Deacon Pettybone. Uh-huh!... She's got a +attack of life, Nahum, and the only cure for it ever discovered is to +let her live.... Sairy's woke up out of childhood, Nahum. She's jest +openin' her eyes. Perty soon she'll be stirrin' around brisk.... When +you goin' to drive her in, Nahum? To-morrer?"</p> + +<p>"You—you advise letting her do this thing?"</p> + +<p>"When you goin' to fetch her in, Nahum?" Scattergood repeated.</p> + +<p>"She said she was coming Monday."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Nahum." This was Scattergood's invariable phrase of +dismissal, given to friend or enemy alike. It was characteristic of him +that when he was through with a conversation he ended it—and left no +doubt in anybody's mind that it <i>was</i> ended. Nahum withdrew +apologetically. Scattergood called after him, "Fetch her here—to me," +he said, and, automatically, it seemed, reached for the laces of his +shoes. A problem had been presented to him which required a deal of +solving, and Scattergood could not concentrate with toes imprisoned in +leather. He even removed the white woolen socks which Mandy, his wife, +compelled him to wear in the winter season. Presently he was twiddling +his pudgy toes and concentrating on Sarah Pound. He waggled his head. +"After livin' out there," he said to himself, "she'll think Coldriver's +livin'—and so 'tis, so 'tis.... More sometimes 'n 'tis others. +Calculate this is like to be one of 'em...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was just thinking about dinner on Monday when Nahum Pound +brought his daughter Sarah into the store. One glance at Sarah's face +taught Scattergood that she was in suspicious, if not defiant, mood. If +he had a doubt of the correctness of his observation, Sarah removed it +efficiently.</p> + +<p>"Scattergood Baines," she said, "if you think you're going to boss me +like you do father, and everybody else in this town, you're mistaken. I +won't have it.... Understand that, I won't have it."</p> + +<p>Scattergood rubbed his chin and puffed out his fat cheeks, and smiled +with deceiving mildness. "Sairy," he said, "you needn't to be scairt of +my interferin' with you in your goin's and comin's. I'd sooner stick my +hand into a kittle of b'ilin' pitch than to meddle with a young woman +in your state of mind.... I hain't hankerin' to raise no blisters."</p> + +<p>"I won't stay penned up 'way out there in the country another day. I've +got a right to live. I've got a right to see folks and to go places, +and—to—to live!"</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... To be sure. Jest itchin' to kick the top bar off'n the +pasture fence. Most certain you got a right to live, and nobody hain't +goin' to hender you ... least of all me. But there's jest one +observation I'd sort of like to let loose of, and that's this: Your +life's a whole lot like one of your arms and legs—easy busted. To be +sure, it kin be put in splints and mended up ag'in, but maybe you'll go +limpy or knit crooked so's nothin' kin keep the busted place from +showin'. Bearin' that in mind, if I was you, I wouldn't be too careless +about scramblin' up into places where you was apt to git a fall.... I +calc'late, Sairy, that it's better to miss the view than to fall out of +the tree...."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to see the view if I fall out of every tree I climb," Sarah +said, hotly.</p> + +<p>"Don't object if I find you a boardin' house?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to board with Grandma Penny that was—Mrs. Spackles."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded. "G'-by, Sairy.... G'-by, Nahum." He watched father +and daughter leave the store with a twinkle in his eyes, not a twinkle +of humor, but the twinkle that always came when his interest in life, +always keen, was aroused to a point where it tingled. "Calc'late to be +kep' busy—more 'n ordinary busy," he offered as an opinion to be +digested by the Round Oak stove. Presently he added: "She's perty ... +and bein' perty is kind of a remarkable thing ... bein' perty and +young.... Don't seem like God ought to hold folks accountable fer bein' +young, nor yet fer bein' good to look at ... but they's times when it +seems like He does...." On his way back to the store after dinner, +Scattergood stopped at the bank corner, hesitated a moment, and then +mounted the stairs to the offices above. A door bearing the legend, +"Robert Allen, Attorney at Law," admitted him to a large, bare office, +such as one finds in such towns as Coldriver.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Bob?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Mr. Baines," said the young man behind the desk, who had +suddenly pretended to be very much occupied with important matters as +his door opened.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Busy time, eh? Better come back later."</p> + +<p>"No. No, indeed. Take this chair right here, Mr. Baines. What can I do +for you?"</p> + +<p>"Depends. Uh-huh! Depends.... Calc'late to make a perty good livin', +Bob?"</p> + +<p>"No complaints."</p> + +<p>"Studied it yourself, didn't you—out of books? No college?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hard work, wasn't it? Mighty hard work?"</p> + +<p>"It might have been easier," said Bob, wondering what Scattergood was +getting at.</p> + +<p>"Like to be prosecutin' attorney for this county, Bob?"</p> + +<p>Prosecuting attorney! With a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a +year—and the prestige! Bob strove valiantly to maintain a look of +dignified interest, but with ill success.</p> + +<p>"I—I might consider it. Yes, I would consider it."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Figgered you would," said Scattergood, dryly. "Hain't got no +help in the office," he observed. "Need some, don't you? Somebody to +write letters and sort of look after things, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Why—er—I've never thought about it."</p> + +<p>"If you was to think about it, you'd calc'late on payin' about six +dollars a week, wouldn't you?" Bob swallowed hard. Six dollars a week +was a great deal of money to this young man, just embarking on the +practice of his profession. "Guess that would be about right," he said.</p> + +<p>"Got anybody in mind, Bob? Thinkin' of anybody specific for the place?"</p> + +<p>Bob shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Nahum Pound's daughter's boardin' with Grandma Penny, that's now +Mis' Spackles. All-fired perty girl, Bob. Don't call to mind no pertier. +Sairy's her name.... G'-by, Bob. G'-by."</p> + +<p>He walked to the door, but paused. "About that six dollars, Bob—I was +figgerin' on payin' that out of my own pocket."</p> + +<p>Bob Allen was not accustomed to the oversight of employees—least of all +to an employee who was very satisfying to look at, who was winsomely +young, whose mere presence distracted his thoughts from that rigorous +concentration upon the logical principles of the law.... He did not know +what to do with Sarah once he had hired her, and it required so much of +his time and brain power to think up something for her to do that it is +fortunate his practice was neither large nor arduous. It is no mean +tribute to the young man that he kept Sarah so busy with apparently +necessary matters that she had no occasion to doubt the authenticity of +her employment.</p> + +<p>Bob faced a second difficulty, due to his inexperience, and that was +that he was at a loss how to comport himself toward Sarah, as to how +friendly he should be, and as to how much he should maintain a certain +grave dignity and reserve in his dealings with her. This was a matter +which need not have troubled him, for Nature has a way of taking into +her own keeping the bearing of young men toward young women when the two +are thrown much into each other's company. Propinquity is a tremendous +force in the life of humanity. It has caused as many love affairs as +the kicking of other men's dogs has caused street fights—which numbers +into infinity. Consequently, while Bob worried much and selected a +number of widely differing attitudes—a thing which caused Sarah some +uneasiness and no little speculation as to what sort of disposition her +employer possessed—the solution lay not with him at all. It took care +of itself.</p> + +<p>Scattergood noted the significance of symptoms. He made a mental +memorandum of the fact that Bob Allen was seldom to be seen among the +post-office loafers; that Bob preferred his office to any other spot; +that Bob had ordered a new suit from a city tailor; that Bob wore a +constant air of anxiety and excitement, and—most expressive symptom of +all for a Coldriver young man—he became interested in residence +property, in lots, and in the cost of erecting dwellings.... Scattergood +looked in vain for reciprocal symptoms to be shown by Sarah. But Sarah +was a woman. What symptoms she exhibited were meaningless even to +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Bob," said Scattergood, one auspicious day, "got any pref'rence for +prosecutin' attorneys—married or single?"</p> + +<p>"It depends," said Bob, cautiously.</p> + +<p>"Um!... How's Sairy behavin', Bob?"</p> + +<p>"She's—she's—" Bob became incoherent, and then speechless.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I foller you, Bob.... Git your point of view exact.... About +prosecutin' attorneys, Bob, I prefer 'em married."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Bob, "if I could get Sarah Pound to marry me, I +wouldn't give a tinker's dam who was prosecutor."</p> + +<p>"Mishandlin' of fact sim'lar to that," said Scattergood, dryly, "has +been done nigh on to a billion times.... Any idee how Sairy stands on +sich a proposition?"</p> + +<p>"She's about equally fond of me and the letter press," said Bob, +dolefully.</p> + +<p>"Good sign," said Scattergood. Then after a short pause: "Say, Bob, +still rent out drivin' hosses at the livery?... G'-by, Bob."</p> + +<p>Bob was astonished to find how easy it is to ask a girl to go driving +the second time—after you have spent an anxious, dubious, fearsome day +screwing up your courage to ask her the first time. He was delighted, +too, because he even fancied Sarah now discriminated between him and the +letter press—in his favor. Bob came fresh and unsophisticated to the +business in hand, which was courtship. Sarah had never before been +courted, but she recognized a courtship when she saw it at such close +range, and found it delightfully exciting. Bob did his clumsy, earnest, +honest best, and Sarah, somewhat to her surprise, became more satisfied +with the universe and with her share in its destinies.... In short, +matters were progressing as nature intended they should progress, and +Scattergood felt almost that they might be trusted to go forward to a +satisfactory dénouement without his interference.</p> + +<p>Then old Solon Beatty died!</p> + +<p>This solved one of Bob Allen's problems; it furnished plenty of +authentic work for Sarah Pound—for Bob was retained as attorney for old +Solon's estate, which he found to be in an amazing state of confusion. +Old Solon left behind him, reluctantly, property of divers kinds, and in +numerous localities, valued at upward of a hundred thousand dollars, +split and invested into as many enterprises and mortgages and savings +accounts as there were dollars! This made work. There were papers to +sort and list, to file and to schedule—clerical work in abundance. It +interfered with the more important business of courtship, but even in +this respect it was not without a certain value.</p> + +<p>"Who's going to get all this money?" Sarah asked, one morning after she +had been listing mortgages until her head ached with the sight of +figures and descriptions. "Does Mary Beatty get it all?"</p> + +<p>"Not unless we find a will somewhere. Everybody thought Solon's +niece—which is Mary Beatty—would get the whole estate. Solon intended +it should go that way, and the Lord knows she's worked for him and +nursed him and coddled him enough to deserve it. Gave her whole life up +to the old codger ... But we can't find a will, and so she won't get but +half. The rest goes to Solon's nephew, Farley Curtis ... under the +statute of descent and distribution, you know," he finished, learnedly.</p> + +<p>"Farley Curtis.... I never heard of him."</p> + +<p>"He's never been here—at least not for years. But he'll be along now. +We're due to see him soon."</p> + +<p>"Correct," said a voice from the door, which had opened silently. In it +stood a young man of dress and demeanor not indigenous to Coldriver. +"You're due to see Farley Curtis—so you behold him. Look me over +carefully. I was due—therefore I arrive." The young man laughed +pleasantly, as if he intended his words to be regarded as whimsical, +yet, somehow, Bob felt the whimsicality to be surface deep; that Curtis +was a young man with much confidence in himself, who felt that if he +were due he would inevitably arrive.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Allen, I suppose," said Curtis, extending his hand. "I am told you +are handling the legal affairs of my late uncle's estate."</p> + +<p>Sarah Pound eyed the newcomer, and as the young men shook hands compared +them, to Bob Allen's disadvantage. To inexperience any comparison must +be to Bob's disadvantage, for Curtis was handsome, dressed with taste, +and gifted with a worldly certainty of manner and an undeniable charm. +Sarah had never encountered all these attributes in a single individual. +She drew on her reading of fiction and knew at once that she was in the +presence of that wonderful creature she had seen described so +frequently—a gentleman. As for Bob Allen, he was big, rugged, careless +of dress, kindly, without pretense of polish.... And besides, to +Curtis's advantage there attached to him a certain literary glamour—of +heirship—and a mystery due to his sudden appearance out of the great +unknown that lay beyond the confines of Coldriver.</p> + +<p>"I am in the dark," said Curtis. "All I know is that Uncle Solon is +dead. It is proper I should come to you for information, is it not? For +instance, there is no harm in asking if there is a will?"</p> + +<p>"None has been found," said Bob, not graciously. He had taken a dislike +to this stranger instinctively, a dislike which increased at an amazing +pace as he noted Curtis's eyes cast admiring glances upon Sarah Pound.</p> + +<p>"In which case," said the young man, "I suppose I may regard myself as +an interested party."</p> + +<p>"Yourself and Miss Beatty are the heirs—so far as has been determined."</p> + +<p>"You have searched all my uncle's papers?"</p> + +<p>"We have gone through them, but not so thoroughly as to reach a final +conclusion. He was a peculiar old man."</p> + +<p>"And no will has been found? No—other papers—" Curtis smiled +deprecatingly. "It is only natural I should be interested," he said, and +smiled at Sarah.</p> + +<p>"Was there anything special you wanted to ask?"</p> + +<p>"Only if there was a will—or other paper." There was a curious +hesitation in Farley Curtis's voice as he spoke the last two words. "I'm +glad, of course, there's not.... Thank you. Think I'll stay in town till +the thing is settled up. Probably see you often. Pleased to have met +you." He included Sarah in the bow with which he took his leave.</p> + +<p>For a few days Farley Curtis lived at the Coldriver House, then moved +to Grandmother Penny's, where Sarah Pound boarded. Secretly Bob Allen +was furious, without apparent cause. He had no reason to draw +conclusions, for boarding houses were scarce in Coldriver. What Sarah +thought of the event was not so easily discovered.</p> + +<p>Bob would naturally have discussed immediately the significance of +Farley Curtis's arrival in Coldriver, with Scattergood, for everybody in +Coldriver went to Scattergood with whatever important occurrence that +befell, but Scattergood was absent on a political mission. When he +returned Bob lost no time in laying the matter before him.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Calculated he'd turn up. Natural.... Acted kind of anxious, eh? +What was it he said about a will—or somethin'?"</p> + +<p>Bob repeated Curtis's conversation minutely.</p> + +<p>"Um!... That young man didn't suspect—he <i>knew</i>," said Scattergood, +reaching automatically for his shoes. "What he wanted to know was—has +it been found?... Um!... Not a will. Somethin'. Somethin' he's afraid of +bein' found.... Hain't the kind of feller I'd like to see spendin' old +Solon's money.... Guess you and me'll go through them papers ag'in."</p> + +<p>So with minute care Bob and Scattergood examined the documents and +memoranda and receipts and accounts of Solon Beatty, but no will, no +minute reference to Farley Curtis, was discovered. They went again to +Solon's house to question Mary and to rummage there with the hope of +falling upon some such hiding place as the queer old man might have +chosen as the safe depository of his will. Mary Beatty was not helpful; +middle-aged, with wasted youth behind her; she was even resentful that +her meticulous housekeeping should be disturbed.</p> + +<p>Scattergood and Bob sat down in the parlor, discouraged. It was evident +there was no will. Solon had neglected to attend to that matter until +it was too late.... Scattergood wiggled his feet uneasily and stared at +the motto over the door.</p> + +<p>"Solon didn't run much to religion," he observed.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mary Beatty.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Have a Bible, maybe? One of them big ones?"</p> + +<p>"Up in his room, Mr. Baines. It always laid on the table +there—unopened."</p> + +<p>"Opened it yourself lately, Mary? Been readin' the Scriptures out of +that p'tic'lar book?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Got a kind of a hankerin' to read a verse or two," said +Scattergood. "Come on, Bob. You 'n' me'll peruse Solon's Bible some."</p> + +<p>The huge Bible with its Doré illustrations lay on the marble-topped +table in old Solon's bedroom. Scattergood opened it—found it stiff with +lack of use, its pages clinging together as if their gilt edging had +never been broken.... Bob leaned over Scattergood while the old man +rapidly thumbed the pages.... He brought to light a pressed flower, and +shrugged his shoulders. What moment of softness in the life of a hard +old man did this flower commemorate?... A letter whose ink was faded to +illegibility! Even Solon Beatty had once known the rose-leaf scent of +romance.</p> + +<p>"Nothing there," said Bob.</p> + +<p>"The reason folks seldom find things," said Scattergood, "is that they +say 'Nothin' there' before they've half looked.... They might be any +quantity of things in this Bible that we hain't overhauled yet." The old +man stood a moment frowning down at the book. "Births and deaths," he +said to himself. "Births and deaths—and marryin's...." Rapidly he +turned to the illumined pages on which were set down the family records +of the Beattys. "Um!... Jest sich a place as he'd pick out.... What you +make of this, Bob?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood loosened a sheet of paper which had been lightly glued to +the page. "Hain't got my specs, Bob."</p> + +<p>The young lawyer read it, re-read it aloud. "I, Farley Curtis, one of +the two legal heirs of Solon Beatty, of Coldriver Township, do hereby +acknowledge the receipt of ten thousand dollars, the same to be +considered an advance of my share of the said Solon Beatty's estate. +For, and in consideration of the said ten thousand dollars I hereby +waive all claims to any further participation in the said estate, and +agree that I will not, whether the said Solon Beatty dies testate or +intestate, make any claim against the said estate, nor upon Mary Beatty, +who, by this advance to me, becomes sole heir to the said estate.'"</p> + +<p>Bob drew a long breath. Scattergood stared owlishly at Mary Beatty.</p> + +<p>"Now, what d'you think of that, eh? Shouldn't be s'prised if that was +the i-dentical paper that was weighin' on the mind of young Mr. Curtis. +Shouldn't be a mite s'prised if 'twas."</p> + +<p>"What is it, Mr. Baines?" asked Mary Beatty. "A will?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, offhand I'd say it was consid'able better 'n a will. Ya-as.... +Wills kin be busted, but this here docyment—I calc'late it would take +mighty powerful hammerin' to knock it apart."</p> + +<p>"And, Mary," said Bob, "if I were you I shouldn't mention the finding of +it."</p> + +<p>"Not to a soul," said Scattergood. "We'll take it mighty soft and spry +and shet it up in Bob's safe.... Anybody know the combination to it +besides you, Bob?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody but you, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Oh, me!... To be sure, me."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Pound." "Um!... Sairy, eh? Course.... Sairy."</p> + +<p>Within twenty-four hours everybody in Coldriver knew a paper of great +significance had been discovered affecting the heirs to Solon Beatty's +estate, and that the paper was locked in Bob Allen's safe. Bob had not +talked; Scattergood certainly had been silent, and Mary Beatty solemnly +averred that no word had passed her lips. Yet the fact was there for all +to contemplate.... Farley Curtis devoted an entire day to the +contemplation of it in his room at Grandmother Penny's.... That evening +he invited Sarah Pound to drive with him. She found him a delightful and +entertaining companion.</p> + +<p>Sunday was still two days away when Bob looked up from his desk to say +to Sarah: "This Beatty matter has kept us so busy there hasn't been any +time for pleasure. You must be tired out, Miss Pound. Wouldn't you like +to start early Sunday and drive over to White Pine for dinner—and come +back after the sun goes down? It's a beautiful drive."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Sarah, flushing with a feeling that was akin to guilt, +"but I am engaged Sunday."</p> + +<p>Bob turned again to his work, cast into sudden gloom, and wondering +jealously what was Sarah's engagement. Sarah, not altogether easy in her +mind, nor wholly pleased with herself, endeavored to justify herself for +being so lightly off with the old and on with the new.... She compared +Bob to Farley Curtis, and found the comparison not in Bob's favor. Not +that this was exactly a justification, but it was a salve. Sarah was in +the shopping period of her life—shopping for a husband, so to speak. +She was entitled to the best she could get ... and Bob did not seem to +be the best. Farley was sprightly, interesting, with the manners of a +more effete world than Coldriver; Bob was awkward, ofttimes silent, +lacking polish. Farley was solicitous in small matters that Bob failed +utterly to perceive; Farley was always skilled in minute points of +decorum, whose very existence was unknown to Bob. In short, Farley was +altogether fascinating, while Bob, at best, was commonplace. Yet, not in +her objective mind, but deep in her centers of intuition, she was +conscious of a hesitancy, conscious of something that urged her toward +Bob and warned her against Farley Curtis.</p> + +<p>On Sunday Bob saw Sarah drive away with Curtis—and spent a black day of +jealousy and heartburning. During the succeeding two weeks he spent many +black days and sleepless nights, for Curtis monopolized Sarah's leisure, +and Sarah seemed to have thrown discretion to the winds and clothed +herself against fear of Coldriver's gossip, for she seemed to give her +company almost eagerly to the stranger.... And Coldriver talked.</p> + +<p>Bob spoke bitterly of the matter to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." grunted Scattergood, "don't seem to recall any statute +forbiddin' any young feller to git him any gal he kin. Eh?"</p> + +<p>"No. But this Curtis—there's something wrong there. He isn't intending +to play fair.... I—He's got some kind of a purpose, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Think so, eh? What kind of a purpose?" Scattergood had his own ideas on +this subject, but did not disclose them. It was in his mind that Curtis +cultivated Sarah because of Sarah's propinquity of a certain paper which +the man had reason to believe was in Bob Allen's safe.</p> + +<p>Bob's face was set and stern, granite as the hills among which he had +been born and which had become a part of his nature. "If he doesn't play +fair ... if he should—hurt her ... I'd take him apart, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late you would," said Scattergood, tranquilly, "but there's a law +in sich case, made and pervided, callin' that kind of amusement +murder ..."</p> + +<p>It was not Scattergood's custom to publish his emotions; nevertheless +he was worried. He appreciated the state of mind which had brought Sarah +to Coldriver—the spirit of restless, resentful youth, demanding the +world for its plaything. He knew Sarah's high temper, her eagerness for +adventure.... He knew that thousands of girls before her had been +fascinated by well-told tales of the life to be lived out in the world +of cities, of wealth, of artificial gayeties ... the lure of travel, of +excitement.... And Scattergood did not covet the duty of carrying a +woeful story to old Nahum Pound, the gentle schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>His uneasiness was not decreased by a bit of unpremeditated +eavesdropping that fell in his way the next evening.... Farley Curtis +was talking, Sarah Pound was listening—eagerly.</p> + +<p>"You can't understand what living is," the man was saying, "How could +you? You haven't lived. Here in this backwater you will never live.... +You move around in a fog of monotony. Every day the same. But out +there.... Everything! Everything you want and can imagine is there for +the taking. A beautiful woman can take what she wants—that's what it's +all for—for her to help herself to. Life and excitement and +pleasure—and love ... they are all out there waiting."</p> + +<p>Sarah sighed.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever try to imagine Paris, London, Madrid, Rome?" he went on. +"You can't do it.... But you can see them. I—I would take you if you +would let me ... if things fall out right. I'm poor ...but with this +Beatty money I could take you anywhere. It would give us everything we +want.... Half of that money belongs to me rightfully, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"But I may not get it."</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"There is a paper," he said, "and that paper may stand between you and +me—and Paris and Rome and the world...." He paused, and then said, +carelessly: "Won't you go with me, Sarah—away from this? Won't you let +me take you, to love and to make happy?"</p> + +<p>Presently she spoke, so low her voice was scarcely audible to +Scattergood. "I don't know.... I don't know," she said.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had heard enough. He stole away silently. The time had come +to act, if he were going to act ... if no woeful story were to be +carried to old Nahum Pound concerning his daughter. He might even be too +late.... The lure of great cities and foreign shores might have done its +work, and Farley Curtis's eloquence have served its purpose.</p> + +<p>In the morning Bob Allen was early at his office. His first act was to +open the safe to take out a packet of papers he had been laboring over +the afternoon before.... The packet was not where he had placed it the +night before. He remembered distinctly how he had shoved it into a +certain pigeonhole.... It was not there. He found it in the compartment +below.... Bob was not easily startled or frightened, so now he paused +and took his memory to account. No.... The fault was not with his +memory. He had done exactly as he remembered doing.... Somebody had +opened that safe since he closed it; somebody had fingered its +contents.... He caught his breath, not at the fear of loss, but in +sudden terror of the means by which that loss had been brought about, +the person who might have been the instrument.... Furiously he began +going over the contents of the safe—money, securities, papers. +Everything seemed intact. But one thing remained—the little drawer. He +had put off opening that, because he dreaded to open it, for it +contained the paper that excluded Farley Curtis from a share in his +uncle's estate.... Bob compelled himself to turn the little key, to +open the drawer.... It was empty!...</p> + +<p>Bob walked slowly to his desk and sat down, his eyes fixed upon the safe +as if it fascinated him.... Facts, facts! His soul demanded facts. Those +at hand were few, simple. First, the safe had been opened by some one +who knew the combination. Three persons existed who might have opened +it—or betrayed its combination: Scattergood, himself, Sarah Pound.... +Second, he knew he had not opened it nor betrayed the combination. +Third, he was equally certain Scattergood had not done so.... Fourth—he +groaned!...</p> + +<p>Bob comprehended what had happened; why Farley Curtis had wooed so +persistently Sarah Pound. It was not out of love nor desire, but for a +more sordid purpose ... it was to win her love, to blind her to honor, +to make a tool of her, and through her to secure possession of that bit +of paper which stood between him and riches.</p> + +<p>Presently Sarah Pound entered. Bob could not force himself to look at +her; did not speak. She gazed at him curiously, and when she saw the +grayness of his face, the lines about his mouth, and eyes that advanced +his age by twenty years, she felt a little catch at her heart, a +breathlessness, a sudden alarm.</p> + +<p>"Miss Pound," he said, in a voice which he himself could not recognize +as his own, "you needn't take off your hat.... You—you actually came +back here! You were bold enough to come again to this office.... I +fancied you would be gone—from Coldriver." His voice broke queerly. "I +suppose you realize what you have done—and are satisfied with the +price—the price of forfeiting the respect of every honest man and woman +you know! That is a great deal to give up. It ought to command a high +price—treachery.... I hope you are getting a sufficient return.... It +means nothing to you, of course, but—I loved you. I thought about you +as a man thinks about the woman he hopes will be his wife ... and his +children's mother ... so it—pains—to find you despicable...."</p> + +<p>Sarah's little fists clenched, her eyes glinted.</p> + +<p>"How dare you?" she cried. "What affair is it of yours what I do?... +You're a silly, jealous idiot." With which childish invective she flung +out of the office.</p> + +<p>In an hour Bob Allen was calmer, and so the more unhappy. His mind +cleared, and, being cleared, it directed him to carry his trouble to +Scattergood Baines.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Gone, eh?" said Scattergood. "Sure it's gone?... Um!..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Sarah Pound will be gone, too. How dared she come back to my +office?... Now she'll go with Curtis."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't be s'prised," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "I heard +Farley a-pointin' out to her the <i>dee</i>-sirability of Paris and Rome and +sich European p'ints last night.... You calculate Sairy took the paper?"</p> + +<p>"What else can I think?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... Um!... Paris, Rome, London—might be argued into +stealin' it myself, if I was a gal. Um!... Ever see a toad ketch flies, +Bob? Does it with his tongue. There's toad men, Bob, that goes huntin' +wimmin the same way—with their tongues. Su'prisin' the number and +quality they ketch, too. What was you plannin' on doin', Bob? Goin' back +to your office, wasn't you? And keepin' your mouth shet? Was that the +idee? Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Didn't figger on droppin' around to Grandma Penny's boardin' house +about eight sharp, did you? Eight sharp.... And kind of settin' down +quiet on the front porch? Jest settin'? Eh?... G'-by, Bob."</p> + +<p>After Bob left the store Scattergood sat half an hour staring at the +stove; then he left the store to its own devices and wandered up the +street toward Grandmother Penny's. He encountered Sarah Pound as she +came out through the gate.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Sairy?" he said, cheerfully. "Havin' consid'able amusement with +life—eh?"</p> + +<p>"I've been enjoying myself, Mr. Baines," Sarah said, making an effort at +coldness and dignity.</p> + +<p>"Bet you hain't enjoyin' yourself enough to warrant your doin' a favor +for an old feller like me, eh?... This evenin', for instance?"</p> + +<p>"I—I'm going away this evening."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Goin' away, eh? Alone? Or along with somebody?"</p> + +<p>"That's my own affair."</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... To be sure, but the train don't leave till nine, does +it? Couldn't manage to do me a favor at eight?"</p> + +<p>"What is the favor, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't much. Sca'cely anythin' a-tall. I calc'late to be a-settin' in +Grandma Penny's parlor at eight sharp. I won't keep you waitin' more 'n +a second—unless somebody happens to be with me a-talkin' my arm off. If +they hain't nobody with me, why, you walk right in. If they is somebody, +why, you jest stand outside of the door a second, and they'll be gone. +Then you come in. But don't come rompin' in if you hear voices. It's a +mite of business, and 'twon't take but a second. Calc'late you kin +manage that, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Promise?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Sairy."</p> + +<p>At five minutes before eight Scattergood Baines rapped at Grandmother +Penny's door and asked to speak to Farley Curtis, "Tell him it's +somethin' p'tic'lar reegardin' the Beatty estate," he said, and stepped +into the parlor. Farley appeared almost instantly; dapper, his usual +courteous, self-possessed self. Scattergood began a peculiar and +roundabout conversation after the manner of a man who fears to broach a +subject plainly. Farley showed his irritation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," he said, "suppose you get down to business. I'm going away +this evening."</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... To be sure. It's overlappin' eight now, hain't it?" +Scattergood paused, listening. He fancied he heard some one approach and +halt just outside the door. He was certain that a chair creaked on the +porch outside the window.... He cleared his throat and drew a big yellow +envelope from his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I'm ready for business, if you be.... Which d'you calc'late +is most desirable—havin' half a loaf, or no bread?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You come to Coldriver on business, didn't you? Money business?"</p> + +<p>"Why I came is my own affair."</p> + +<p>"Certain.... Certain.... But things gets noised about. Things has got +noised about concernin' a paper that stands betwixt you and half of the +Beatty estate. Heard 'em myself." Scattergood waggled the envelope. "I +hain't exactly objectin' to makin' a leetle quick money +myself—supposin' it kin be done safe, and the blame, if they is any, +throwed somewheres else.... Now, Mr. Curtis, what kind of a course would +you foller if that paper we been talkin' about was to fall into the +hands of a feller that felt like I do about makin' money?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Farley demanded, moving forward eagerly in his +chair.</p> + +<p>"Hain't good at guessin', be you?"</p> + +<p>"That paper doesn't worry me," said Farley. "Calc'lated on havin' it +before you took the train to-night, eh?"</p> + +<p>Farley scowled.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I wasn't seein' sich a chance to make a dollar slip +by. The way you was figgerin' on gittin' that paper, Mr. Curtis, won't +work. I know. Uh-huh! I know, because I got ahead of you. I got that +paper myself.... And we kin deal if I kin be made to feel safe.... Most +things leaks out through wimmin.... Hain't mixin' any wimmin into this, +be you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... How about Sairy Pound?"</p> + +<p>Curtis shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Calc'latin' on takin' her away with you to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Not now," said Farley.</p> + +<p>"Seein's how you can't use her to git this paper for you, eh? That it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated on marryin' her, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Curtis, harshly.</p> + +<p>"Understand me, I hain't takin' chances.... If this gal's mixed up in +this, I don't deal."</p> + +<p>"Do I look like a man who would let a silly, backwoods idiot of a girl +stand between me and money? I'm through with her. She's no use to me +now. You've said that yourself.... She's nothing to me."</p> + +<p>"Good.... I got the paper right here, and I'm a-listenin' to your offer +for it...."</p> + +<p>"Ten thous—" began Farley, but a swift, furious thrusting open of the +parlor door interrupted, as Sarah Pound flung herself into the room. For +a moment she was speechless with rage.... Shame would come later.... +"You contemptible—contemptible—contemptible—" she cried, +breathlessly. "It was a thing like you I—I could choose!... I could +throw away a man for you!... For a suit of clothes, and manners, and a +lying tongue.... I could compare Bob Allen with you—and choose you!... +Oh!..."</p> + +<p>"Sairy," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"But I never would have done it—not that. I'd never have taken that +paper.... You know I wouldn't, Mr. Baines. Say you know that...."</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," said Scattergood, dryly, "they hain't no tellin' how fur a +woman'll go when she's bein' bamboozled by a scamp—so I kind of insured +ag'in' your takin' it by takin' it myself.... Er—Mr. Curtis, if I was +you, I'd sort of slip out soft by the back door. Bob Allen's a-waitin' +for you on the front porch.... There's a train at nine."</p> + +<p>Scattergood put a clumsy arm about Sarah, who, the moment her wrathful +energy ebbed away, sobbed and sobbed and sobbed with shame and fear.</p> + +<p>"Hey, out there," shouted Scattergood, "git a move on you!"</p> + +<p>Bob Allen needed no urging. His arm was substituted for Scattergood's, +his breast for Scattergood's—and Sarah made no complaint. "I +wouldn't.... I wouldn't.... You thought I did," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I thought that," said Bob, brokenly. "How can you ever forgive me?... +I—But I love you, Sarah. Won't that make up for it?"</p> + +<p>"You—believed it," she repeated, and Scattergood grinned.</p> + +<p>"Dummed if she hain't managed to put him in the wrong.... You can't beat +wimmin.... She's put him in the wrong."</p> + +<p>Scattergood peered at them a moment, saw what filled him with perfect +satisfaction, and discreetly withdrew. He went out and sat on the porch +and beamed up at the stars.... He sat there a long, long time, and +nobody called him in. He got up, pressed his nose against the window, +and rapped on the glass.</p> + +<p>"Everybody forgiv' and fixed up," he called, "so's I kin git to bed with +an easy mind?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer. He had not been heard—but what he saw was answer +sufficient for any man.</p> +<br /> + +<p>THE END</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13307 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/13307-h/images/001.jpg b/13307-h/images/001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60c8fe1 --- /dev/null +++ b/13307-h/images/001.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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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 + + +Title: Scattergood Baines + +Author: Clarence Budington Kelland + +Release Date: August 27, 2004 [EBook #13307] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCATTERGOOD BAINES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Cori Samuel and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>SCATTERGOOD BAINES</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> +<h2>CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND</h2> + +<h6>Author of</h6> +<h5>"<i>The High Flyers</i>," "<i>The Little Moment of Happiness</i>,"<br /> +"<i>Sudden Jim</i>," "<i>Youth Challenges</i>," etc.</h5> +<br /> + +<center> +<img src="images/001.jpg" height="462" width="300" alt="Frontispiece"> +</center> +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I. HE INVADES COLDRIVER</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II. SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III. THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV. HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V. HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI. INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII. HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII. HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX. HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X. HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI. HE INVESTS IN SALVATION</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII. THE SON THAT WAS DEAD</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII. HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT</b></a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV. HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE</b></a><br> +</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a><h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>HE INVADES COLDRIVER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner +of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear +past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the +grocery—he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat.</p> + +<p>It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the +railroad, subsisting on the country, as it were, and sagged down on the +porch of Locker's grocery just before sundown. It is not implied that he +walked all of the twenty-four miles in that single day. Huge bodies move +deliberately.</p> + +<p>He sagged down on Locker's porch, and it is reported the corner of the +porch sagged with him. George Peddie has it from his grandfather, who +was an eyewitness, that Scattergood did not so much as turn his head to +look at the assembled manhood of the vicinity, but with infinite pains +and audible grunts, succeeded in bringing first one foot, then the +other, within reach of his hands, and removed his shoes. Following this +he sighed with a great contentment and twiddled his bare toes openly and +flagrantly in the eyes of all Coldriver. He is said now to have uttered +the first words to fall from his mouth in the town where were to lie his +life's unfoldings and fulfillments. They were significant—in the light +of subsequent activities.</p> + +<p>"One of them railroads runnin' up here," said he to the mountain just +across the road from him, "would have spared me close to a dozen +blisters."</p> + +<p>Conversation had expired on Scattergood's arrival, and the group on the +porch converted itself into an audience. It was an audience that got its +money's worth. Not for an instant did the attention of a single member +of it stray away from this Godsend come to furnish them with their first +real topic of conversation since Crazy French stole a box of Paris +green, mistaking it for a new sort of pancake flour.</p> + +<p>Scattergood arose ponderously and limped out into the middle of the +dusty road. From this vantage point he slowly and conscientiously +studied the village.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" he said. "'Twouldn't pay to do all that walkin' just for a +visit. Calc'late I'll have to settle."</p> + +<p>He walked directly back to the absorbed group of leading citizens, his +shoes dangling, one in each hand, and addressed them genially.</p> + +<p>"Your town," said he, "is growin'. Its population jest increased by me."</p> + +<p>"Sizable growth," said Old Man Penny, dryly, letting his eye rove over +Scattergood's bulk.</p> + +<p>"My line," said Scattergood, "is anythin' needful. Outside of a +railroad, what you figger you need most?"</p> + +<p>Nobody answered.</p> + +<p>"Is it a grocery store?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Locker stiffened in his chair. "Me and Sam Kittleman calc'lates to sell +all the groceries this town needs," he said.</p> + +<p>"How about dry goods?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Old Man Penny and Wade Lumley stirred to life at this.</p> + +<p>"Lumley and me takes care of the dry goods," said the old man.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh! How about a clothin' store?"</p> + +<p>"We got all the clothin' stores there's room for," said Lafe Atwell. "I +run it."</p> + +<p>"Kind of got the business of this town sewed up, hain't you?" +Scattergood asked, admiringly. "Wouldn't look with favor on any more +stores?"</p> + +<p>"We calculate to keep what business we got," said Old Man Penny. "A +outsider would have a hard time makin' a go of it here."</p> + +<p>"Quite likely," said Scattergood. "Still, you never can tell. Let some +feller come in here with a gen'ral store, sellin' for cash—and cuttin' +prices, eh? How would an outsider git along if he done that? Up-to-date +store. Fresh goods. Low prices. Eh? Calc'late some of you fellers would +have to discharge a clerk."</p> + +<p>"You hain't got money enough to start a store," Old Man Penny squawked. +"Why, you hain't even got a satchel! You come walkin' in like a tramp."</p> + +<p>"There's tramps—and tramps," said Scattergood, placidly. He reached far +down into a trousers pocket and tugged to the light of day a roll that +his fingers could not encircle. He looked at it fondly, tossed it up in +the air a couple of times and caught it, and then held it between thumb +and forefinger until the eyes of his audience had assured themselves +that the outside bill was yellow and its denomination twenty dollars.... +The audience gulped.</p> + +<p>"Meals to the tavern perty good?" Coldriver's new citizen asked.</p> + +<p>"Say," demanded Locker, "be you really thinkin' about startin' a cash +store here?"</p> + +<p>"Neighbor," said Scattergood, "never give up valuable information +without gittin' somethin' for it. How much money would a complete and +careful account of my intentions be worth to you?"</p> + +<p>Locker snorted. "Bet that wad of bills is a dummy with a counterfeit +twenty outside of it," he said.</p> + +<p>Scattergood smiled tantalizingly. Locker had not, fortunately for +Scattergood, the least idea how close to the truth he had been. On one +point only had he been mistaken. The twenty outside was <i>not</i> +counterfeit. However, except for three fives, four twos, and ninety +cents in silver, it represented Scattergood's total cash capital.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin'," said Scattergood, "to order me <i>two</i> suppers. Two! From +bean soup to apple pie. It's my birthday. Twenty-six to-day, and I +always eat two suppers on my birthdays.... Glad you leadin' citizens see +fit to give me such a hearty welcome to your town. Right kind and +generous of you."</p> + +<p>He turned and ambled down the road toward the tavern, planting his bare +feet with evident pleasure in the deepest of the warm sand, and flirting +up little clouds of it behind him. The audience saw him seat himself on +the tavern steps and pull on his shoes. They were too far to hear him +say speculatively to himself: "I never heard tell of a man gittin' a +start in life jest that way—but <i>that</i> hain't any reason it can't be +done. I'm goin' to do this town good, and this valley. Hain't no more 'n +fair them leadin' citizens should give me what help they feel they kin."</p> + +<p>Scattergood ate with ease and pleasure two complete suppers—to the +openly expressed admiration of Emma, the waitress. Very shortly +afterward he retired to his room, where, not trusting to the sturdiness +of the bed-slats provided, he dragged mattress and bedding to the floor +and was soon emitting snores that Landlord Coombs assured his wife was +the beat of anybody ever slept in the house not countin' that travelin' +man from Boston. Next morning Scattergood was about early, padding +slowly up and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was +studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had +been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for +purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in +Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a +permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really +was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and after reflection.</p> + +<p>True, he had but a moment's glimpse of Coldriver before he decided he +had moved there, but the glimpse showed him the location was the one he +had been searching for.... Scattergood's specialty, his hobby, was +valleys. Valleys down which splashed and roared sizable streams, whose +mountain sides were covered with timber, and whose flats were +comfortable farms—such valleys interested him with an especial +interest. But the valley he had been looking for was one with but a +single possible <i>outlet</i>. He wanted a valley whose timber and produce +and products could not go climbing off across the hills, over a number +of easy roads, to market. His valley must be hemmed in. The only way to +market must lie <i>down</i> the valley, with the river. And the river that +flowed down his valley must be swift, with sufficient volume all twelve +months of the year to turn possible mill wheels.... As yet he thought +only of the direct application of power. He had not dreamed yet of great +turbine generators which should transport thousands of horse power, +written in terms of electricity, hundreds of miles across country, there +to light cities and turn the wheels of huge manufactories....</p> + +<p>Coldriver Valley was that valley! He felt it as soon as he turned into +it; certainty increased as he progressed between those gigantic walls +black with tall, straight, beautiful spruce. So, when he sat shoeless, +resting his blistered feet on Locker's porch, he was ready to make his +decision. The mere making of it was a negligible detail.</p> + +<p>So Scattergood Baines found his valley. He entered it consciously as an +invader, determined to conquer. Pitiful as were the resources of Cortez +as he adventured against the power of Montezuma, or of Pizarro as he +clambered over the Peruvian Andes, they were gigantic compared with +Scattergood's. He was starting to make <i>his</i> conquest backed by one +twenty, three fives, four twos, and ninety cents in silver. It was +obvious to him the country to be conquered must supply the sinews of war +for its own conquest.</p> + +<p>Every village has its ramshackle, disused store building. Coldriver had +one, especially well located, and not so ramshackle as it might have +been. It was big; its front was crossed by a broad porch; its show +windows were not show windows at all, but were put there solely to give +light. Coldriver did not know there was such a thing as inviting +patronage by skillful display.</p> + +<p>"Sonny," said Scattergood to a boy digging worms in the shade of the +building, "who owns this here ruin?"</p> + +<p>"Old Tom Plummer," said the boy, and was even able to disclose where old +Tom was to be found. Scattergood found him feeding a dozen White +Orpingtons.</p> + +<p>"Best layers a man can keep," said Scattergood, sincerely. "Man's got to +have brains to even raise chickens."</p> + +<p>"I git more eggs to the hen than anybody else in town," said old Tom, +"but nobody listens to me."</p> + +<p>"Own a store buildin' downtown, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to."</p> + +<p>"If you was to git a chance to rent it, how much would it be a month?"</p> + +<p>"Repairs or no repairs?"</p> + +<p>"No repairs."</p> + +<p>"Twenty dollars."</p> + +<p>"G'mornin'," said Scattergood, and turned toward the gate.</p> + +<p>"What's your hurry, mister?"</p> + +<p>"Can't bear to stay near a man that mentions so much money in a breath," +said Scattergood, with his most ingratiating grin.</p> + +<p>"How much could you stay and hear?"</p> + +<p>"Not over ten."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Seein' the buildin's in poor shape, I'll call it fifteen."</p> + +<p>"Twelve-fifty's as far's I'll go—on a five-year lease," said +Scattergood. It will be seen he fully intended to become permanent.</p> + +<p>"What you figger on usin' it fur?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe a opry house, maybe a dime museum, maybe a carpenter shop, and +maybe somethin' else. I hain't mentionin' jest what, but it's +law-abidin' and respectable."</p> + +<p>"Five-year lease, eh? Twelve-fifty."</p> + +<p>"Two months' rent in advance," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Squire Hastings'll draw the papers," said old Tom, heading for the +gate. Scattergood followed, and in half an hour was the lessee of a +store building, bound to pay rent for five years, with more than half +his capital vanished—with no stock of goods or wherewith to procure +one, with not even a day's experience in any sort of merchandising to +his credit.</p> + +<p>His next step was to buy ten yards of white cloth, a small paint brush, +and a can of paint. Ostentatiously he borrowed a stepladder and +stretched the cloth across the front of his store, from post to post. +Then, equally ostentatiously, he mounted the stepladder and began to +paint a sign. He was not unskilled in the business of lettering. The +sign, when completed, read:</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>CASH AND CUT PRICES IS MY MOTTO</span><br /> + +<p>Having completed this, he bought a pail, a mop, and a broom, and +proceeded to a thorough housecleaning of his premises.</p> + +<p>Old Man Penny and Locker and the rest of the merchants were far from +oblivious to Scattergood's movements. No sooner had his sign appeared +than every merchant in town—excepting Junkin, the druggist, who sold +wall paper and farm machinery as side lines—went into executive session +in the back room of Locker's store.</p> + +<p>"He means business," said Locker.</p> + +<p>"Leased that store for five year," said Old Man Penny.</p> + +<p>"Cash, and Cut Prices," quoted Atwell, "and you fellers know our folks +would pass by their own brothers to save a penny. He'll force us to cut, +too."</p> + +<p>"Me—I won't do it," asserted Kettleman.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll eat your stock," growled Locker.</p> + +<p>"Fellers," said Atwell, "if this man gits started it's goin' to cost all +of us money. He'll draw some trade, even if he don't cut prices. Safe to +figger he'll git a sixth of it. And a sixth of the business in this +region is a pretty fair livin'. If he goes slashin' right and left, +nobody kin tell how much trade he'll draw."</p> + +<p>"We should 'a' leased that store between us. Then nobody could 'a' come +in."</p> + +<p>"But we didn't. And it's goin' to cost us money. If he puts in clothing +it'll cost me five hundred dollars a year in profits, anyhow. Maybe +more. And you other fellers clost to as much."</p> + +<p>"But we can't do nothin'."</p> + +<p>"We can buy him off," said Atwell.</p> + +<p>The meeting at that moment became noisy. Epithets were applied with +freedom to Scattergood, and even to Atwell, for these were not men who +loved to part with their money. However, Atwell showed them the economy +of it. It was either for them to suffer one sharp pang now, or to endure +a greater dragging misery. They went in a body to call upon Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, neighbors!" Scattergood said, genially.</p> + +<p>"We're the merchants of this town," said Old Man Penny, shortly.</p> + +<p>"So I judged," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"There's merchants enough here," the old man roared on. "Too many. We +don't want any more. We don't want you should start up any business +here."</p> + +<p>"You're too late. It's started. I've leased these premises."</p> + +<p>"But you hain't no stock in."</p> + +<p>"I calc'late on havin' one shortly," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in +his eye, whose meaning was kindly concealed from the five.</p> + +<p>"What'll you take not to order any stock?" asked Atwell, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Figger on buyin' me off, eh? Now, neighbors, I've been lookin' for a +place like this, and I calc'late on stayin'. I'm goin' to become +all-fired permanent here."</p> + +<p>"Give you a hundred dollars," said Old Man Penny.</p> + +<p>"Apiece?" asked Scattergood, and laughed jovially. "It's my busy day, +neighbors. Better call in again."</p> + +<p>"What's your figger to pull out now—'fore you're started?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no figger, but if I had I calc'late it would be about a +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Give you two hundred," said Old Man Penny.</p> + +<p>Scattergood picked up his mop. "If you fellers really mean business, +talk business. I've figgered my profits in this store, countin' in low +prices, wouldn't be a cent under a couple of thousand the first +year.... And you know it. That's what you're fussin' around here for. +Now fish or git to bait cuttin'."</p> + +<p>"Five hundred dollars," said Atwell, and Old Man Penny moaned.</p> + +<p>"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "You men git back here inside +of an hour with seven hundred and fifty <i>cash</i>, and lay it in my hand, +and I'll agree not to sell groceries, dry goods, notions, millinery, or +men or women's clothes in this town for a term of twenty year."</p> + +<p>They drew off and scolded one another, and glowered at Scattergood, but +came to scratch. "It's jest like robbery," said Old Man Penny, +tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Keep your money," retorted Scattergood. "I'm satisfied the way things +is at present."</p> + +<p>Within the hour they were back with seven hundred and fifty dollars in +bills, a lawyer, and an agreement, which Scattergood read with minute +attention. It bound him not to sell, barter, trade, exchange, deal, or +in any way to derive a profit from the handling of groceries, dry goods, +notions, millinery, clothing, and gent's furnishings. It contained no +hidden pitfalls, and Scattergood was satisfied. He signed his name and +thrust the roll of bills into his pocket.... Then he picked up his mop +and went to work as hard as ever.</p> + +<p>"Say," Old Man Penny said, "what you goin' ahead for? You jest agreed +not to."</p> + +<p>"There wasn't nothin' said about moppin'," grinned Scattergood, "and +there wasn't nothin' said about hardware and harness and farm +implements, neither. If you don't b'lieve me, jest read the agreement. +What I'm doin', neighbors, is git this place cleaned out to put in the +finest cash, cut-price, up-to-date hardware store in the state. And +thank you, neighbors. You've done right kindly by a stranger...."</p> + +<p>To this point the history of Scattergood Baines has been for the most +part legendary; now we begin to encounter him in the public records, for +deeds, mortgages, and the like begin to appear with his name upon them. +His history becomes authentic.</p> + +<p>Seven hundred and fifty dollars is not much when put into hardware, but +Scattergood had no intention of putting even that into a stock of goods. +He had a notion that the right kind of man, with five hundred dollars, +could get credit to twice that amount, and as for farm machinery, he +could sell by catalogue or on commission. His suspicion was proven to be +fact.</p> + +<p>But it was not in Scattergood to sit idle while he waited for his stock +to arrive. Coldriver doubtless thought him idle, but he was studying the +locality and the river with the eye of a commander who knew this was to +be his battlefield. What Scattergood wanted now was to place himself +astride Coldriver Valley, somewhere below the village, so that he could +control the upper reaches of the stream. It was not difficult to find +such a location. It lay three miles below town, at the junction of the +north and south branches of Coldriver. The juncture was in a big, +marshy, untillable flat, from which hills rose abruptly. From the +easterly end of the flat the augmented river squeezed in a roaring +rapids through a sort of bottle neck.</p> + +<p>Scattergood stood on the hillside and looked upon this with satisfied +eye.</p> + +<p>"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that +flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy, +maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build. +And," he scratched his head as a sort of congratulation to it for its +efficiency, "I can't study out how anybody's agoin' to git logs past +here without dickerin' with the man who owns the dam...." Plenty of +water twelve months a year to give free power; a flat made to order for +reservoir or log pond; a complete and effective blockade of both +branches of the river which came down from a country richly timbered! It +was one of the spots Scattergood had dreamed of.</p> + +<p>Scattergood knew perfectly well he could not stop a log from passing his +dam. Nor could he shut off the stream. Any dam he built must have a +sluice which could be opened for the passage of timber, and all timber +was entitled to "natural water." But, as he well knew, "natural water" +was not always enough. A dam at this point would raise the level on the +bars of the flat so that logs would not jam, and a log which used the +high water caused by the dam must pay for it. What Scattergood had in +mind was a dam and boom company. It was his project to improve the +river, to boom backwaters, to dynamite ledges, to make the river +passable to logs in spring and fall. It was his idea that such a +company, in addition to demanding pay for the use of "improvements," +could contract with lumbermen up the river to drive their logs.... And a +mill at this point! Scattergood fairly licked his lips as he thought of +the millions upon millions of feet of spruce to be sawed into lumber.</p> + +<p>The firm foundation that Scattergood's strategy rested upon was that +lumbering had not really started in the valley. The valley had not +opened up, but lay undeveloped, waiting to be stirred to life. +Scattergood's strength lay in that he could see ahead of to-day, and was +patient to wait for the developments that to-morrow must bring. To-day +his foresight could get for him what would be impossible to-morrow. If +he stepped softly he could obtain a charter from the state to develop +that river, which, when lumbering interests became actually engaged, +would be fought by them to the last penny.... And he felt in his bones +that day would not long be delayed.</p> + +<p>The land Scattergood required was owned by three individuals. All of it +was worthless—except to a man of vision—so, treading lightly, +Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not +direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to +sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the +river, he tried to sell the newest development in mowing machines, and +his manner of doing so was to hitch to the newly arrived machine, haul +it to Landers's meadow—where the owner was haying—drag it through +the gate, and unhitch.</p> + +<p>"Here," he said, "try this here machine. Won't cost you nothin' to try +it, and I'm curious to see if it works as good as they say."</p> + +<p>Landers was willing. It worked better. Landers regarded the machine +longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers.</p> + +<p>"Might afford a swap?"</p> + +<p>"Might. What you got in mind?"</p> + +<p>"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that +marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good +medder."</p> + +<p>Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to +you for this here mowin' machine."</p> + +<p>"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by +accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers. +Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something +like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the +hardware merchant of a machine.</p> + +<p>One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen +stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a +keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve +dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the +deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with +pitying scorn.</p> + +<p>Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to +the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was +often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of +this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the +legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a +state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard +of that charter they held their sides and roared.</p> + +<p>Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he +would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied +he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would +hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty +thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly +lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and +operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had +acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come +when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley.</p> + +<p>Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them +took train to Coldriver.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling +hardware in his own way—and selling a good deal of it. His store had a +new front, his stock was augmented. It was his business to sell goods, +and he sold them.</p> + +<p>For instance, Lem Jones stopped and hitched his team before the store, +one chilly day. His horses he covered with old burlap, lacking blankets. +While Lem was buying groceries, Scattergood selected two excellent +blankets, carried them out, and put them on the horses. Then he went +back into the store to attend to other matters. Presently Lem came in.</p> + +<p>"Where'd them blankets come from?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Hosses looked a mite chilly," said Scattergood, without interest, "so I +covered 'em."</p> + +<p>"Bleeged," said Lem. Then, awkwardly, "I calc'late I need a pair of +blankets, but I can't afford 'em this year. Wife's been sick—"</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Scattergood, "I know. If you want them blankets take 'em +along. Pay me when you kin.... Jest give me a sort of note for a +memorandum. Glad to accommodate you."</p> + +<p>So Scattergood marketed his blankets, taking in exchange a perfectly +good, interest-bearing note. Also, he made a friend, for Lem could not +be convinced but Scattergood had done him a notable favor.</p> + +<p>Scattergood now had money in the bank. No longer did he have to stretch +his credit for stock. He was established—and all in less than a year. +Hardware, it seemed, had been a commodity much needed in that locality, +yet no one had handled it in sufficient stock because of the +twenty-four-mile haul. That had been too costly. It cost Scattergood +just as much, but his customers paid for it.... The difference between +him and the other merchants was that he sold goods while they allowed +folks to buy.</p> + +<p>So, wisely, he kept on building up in a small way, while waiting for +bigger things to develop. And as he waited he studied the valley until +he could recite every inch of it, and he studied the future until he +knew what the future would require of that valley. He knew it before the +future knew it and before the valley knew it, and was laying his plans +to be ready with pails to catch the sap when others, taken by surprise, +would be running wildly about seeking for buckets.</p> + +<p>Then Crane and Keith arrived in Coldriver.... That day marked +Scattergood's emergence from the ranks of country merchants, though he +retained his hardware store to the last. That day marked distinctly +Scattergood's launching on a greater body of water. For forty years he +sailed it with varying success, meeting failures sometimes, scoring +victories; but interesting, characteristic in every phase—a genius in +his way and a man who never took the commonplace course when the unusual +was open to him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you've looked this man Baines up," said Crane to Keith when +they met in the Coldriver tavern.</p> + +<p>"I know how much he weighs and how many teeth he's had filled," Keith +replied.</p> + +<p>"He ought not to be so difficult to handle. He hasn't capital enough to +put this company of his through and his business experience don't amount +to much."</p> + +<p>"For monkeying with our buzz saw," said Keith, "we ought to let him lose +a couple of fingers."</p> + +<p>"How's this for an idea, then?" Crane said, and for fifteen minutes he +outlined his theory of how best to eliminate Scattergood Baines from +being an obstruction to the free flowage of their schemes for Coldriver +Valley.</p> + +<p>"It's got others by the hundred, in one form or another," agreed Keith. +"This jayhawker'll welcome it with tears of joy."</p> + +<p>Whereupon they went gladly on their way to Scattergood's store, not as +enemies, but as business men who recognized his abilities and preferred +to have him with them from the start, that they might profit by his +canniness and energy, rather than to array themselves against him in an +effort to take away from him what he had obtained.</p> + +<p>Only by the exercise of notable will power could Crane keep his face +straight as he shook hands with ungainly Scattergood and saw with his +own eyes what a perfect bumpkin he had to deal with.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you thought we fellows would be sore," he said, genially.</p> + +<p>"Dunno's I thought about you at all," said Scattergood. "I was thinkin' +mainly about me."</p> + +<p>"Well, we're not. You caught us napping, of course. We should have +grabbed off that dam location long ago—but we weren't expecting +anybody to stray in with his eyes open—like yourself.... Of course your +property and charter aren't worth a great deal till we start lumbering."</p> + +<p>"Not to anybody but me," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Well, we expect to begin operations in a year or so. We'll build a mill +on the railroad, and drive our logs down the river."</p> + +<p>"Givin' my company the drivin' contracts?"</p> + +<p>"Looks like we'd <i>have</i> to—if you get in your dam and improvements. +But that'll take money. We've looked you up, of course, and we know you +haven't it—nor any backing.... That's why we've come to see you."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Goin' to drive 'way to the railroad, +eh? How if there was a mill right at my dam? Shorten your drive twenty +mile, wouldn't it, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Keith, laughing at Scattergood's ignorance; "but how about +transportation from your mill to the railroad? We can't drive cut +lumber."</p> + +<p>"Course not," said Scattergood, "but this valley's goin' to open up. +It's startin'. There's only one way to open a valley, and that's to run +a railroad up it.... Narrow-gauge 'u'd do here. Carry mostly lumber, but +passengers, too."</p> + +<p>"Thinking of building one?" asked Crane, almost laughing in +Scattergood's face.</p> + +<p>"Thinkin' don't cost nobody anythin'," said Scattergood. "Ever take a +look at that charter of mine?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I'll let you read it over a bit. Maybe you'll git a idea from it."</p> + +<p>He extracted the parchment from his safe, and spread it before them. +"Kind of look careful along toward the end—in the tail feathers of it, +so to speak," he advised.</p> + +<p>They did so, and Crane looked up at the fat hardware man with eyes that +were not quite so contemptuous. "By George!" he said, "this thing's a +charter for a railroad down the valley, too."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Dunno's the boys quite see what it was all +about, but they calculated to please me, so they put it through jest as +it stood. Mighty nice fellers up to the legislature."</p> + +<p>"Pretty far in the future," said Keith, "and mighty expensive."</p> + +<p>"Maybe not so far," said Scattergood, "and I could make a darn good +start narrow-gaugin' it with a hunderd thousand."</p> + +<p>"Which you've got handy for use," said Crane.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> that much money," said Scattergood, "and if there is, why, +it kin be got."</p> + +<p>"Let's get back to the river, now," said Keith. "If we're going to start +lumbering in a year, say, we've got to have the river in shape. Take +quite some time to get it cleared and dammed and boomed."</p> + +<p>"Six months," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Cost a right smart pile."</p> + +<p>"The work I'm figgerin' on would come to about thirty-odd thousand."</p> + +<p>"Which you haven't got."</p> + +<p>"Somebody has," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"<i>We</i> have," said Crane. "That's why we came to you—and with a +proposition. You've grabbed this thing off, but you can't hog it, +because you haven't the money to put it through. Our offer is this: You +put in your locations and your charter against our money. We'll finance +it. Your enterprise entitles you to control. We won't dispute that. You +can have fifty-one per cent of the stock for what you've contributed. We +take the rest for financing. We're known, and can get money."</p> + +<p>"How you figger to work it?"</p> + +<p>"We'll bond for forty thousand dollars. Keith and I can place the bonds. +That'll give us money to go ahead."</p> + +<p>Scattergood reached down and took off a huge shoe. Usually he thought +more accurately when his feet were unconfined. "That means we'd sort of +mortgage the whole thing, eh?"</p> + +<p>"That's the idea."</p> + +<p>"And if we didn't pay interest on the bonds, why, the fellers that had +'em could foreclose?"</p> + +<p>"But we needn't worry about that."</p> + +<p>"Not," said Scattergood, "if you fellers sign a contract with the dam +and boom company to give them the exclusive job of drivin' all your +timber at, say, sixty cents a thousand feet of logs. And if you'd stick +a clause in that contract that you'd begin cuttin' within twelve months +from date."</p> + +<p>"Sure we'd do that," said Keith. "To our advantage as much as to yours."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"It's a deal, then?"</p> + +<p>"Far's I'm concerned," said Scattergood, slipping his foot inside his +shoe, "it is."</p> + +<p>That afternoon, the papers having been signed and the deal consummated, +Scattergood sat cogitating.</p> + +<p>"I've been done," he said to himself, solemnly, "accordin' to them +fellers' notion. They come and seen me, and done me. They planned out +how they'd do it, and I didn't never suspect a thing. Uh-huh! Seems like +I was unfortunate, just gettin' a start in life like I be.... Bonds, +says they. Uh-huh! They'll place 'em, and place 'em handy. First +int'rest day there won't be no int'rest, and them bonds'll be +foreclosed—and where'll I be? Mighty ingenious fellers, Crane and +Keith.... And I up and walked right into it like a fly into a molasses +barrel. Them fellers," he said, even more somberly, "come here +calc'latin' to cheat me out of my river.... Me bein' jest a fat man +without no brains...."</p> + +<p>Crane and Keith had left Scattergood the executive head of the new dam +and boom company, and had confided to him the task of building the dam +and improving the river. He approached it sadly.</p> + +<p>"Might as well save what I kin out of the wreck," he said to himself, +and quietly manufactured a dummy contracting company to whom he let the +entire job for a lump sum of thirty-eight thousand seven hundred +dollars. The dummy contractor was Scattergood Baines.</p> + +<p>The dam was completed, booms and cribbing placed, ledges blasted out +well within the six months' period set for those operations. Every +thirty days Scattergood, in the name of the dummy contractor, was paid +eighty per cent of his estimates, and at the completion of the work he +received the remainder of the whole sum.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't 'a' done it to them boys," he said, as he surveyed a deposit +of upward of seven thousand dollars, his profit on the transaction, "if +it hadn't 'a' been they organized to cheat me out of my river. I +calc'late in the circumstances, though, I'm most entitled to what I kin +salvage out of the wreck."</p> + +<p>Now the Coldriver Dam and Boom Company, Scattergood Baines president and +manager, was ready for business, which was to take the logs of Messrs. +Crane and Keith and drive them down the river at the rate of sixty cents +per thousand feet. It was ready and eager, and so expressed itself in +quaintly worded communications from Baines to those gentlemen. But no +logs appeared to be driven.</p> + +<p>"Jest like I said," Scattergood told himself, and, the day being hot and +the road dusty, he removed his shoes and rested his sweltering bulk in +the shade to consider it.</p> + +<p>"It's a nice river," he said, audibly. "I hate to git done out of it."</p> + +<p>After long delays Crane and Keith made pretense of building camps and +starting to log. But one difficulty after another descended on their +operations. In the spring, when each of them should have had several +millions of feet of spruce ready to roll into the water, not a log was +on rollways. Not a man was in the camps, for, owing to reasons not to be +comprehended by the public, the woodsmen of both operators had struck +simultaneously and left the woods.</p> + +<p>Presently the first interest day arrived, with not even a hope of being +able to meet the required payment at a future date. Bondholders—dummies, +just as Scattergood's contractor was a dummy—met. Their deliberations +were brief. Foreclose with all promptitude was their word, and foreclose +they did. With the result that legal notices were published to the effect +that on the sixteenth day of June the dam, booms, cribbing, improvements, +charter, contracts, and property of whatsoever nature belonging to the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company were to be sold at public auction on the +steps of the county courthouse. Scattergood had lost his river....</p> + +<p>"Terms of the sale are cash with the bid," said Crane to Keith. "I saw +to that."</p> + +<p>"Good. Wasn't necessary, I guess. There hasn't been even a wriggle out +of Baines."</p> + +<p>"Won't be. We'll have to send somebody up to bid it in. It's just taking +money out of one pocket to put it into the other, but we've got to go +through the motions."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, let's get credit for grabbing a bargain," said Keith. "Bid her +in cheap. No use taking a big wad of money out of circulation even for a +few days."</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand'll be enough. Say ten thousand six hundred, just to make +it sound better. Have to have two bidders there."</p> + +<p>"Sure," agreed Keith. "I guess this'll teach our fat dreamer of dreams +not to get in the way of the cars."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's stock had gone down in Coldriver. True, his hardware store +was thriving. In the two years his stock had increased from what his +seven hundred and fifty dollars, with credit added, would buy, to an +inventory of better than five thousand dollars, free of debt. It is true +also that with the last winter coming on he had looked about for a +chance to keep his small surplus at work for him, and his eyes had +fallen upon the item of firewood. In Coldriver were a matter of sixty +houses and a hotel, all of which derived their heat from hardwood +chunks, and cooked their meals on range fires with sixteen-inch split +wood. The houses were mostly of that large, comfortable, country variety +which could not be kept warm with one fire. Scattergood figured they +would burn on an average of fifteen cords of wood.</p> + +<p>Now stove wood, to be really useful, must have seasoned a year. It is +not pleasant to build fires with green wood. Appreciating this, +Scattergood ambled about the countryside and bought up every available +stick of wood at prices of the day—and under, for he was a good buyer. +He secured a matter of a thousand cords—and then waited hopefully.</p> + +<p>It was a small transaction, promising no great profits, but Scattergood +Baines was never, even when a rich man, one to scorn a small deal.... +Within sixty days he turned over his corner in wood, realizing a profit +of something over four hundred dollars.... This is merely to illustrate +how Scattergood's capital grew.</p> + +<p>On June 16th Scattergood drove to the county seat. He now owned a horse, +and a buggy whose seat he more than comfortably filled. In the county +seat Scattergood was not unknown, for various county officers had been +helped to their place by his growing influence in his town—notably the +sheriff.</p> + +<p>There was little interest in the sale, and what interest there was +Scattergood caused by his unexpected appearance. Nobody had imagined he +would be present. Now that he was there, nobody could imagine why. He +did not enlighten them, though he was delighted to sit in the sun on the +courthouse steps, waiting for the hour of the sale, and to chat. He +loved to chat, especially if he could get off his shoes and wriggle his +toes in the sunshine. And so he sat, bare of foot, when the sheriff +appeared and made his announcement of the approaching sale. Scattergood +chatted on, apparently not interested.</p> + +<p>"All the dams, booms, cribbings, improvements, and property of the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company ..." the sheriff read.</p> + +<p>"Including contracts and charter," amended Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Including contracts and charter," agreed the sheriff, and Scattergood +continued his chat.</p> + +<p>Bidding began. It was not brisk or exciting. Five thousand was the first +offer, from a young man appertaining to Crane. Keith's young man raised +him five hundred. Back and forth they tossed it, carrying on the +pretense, until Keith's young man reached the sum of ten thousand six +hundred dollars.... A silence followed.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand six hundred I'm offered," said the sheriff, loudly, and +repeated it. He had been a licensed auctioneer in his day. "Do I hear +seven hundred? Seven hundred ... Six fifty ..." A portentous pause. +"Going at ten thousand six hundred, once. Going at ten thousand six +hundred, twice ..."</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand seven hunderd," said Scattergood, casually.</p> + +<p>Crane's young man looked at Keith's young man in a panic. They had only +the sum they had bid upon them.... Cash with bid were the terms of +sale. Scattergood, out of the corner of his eye, saw them rush together +and confer frenziedly. His eye glinted.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand eight hundred," Crane's youth bid, desperately.</p> + +<p>"Cash with bid is terms of sale," said Scattergood. "I object to +listenin' to that bid without the young man perduces." He smiled at the +sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines is right," said the sheriff. "Protect your bid with the cash +or I cannot receive it."</p> + +<p>"Make <i>him</i> protect his bid!" shouted Crane's young man.</p> + +<p>"Certain," said Scattergood, approaching the sheriff and drawing a huge +roll of bills from his sagging trousers pocket. "Calc'late you'll find +her there, Mr. Sheriff, and some besides. Make your change and gimme +back the rest."</p> + +<p>"I'm waitin' on you, young feller," said the sheriff, eying the young +men.... "Ten thousand seven hundred I hear. Going at ten thousand seven +hundred—once.... Twice.... Three times!... Sold to Mr. Baines for +ten thousand seven hundred dollars...."</p> + +<p>So ends the first epoch of Scattergood Baines's career in Coldriver +Valley. Here he emerges as a personage. From this point his fame began +to spread, and legend grew. Had he not, in two brief years, after +arriving with less than fifty dollars as a total capital, acquired a +profitable hardware store—donated in the beginning by competitors? Had +he not now, for the most part with money wrenched from Crane and Keith +by his dummy contracting, been enabled to bid in for ten thousand seven +hundred dollars a new property worth nearly four times that much? He was +a man into whose band wagon all were eager to clamber.</p> + +<p>But Scattergood did not change. He went back to his hardware store and +waited—waited for Crane and Keith to start their inevitable logging +operations. For in his safe reposed ironclad contracts with those +gentlemen, covering the future for a decade, compelling them to pay him +sixty cents for every thousand feet of timber that floated down his +river. It was a good two years' work. He could well afford to wait....</p> + +<p>Scattergood sat on the porch of his store, in the sunniest spot, +twiddling his bare toes.</p> + +<p>"The way to make money," he said to the mountain opposite, "is to let +smarter folks 'n you be make it for you ... like I done."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a><h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines sat on the porch of his hardware store and looked +down Coldriver Valley. It was very beautiful, even under the hot summer +sun of the second anniversary of Scattergood's arrival in that part of +the world, but he was not seeing it as it was—mountainous, green, +with untouched forests, quickened to life and sound by the swift, +rushing, splashing downrush of a tireless mountain river. Scattergood +saw the valley as he was going to make it, for he was a specialist in +valleys.</p> + +<p>For years he had searched for an undeveloped valley—for the sort of +valley it would be worth his while to take in hand, and two years ago he +had found it and invaded it. His equipment for its conquest had been +meager—some fifty dollars in money and a head filled from ear to ear +and from eyebrows to scalp lock with shrewdness. His progress in +twenty-four months had been notable, for he was sole proprietor of a +profitable hardware store in Coldriver village, and controlled the upper +stretches of Coldriver by virtue of a certain dam and boom company built +with other men's capital for Scattergood's benefit and behoof.</p> + +<p>Now, in the eye of his mind, he could see the whole twenty-odd miles of +his valley. Along the left bank, hanging perilously to the slope of the +mountain, he saw the rails of a narrow-gauge railroad reaching from +Coldriver Valley to the main line that passed the valley's mouth. He saw +sturdy, snorting little engines drawing logs to sawmills of a magnitude +not dreamed of by any other man in the locality, and he saw other +engines hauling out lumber to the southward. He saw villages where no +villages existed that day, and villages meaning more traffic for his +railroad, more trade for the stores he had it in his thought to +establish. Something else he saw, but more dimly. This vision took the +shape of a gigantic dam far back in the mountains, behind which should +be stored the waters from the melting snows and from the spring rains, +so that they might be released at will to insure a uniform flow +throughout the year, wet months and dry months, as he desired. He saw +this water pouring over other dams, turning water wheels, giving power +to mills and factories. More than that, in the remotest and dimmest +recess of his brain he saw not sharply, not with full comprehension, +this tremendous water power converted into electricity and transported +mile upon mile over far-reaching wires, to give light and energy to +distant communities.</p> + +<p>But all that was remote; it lay in the years to come. For the present +smaller affairs must content him. Even the matter of the narrow-gauge +railroad was beyond his grasp.</p> + +<p>Scattergood reached down mechanically and removed his huge shoes; then, +stretching out his fat legs gratefully, he twiddled his toes in the +sunlight and gave himself up to practical thought. He controlled the +tail of the valley with his dam and boom company; he must control its +mouth. He must have command over the exit from the valley so that every +individual, every log, every article of merchandise that entered or left +the valley, should pass through his hands. That was to be the next step. +He must straddle the mouth of the valley like the fat colossus he was.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was placid and patient. He knew what he wanted to do with +his valley, and had perfect confidence he should accomplish it. But he +had no disposition to hasten matters unwisely. It was better, as he told +Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "to let an apple fall in your lap instead of +skinnin' your shins goin' up the tree after it—and then findin' it was +green."</p> + +<p>So, though he wanted the mouth of his river, and wanted it badly, he did +not rush off, advertising his need, and try brashly to grab the forty or +fifty acres of granite and scrub and steep mountain wall that his heart +desired. Instead, he basked in the sunshine, twiddling his bare toes +ecstatically, and let the huge bulk of him sink more contentedly into +the well-reinforced armchair which creaked under his slightest motion.</p> + +<p>Scattergood glanced across the dusty square to the post office. The mail +was in, and possibly there were letters there for him. He thought it +very likely, and he wanted to see them—but movement was repulsive to +his bulging body. He sighed and closed his eyes. A shrill whistle +attempting the national anthem, with certain liberties of variation, +caused him to open them again, and he saw, passing him, a small boy, +apparently without an object in life.</p> + +<p>"A-hum!" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The boy stopped and looked inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"If I knew," said Scattergood to his bare feet, "where there was a boy +that could find his way across to the post office and back without +gittin' sunstroke or stone bruise, I dunno but I'd give him a penny to +fetch my mail."</p> + +<p>"It's worth a nickel," said the boy.</p> + +<p>"Give you two cents," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Nickel or nothin'," said the boy.</p> + +<p>Scattergood scrutinized the boy a moment, then surrendered.</p> + +<p>"Bargain," said he, but as the boy hustled across the square +Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. +He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from +a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned +to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight +suddenly might have resulted in disaster.</p> + +<p>The boy was returning. Scattergood placed the tin object to his lips and +puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of +Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it +rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in +front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his +hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm +that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's +existence, he applied himself again to the whistle.</p> + +<p>"Say," said the boy, "what's that?"</p> + +<p>"Patent whistle," said Scattergood, without interest.</p> + +<p>"Is it your'n, or is it for sale?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate I might sell."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Nickel."</p> + +<p>"Gimme it," said the boy, and Scattergood gravely received back his +coin.</p> + +<p>"Might tell the kids I got more," said Scattergood, and watched the boy +trot down the street, entranced by the horrid sound he was fathering.</p> + +<p>This transaction from beginning to end was eloquent of Scattergood +Baines's character. He had been obliged to pay more than he regarded a +service as worth, but had not protested vainly. Instead he had set about +recouping himself as best he could. The whistle cost him two cents and a +half. Therefore the boy had come closer to working for Scattergood's +figure than for his own demanded price. In addition, Scattergood's wares +were to receive free and valuable advertising, as was proven by the +fact that before night he had sold ten more whistles at a profit of +twenty-five cents! No deal was too small to receive Scattergood's best +and most skillful attention.</p> + +<p>Now he opened his letters, one of which was worthy of attention, for it +was from a friend in the office of the Secretary of State for that +commonwealth—a friend who owed his position there in great measure to +Scattergood's influence. The letter gave the information that two +gentlemen named Crane and Keith had pooled their timber holdings on the +east and west branches of Coldriver, and had filed papers for the +incorporation of the Coldriver Lumber Company.</p> + +<p>This was important. First, the gentlemen named were no friends of +Scattergood's by reason of having underestimated that fleshy individual +to their financial detriment in the matter of a certain dam and boom +company, of which Scattergood was now sole owner. Second, because it +presaged active lumbering operations. Third, because, in Scattergood's +safe were ironclad contracts with both of them whereby the said dam and +boom company should receive sixty cents a thousand feet for driving +their logs down the improved river.</p> + +<p>And fourth—the fourth brought Scattergood's active toes to a rest. +Fourth, it meant that Crane and Keith would be building the largest +sawmill—the only sawmill of consequence—that the valley had seen.</p> + +<p>It was an attribute of Scattergood's peculiar genius that even after you +had encountered him once, and come out the worse for it, you still rated +him as a fatuous, guileless mound of flesh. You did not credit his +successes to astuteness, but to blundering luck. Another point also +should be noted: If Scattergood were hunting bear he gave it out that +his game was partridge. He would hunt partridge industriously and +conspicuously until men's minds were turned quite away from the subject +of bear. Then suddenly he would shift shotgun for rifle and come home +with a bearskin in the wagon. Probably he would bring partridge, too, +for he never neglected by-products.</p> + +<p>"Them fellows," said he to himself, referring to Messrs. Crane and +Keith, "hain't aimin' nor wishin' to pay me no sixty cents a thousand +for drivin' their logs.... I figger they calculate to cut about ten +million feet. That'll be six thousand dollars. Profit maybe two +thousand. Don't see as I kin afford to lose it, seems as though."</p> + +<p>On the river below Coldriver village were three hamlets each consisting +of a general store, a church, and a few scattered dwellings. These +villages were the supply centers for the mountain farms that lay behind +them. Necessity had located them, for nowhere else along the valley was +there flat land upon which even the tiniest village could find a resting +place. These were Bailey, Tupper Falls, and Higgins's Bridge. In common +with Coldriver village their communication with the world was by means +of a stage line consisting of two so-called stages, one of which left +Coldriver in the morning on the downward trip, the other of which left +the mouth of the valley on the upward trip. There was also one freight +wagon.</p> + +<p>The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he +boarded the stage, occupying so much space therein that a single fare +failed utterly to show a profit to the stage line, and alighted at +Bailey. He went directly to the store, where no one was to be found save +sharp-featured Mrs. Bailey, wife of the proprietor.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', ma'am," said Scattergood, politely. "Husband hain't in?"</p> + +<p>"Up the brook, catchin' a mess of trout," she responded, shortly. "He's +always catchin' a mess of trout, or huntin' a deer or a partridge or +somethin'. If you're ever aimin' to see Jim Bailey here, you want to +git around afore daylight or after dark."</p> + +<p>"Hain't it lucky," said Scattergood, "that some men manages to marry +wimmin that kin look after their business?"</p> + +<p>"Not for the wimmin," said Mrs. Bailey, shortly.</p> + +<p>"My name's Baines," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I calculate to know <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Like livin' here, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"Not so but what I could bear a change."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Mis' Bailey, I calc'late you'd hate to see Jim make a little +money so's to be able to git away from here if he wanted to."</p> + +<p>"Him? Only way hell ever make money is to ketch a solid-gold trout."</p> + +<p>"Maybe I'm the solid-gold trout you're speakin' about," said +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>She regarded him sharply a moment. "Set," she said. "Looks like you got +somethin' on your mind."</p> + +<p>There were times when Scattergood could be direct and succinct. He +perceived it was best to be so with this woman.</p> + +<p>"I might want to buy this here store—under certain conditions."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Inventory, and a share in the profits of a deal I got in mind."</p> + +<p>"What's them conditions you mentioned?"</p> + +<p>"That you and Jim don't mention the sale to anybody, and keep on runnin' +the place—for wages—until I'm ready for you to quit."</p> + +<p>"What's the deal them profits is comin' from, and how much you figger +they'll be?"</p> + +<p>"The deal's feedin' about five hunderd men, and the profits'll be +plenty. I furnish the capital and show you how it's to be done. All +Jim'll have to do is foller directions."</p> + +<p>Then, lowering his voice, Scattergood went farther into particulars. +Suddenly Mrs. Bailey arose, and screamed shrilly to an urchin playing in +the road, "You, Jimmy, go up the brook and fetch your pa." Scattergood +knew his deal was as good as closed. Before the up-bound stage arrived +it was closed. The Baileys had cash in hand for their store and +Scattergood carried away a duly executed bill of sale.</p> + +<p>The following day, for fifteen hundred dollars cash, he acquired all the +property of the stage line—and when the news became public it was +believed that Scattergood had departed from his wits, for the line was +notoriously unprofitable and an aching worry to its owners. But the +commotion the transfer of the stage line created was as nothing to the +news that Scattergood had bought a strip of land along the railroad at +the mouth of the river, and was erecting a large wooden building upon +it. When asked concerning this and its purpose, Scattergood replied that +he wasn't made up in his mind what he would use it for, but likely it +would be an "opry" house.</p> + +<p>Following this, Scattergood went to the city, where he spent much +valuable time interviewing gentlemen in wholesale grocery and provision +houses....</p> + +<p>Jim Bailey liked to fish—which is not an attribute to create scandal. +He was not ambitious, nor was he endowed with a full reservoir of +initiative, but he was a shrewd customer and seldom got the worst of it. +One virtue he possessed, and that was an ability to follow +directions—and to keep his mouth shut.</p> + +<p>Not many days after Scattergood became the owner of the store at Bailey, +Jim was a caller at the new offices of the lumber company, formed when +Crane and Keith pooled their interests.</p> + +<p>"I come to see you," he told Crane, "because it seemed like you got to +feed your lumberjacks, and I want to git the contract for furnishin' and +deliverin' the provisions."</p> + +<p>"We've sure got to feed 'em," said Crane. "But five hundred men eat a +lot of grub. Can you swing it if we give you a chance at it?"</p> + +<p>Bailey produced a letter from the Coldriver bank which stated the bank +was willing to stand behind any contract made by the Bailey Provision +Company, up to a certain substantial amount.</p> + +<p>"Who's the Bailey Provision Company?"</p> + +<p>"Me 'n' my wife mostly holds the stock."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... You'll handle the stuff, deliver it, and all that? What's your +proposition?"</p> + +<p>"Well, havin' been in business twenty-odd year, I kin buy mighty +favorable. More so 'n you fellers. All I want's a livin' profit. Tell +you what I'll do. I'll take this here contract like this: Goods to be +delivered in your camps at actual cost of the stuff and freighting plus +ten per cent. We'll keep stock on hand in depots, and deliver as needed. +It'll save you all the trouble of handlin'. We'll carry the stock, and +you pay once a month for what's delivered."</p> + +<p>Crane called in Keith, and they discussed the proposition. It presented +distinct advantages; might, indeed, save them money in addition to +trouble. Bailey clinched the thing by showing an agreement with the +stage line to transport the provisions at a price per hundred pounds +notably lower than Crane and Keith imagined could be obtained, and went +home carrying the contract Scattergood had sent him to get.</p> + +<p>Scattergood put the paper away in his safe and sat back in his +reinforced armchair, with placid satisfaction making benignant his face. +"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that this here dicker'll keep Crane +and Keith gropin' and wonderin' and scrutinizin' more or less—when it +gits to their ears. Shouldn't be s'prised if it come to worry 'em a +mite."</p> + +<p>So, having created a diversion to conceal the movements of his main +attack, Scattergood got out his maps and began scientifically to plan +his fall and winter campaign.</p> + +<p>Timber was his objective. Not a hundred acres of it, nor a thousand, but +tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand acres of spruce-covered hills +was the goal he had set. To control his valley he must have money; to +get money for his developments he must have timber. Also, ownership of +vast limits of growing spruce was necessary to the control of the +valley. He must own more timber thereabouts than anybody else. He must +dominate the timber situation. To a man whose total resources totaled a +matter of fifty thousand dollars—the bulk of which was tied up in a dam +and boom company as yet unproductive—this looked like a mouthful beyond +his capacity to bite off. Even with timber in the back reaches selling +at sixty-six cents an acre, a hundred thousand acres meant an investment +of sixty-six thousand dollars. True, Scattergood could look forward to +the day when that same timberland would be worth ten dollars an acre—a +million dollars—but looking ahead would not produce a cent to-day.</p> + +<p>Of timberlands, whose cut logs must go down Coldriver Valley to reach a +market, Scattergood's maps showed him there were probably a quarter of a +million acres—mostly spruce. Estimating with rigid conservatism, this +would run eight thousand feet to the acre, or twenty billion feet of +timber—and this did not take into consideration hardwood. In +Scattergood's secret heart he wanted it <i>all</i>. All he might not be able +to get, but he must have more than half—and that half distributed +strategically.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that Scattergood was content to wait. His motto was, +"Grab a dollar to-day—but don't meddle with it if it interferes with a +thousand dollars in ten years."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's maps had been the work of two years. That they were +accurate he knew, because he had set down on them most of the facts they +showed. They were valuable, for, in Scattergood's rude printing, one +could read upon them the owner of every piece of timber, every farm, the +acreage in each piece of timber, with a careful estimate of the amount +of timber to the acre—also its proportions of spruce, beech, birch, +maple, ash.</p> + +<p>Toward the head of the valley, where good timber was thickest, +Scattergood's map showed how it spread out like a fan, with the two main +branches of Coldriver and numerous brooks as the ribs. Then, down the +length of the stream, were parallel bands of it. On the map one could +see what this timber could be bought for; prices ranging from two +dollars and a half an acre down the main river to sixty-six cents at the +extremity of the fan.</p> + +<p>As Scattergood studied his maps he saw, far in the future, perhaps, but +clearly and distinctly and certainly, two parallel lines running up the +river to his village; he saw, branching off from a spot below the +village, where East and West Branches joined to pour over a certain dam +owned by him, other narrower parallel lines following river and brooks +back and back into the mountains, the spruce-clad mountains. These +parallel lines were rails. The ones which ran close together were +narrow-gauge—logging roads to bring logs to the big mill which +Scattergood planned to build beside his dam. The broader lines were a +standard-gauge road to carry the cut lumber to the outside world, and +not only the cut lumber, but all the traffic of the valley, all the +freight, the manufactured products of other mills and factories which +were to come along the banks of his river. Here, in black and white, was +set down Scattergood's life plan. When it was accomplished he would be +through. He would be willing to have his maps rolled up and himself to +be laid on the shelf, for he would have done the thing he set out to +do.... For, strange as it may seem, Scattergood was not pursuing money +for money itself—his objective was achievement.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and +Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale.</p> + +<p>"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch—thirty +thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch—close to thirty +thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere."</p> + +<p>"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up +here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of +mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as +ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out +our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead +with it. Pretty sweet for us—with sixty thousand acres in the palm of +our hand and not a cent invested in it."</p> + +<p>"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?"</p> + +<p>"Who'll grab?"</p> + +<p>"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we +could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or +else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole +thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled—and leave +the rest till things develop."</p> + +<p>"It's safe. And we can make it mighty unpleasant for anybody who comes +ramming into this region in a small way. Which reminds me of that +Baines—our friend Scattergood. Are we going to let him get away with +that dam and boom company we made him a present of?"</p> + +<p>"I can't see ourselves digging down for sixty cents a thousand for +driving our logs—contracts or no contracts."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we can buy him off."</p> + +<p>"Hanged if I'll do that—we'll chase him off. Look here—he's got to +handle our logs. If he can't handle them we've got a right to put on our +own crew and drive them down—and charge back to him what it costs us. +Get the idea?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly."</p> + +<p>"We deliver the logs as specified in the spring. Let him start his +drive. Then, I figure, he'll have some trouble with his men, and most +likely men he don't have trouble with will get into a row with +lumberjacks going out of camp. See? Men of his that we can't handle +we'll pitch into the river. Then we'll take charge with our men and make +the drive. On top of that we'll sue Scattergood for thirty or forty +cents a thousand—extra cost we've been put to by his inability to +handle the drive. That'll put a crimp in him—and if we keep after him +hot and heavy it won't take long to drive him out of the valley."</p> + +<p>"Don't believe he's dangerous, anyhow. That last deal was bullhead +luck."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but he's stirring around. We don't want anybody poking in. There's +a heap of money in this valley for us, if we can keep it to ourselves, +and the sooner the idea gets abroad that it isn't healthful to butt in, +the better."</p> + +<p>"Guess you're right."</p> + +<p>If Scattergood could have heard this conversation perhaps he would not +have been so gayly partaking of the softer joys of life. For that is +what Scattergood was doing. He had polished up his buggy, put his new +harness on his horse, and was driving out to make a social call. Not +only that, but it was a social call upon a lady!</p> + +<p>Scattergood was lonely sometimes. In one of his moments of loneliness +it had occurred to him that a great many men had wives, and that wives +were, undoubtedly, a remarkably effective insurance against that +ailment.</p> + +<p>"I gather," he said, in the course of a casual conversation with Sam +Kettleman, the grocer, "that wives is sometimes inconvenient and +sometimes tryin' on the temper, but on the whole they're returnin' +income on the investment."</p> + +<p>"Some does and some doesn't," said Kettleman, lugubriously.</p> + +<p>"Hotel grub," said Scattergood, "gets mighty similar. Roast beef and +roast pork! Roast pork and roast beef! Then cold roast pork and beef for +supper.... And me obliged, by the way I'm built, to pay extry board. +Sundays I always order me two dinners. Seems like a wife 'u'd act as a +benefit there."</p> + +<p>"But there's drawbacks," said Sam, "and there's mother-in-laws, and +there's lendin' a dollar to your brother-in-law."</p> + +<p>"The thing to do," said Scattergood, "is to pick one without them +impediments. I also figger," he added, wriggling his bare toes, "that a +feller ought to pick one that could lend a dollar to <i>your</i> brother in +case he needed one."</p> + +<p>"Hain't none sich to be found," said Sam.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late to look," Scattergood replied.</p> + +<p>He had already done his looking. The lady of his choice, tradition says, +was older than he, but this is a base libel. She was not older. She had +not yet reached thirty. Scattergood had first encountered her when she +came to his hardware store to buy a plow. On that occasion her excellent +business judgment and her powers of barter had attracted him strongly. +As a matter of fact, he was a bit in doubt if she hadn't the best of him +on the deal.... Her name was Amanda Randle.</p> + +<p>Scattergood gave the matter his best thought, then polished the buggy +as aforesaid, and called.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Miss Randle?" said he, tying to her hitching post.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"I calculated," said he, "that, bein' as it's a hot night, a buggy ride +might sort of cool you off, after a way of speakin'."</p> + +<p>Amanda blushed, for the proffer of a buggy ride was not without definite +significance in that region.</p> + +<p>"I'll git my shawl and bonnet," she said.</p> + +<p>To the casual eye it would have appeared that Scattergood's summer was +devoted wholly to running his hardware store and to paying court to +Mandy Randle.... But this would not have been so. He was making ready +for the winter—and for the spring that came after it. For in the spring +came the drive, and with the coming of the drive Scattergood foresaw the +coming of trouble. He was not a man to dodge trouble that might bring +profit dangling to the fringe of her skirt.</p> + +<p>Coldriver watched with deep interest the progress of Scattergood's suit. +It had figured Mandy as an old maid—for, as has been mentioned, she was +close upon her thirtieth year, which, in a village where eighteen is the +general age for taking a husband, is well along in spinsterhood. It was +late in October when Scattergood "came to scratch," as the local saying +is.</p> + +<p>"Mandy," said he, "I calc'late you noticed I been comin' around here +consid'able."</p> + +<p>"You have—seems as though," she said, and blushed. It was coming. She +recognized the signs.</p> + +<p>"I been a-comin' on purpose," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Mandy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am. It's like this: I own a hardware store and some other +prop'ty; not a heap, ma'am, but <i>some</i>. It's gittin' to be more. I +calculate, some day, to be wuth consid'able. When a man gits to this +p'int, he ought to have him a wife, eh?"</p> + +<p>Mandy made no reply.</p> + +<p>"So," said Scattergood, "I took to lookin' around a bit, and of all the +girls there was, Mandy, it looked to me like you would be the only one +to make the kind of a wife I want. That's honest. Yes, sir. Says I to +myself, 'Mandy Randle's the one for me.' So I washed up the buggy and +hitched up the horse and come right out. I been comin' ever since, +because that there first impression of mine has been bore out by +facts.... I'm askin' you, Mandy, will you be Missis Baines?"</p> + +<p>"You're stiddy and savin'—and makin'," said Mandy. "Add what <i>you</i> got +to what I got, and we'll be pretty well off. And I aim to help take care +of it."</p> + +<p>"I aim to have you help," said Scattergood. "But, Mandy, I don't want +you scrimpin' and savin' too much. I want my wife should have as good as +the best, and be looked up to by the best. The day'll come, Mandy, when +we'll keep a hired girl!"</p> + +<p>"No extravagances, Scattergood, till I say we kin afford it.... And, +Scattergood, you got to promise not to make no important move without +consultin' me. I got a head for business."</p> + +<p>"Mandy," said Scattergood, "you and me is equal partners."</p> + +<p>Which, say both tradition and history, is how the arrangement worked +out. Mandy and Scattergood <i>were</i> equal partners. Scattergood was to +learn through the years that Mandy's <i>was</i> a good head for business, +and, though business men who came to deal with Scattergood in the future +sometimes laughed when they found Mandy present at their conferences, +they never laughed but once.... And, though Scattergood's proffer of +marriage had not been couched in fervent terms of love, nor had Mandy +fallen on his overbroad bosom with rapture, theirs was a married life to +be envied by most, for there was between them perfect trust, sincere +affection, and wisest forbearance. For forty years Scattergood and Mandy +lived together as man and wife, and at the end both could look back +through the intimate years and say of the other that he had chosen well +his mate.</p> + +<p>It may be thought that this bit of romance is dropped in here by legend +and history merely to amuse, or as a side light on the character of +Scattergood Baines. This is not so. We are forced by the facts to regard +the matter as an integral part of the business transaction related in +this narrative. Not a minor part, not an important part, but perhaps the +deciding factor....</p> + +<p>John Bones, lawyer, age twenty-six, was a recent acquisition to +Coldriver village. Scattergood had watched the young man's comings and +goings, and had listened to his conversation. Early in November he went +to his bank and drew from deposit two hundred and fifty dollars.... Then +he went to call on Bones.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bones," he said, "folks says old Clayt Mosier's a client of +your'n."</p> + +<p>"He's given me some business, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... Somethin' to do with title to a piece of timber over +Higgins's Bridge way, wa'n't it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, but I guess you'll have to ask Mr. Mosier about +that."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Mosier hain't apt to tell <i>me</i>. Seems like I was sort of +int'rested in that thing. I can't manage nohow to git the facts, so I +thought I'd talk to you."</p> + +<p>"I can't help you. I have no right to talk about a client's confidential +matters."</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... How's business?"</p> + +<p>"Not very good."</p> + +<p>"Not gittin' rich, eh?"</p> + +<p>Young Bones looked unhappy, for making both ends meet was a problem he +had not mastered as yet.</p> + +<p>Scattergood got up, closed the door, and walked softly back to the desk. +He drew from his pocket the roll of bills, and spread them out in +alluring pattern.</p> + +<p>"Them's your'n," said he.</p> + +<p>"Mine? How? What for?"</p> + +<p>"I'm swappin' with you."</p> + +<p>"For what, Mr. Baines?" A slight perspiration was noticeable on young +Lawyer Bones's brow.</p> + +<p>"Information," said Scattergood, looking him in the eye. As the young +man did not speak, Scattergood continued, "about Mosier's title matter."</p> + +<p>For an instant the young man stood irresolute; then he reached slowly +over, gathered up the money into a neat roll—while Scattergood watched +him intently—and then, with suddenly set teeth, hurled the roll into +Scattergood's face, and leaped around the desk.</p> + +<p>"You <i>git</i>!" he said, between his teeth. "Git, and take your filthy +money with you...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood, who did not in the least look it, could move swiftly. The +young lawyer was abruptly interrupted in his pastime of ejecting +Scattergood forcibly. He found himself seized by his wrists and held as +if he had shoved his arms into steel clamps.</p> + +<p>"Set," said Scattergood, "and be sociable.... And keep the money. It's +your'n. You're hired. I guess you're the feller I'm aimin' to use."</p> + +<p>He forced the struggling young man back into his chair, and released +him—grinning broadly, and not at all as a tempter should grin. "If +it'll relieve your conscience," he said, "I hain't got no more int'rest +in Mosier's affairs than I have in the emperor of the heathen Chinee.... +But I <i>have</i> got a heap of int'rest in a young feller that kin refuse a +wad of money when he can't pay his board bill. Maybe 'twan't jest a nice +way, but I had to find out. The man I'm needin' has to have a clost +mouth—and somethin' a mite better 'n that—gumption not to sell out.... +Git the idee?"</p> + +<p>"I—yes, I guess I do—but—"</p> + +<p>"Any objections to workin' for me?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"All right. Keep the money. When you've worked it up come for more. And, +young feller, if things turns out for me like I think they will, you're +goin' to quit bein' a lawyer one of these days. I'm a-goin' to need you +in my business. Come over to my store."</p> + +<p>At the store Scattergood spread his maps before the young man, and +pointed to a certain spot. "There's about fifty different passels of +timber in that crotch. I don't aim to need 'em all to-day, but I +calc'late on gittin' a sort of fringe around the edge." He drew his +finger down the East Branch and up the West Branch in a sort of +horseshoe. "Your job's to git options on the fringe—in your own name. +Git the idee?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Git 'em cheap."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"There's five thousand dollars on deposit in the bank in your name. Use +it." When Scattergood trusted a man he trusted him. "And now," he said, +"I calc'late to raise a little dust, so's you won't be noticed."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's little dust consisted of allowing to be inserted in the +local paper an item announcing that Scattergood Baines had bought all +the stock and contracts of the Bailey Provision Company, which concern +was purveying food supplies to all the camps of Messrs. Crane and +Keith.... Then Scattergood settled back to watch the dust rise.</p> + +<p>The dust arose, and filled the eyes and noses of Messrs. Crane and +Keith, as Scattergood expected, with the result that Mr. Crane was a +passenger on Scattergood's stage to Coldriver village.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Crane?" said Scattergood, as that gentleman belligerently +entered the hardware store. "I was sort of lookin' forward to seein' +some of you folks."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Baines," said Crane, "what are you butting into our game +for? We let you get away with that other thing, but this last deal of +yours makes it look as if you were hunting trouble. You bought that +provision company to get a lever on us."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so.... Maybe so, but I wouldn't get het up about it.... You see, +it's like this: you folks kind of did what I expected you'd do on that +dam and boom deal, and come pretty close to doin' me out of some +valuable property. I didn't get het up, though, I jest sort of sat +around and waited.... And it come out all right. Now, didn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Bullhead luck."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Now, here's how I figger things to-day. You and +Keith hain't amiable about that deal, and you don't aim to let my dam +and boom company make any money out of you. I expect you can manage it. +If I was in your shoes, and was the kind of a man I judge you folks be, +I'd fix it so's the dam and boom company couldn't handle the drive. Buy +up the men, maybe, and start fights, and be sort of forced to take +charge so's to get my drive through. And then I'd sue for damages.... +That's how I'd do. I calc'late that's about what you and Keith has in +mind, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>Crane was purple with rage, but underneath his rage was a clammy layer +of unpleasant surprise that this mound of flabby fat should have had +such uncanny vision into his hardly creditable plans.</p> + +<p>"You're crazy, man," he blustered.</p> + +<p>"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Anyhow, I took out a mite of insurance ag'in' +sich a happenin'. I got me this here provision company to feed your +men.... Ever happen to think what would happen in the woods if your +lumberjacks run short of grub? Eh?... And suppose it happened, and your +men come bilin' out of camp, sore as bears with bee stings. What then, +eh? Couldn't git another crew this winter, maybe. Eh?"</p> + +<p>Crane blustered. He threatened legal measures, but Scattergood pointed +out no legal measures could be taken until he failed to deliver +supplies. Also, he directed Crane's attention to the fact that the +provision company was a corporation, and liable only to the extent of +its assets. "So, even if you got a judgment, you wouldn't collect enough +to make no profit. And your winter's cut would be off, and what logs you +got cut would rot in the woods. I calc'late you'd stand to git damaged +consid'able."</p> + +<p>"What's your proposition?" spluttered Crane.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got none.... You jest run back to Keith and repeat as much of +this here talk as you can remember. I'm goin' to be busy now. +Afternoon."</p> + +<p>For two weeks Scattergood disappeared, and though Crane and Keith sought +him with fever in their blood, he was not to be found. He filled their +minds; he dominated their conversation; he gave them sleepless nights +and unpleasant days.... Their attention was effectively focused on the +emergency he had presented to them. Scattergood had kicked up an +effective dust.</p> + +<p>At the end of two weeks Scattergood appeared again in town, and went +directly to Johnnie Bones's office. Scattergood now called his lawyer +Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"Got 'em?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not all. There's a fifteen-thousand-acre strip cutting right across +your horseshoe, from East to West Branch, and I couldn't touch it. I got +all the rest. That one belongs to a woman, and a more unreasonable +woman to try to do business with I never saw."</p> + +<p>"Um!" said Scattergood. "Know where I been, Johnnie?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Gittin' married."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Me 'n' the lady, we met by arrangement in Boston and got us a +preacher and done the job. Marriage, Johnnie, is a doggone solemn +matter."</p> + +<p>"I've heard so," said the young man.</p> + +<p>"Some day," said Scattergood, "I'm a-goin' to marry you off. Calculate I +got the girl in my eye now."</p> + +<p>"I hope," Johnnie said, "that you'll be—er—very happy."</p> + +<p>"Guess we'll manage so-so.... Now about them options, Johnnie. You make +tracks for the city and sort of edge up to Crane and Keith. Might start +by showin' 'em a deed for a mill site down across from theirs at the +railroad. Then you might start askin' questions like you was lookin' for +information. Guess that'll git up their curiosity some. Then you kin +spring your options on 'em.... When you've done that, come off and leave +'em sweatin'. And don't mention me. I hain't in this deal a-tall."</p> + +<p>But before Johnnie could get to Crane and Keith, Crane and Keith came to +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You've got some kind of a proposition in mind," said Keith, who did the +talking because he could keep his temper better than Crane. "What do you +want?"</p> + +<p>"Make me an offer," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"We'll buy your provision company—and give you a decent profit."</p> + +<p>"Don't sound enticin'," said Scattergood, reaching down and loosening +his shoe. It was too cold to omit the wearing of heavy woolen socks, so +he could not twiddle his toes with perfect freedom, but he could +twiddle them some, and that helped his mental processes.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want?"</p> + +<p>"I'll sell the provision company's stock of provisions—and nothin' +more.... At a profit. You got to buy, 'cause you can't make arrangements +to git in grub before I bring on a famine for you.... And I got the grub +stored in warehouses. That's part of it. Second, I'll <i>lease</i> you my +river for three years. You wasn't calc'latin' to pay for the use of it. +So you be obleeged to pay in advance. I figgered my profits on drivin' +at about two thousand this year. Give you a three-year lease for five +thousand. I hain't no hog.... Yes or no."</p> + +<p>There was a brief conference. "Yes," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to come to the city for it," Keith said, which Scattergood +was not unwilling to do. He returned with a certified check for +twenty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-four dollars and nineteen +cents, of which five thousand was rental of his river, and four thousand +and odd dollars were his profits on his provisions. Not a bad profit +from a dust-throwing project!</p> + +<p>Meantime Johnnie paid his visit to Crane and Keith, and came home to +report.</p> + +<p>"It hit them between wind and water," he said.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... What did you judge they had in mind?"</p> + +<p>"They wanted to buy me out.... Of course I wouldn't sell. My clients +wanted that timber, and were going to work to build their mill.... The +last they said was that they were coming up to see me."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh! When they come, you mention about that strip of fifteen +thousand acres you couldn't buy, eh? Let on you couldn't get it."</p> + +<p>Johnnie held Scattergood as he was going out. "I want to account for +that five thousand dollars you placed in my name."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead. I hain't perventin' you."</p> + +<p>"I got options on eighteen thousand six hundred acres of timber. The +options cost me twenty-one hundred and seventy dollars, and my expenses +were sixty-one dollars and a half."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Cheap enough. What did the land cost an acre?"</p> + +<p>"Averaged a dollar and seventy-five cents."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Not so bad. Now tend to Crane and his quiet friend."</p> + +<p>They arrived in due time, accompanied by their lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bones," said the lawyer, "you have certain options that my clients +wish to purchase. Undoubtedly they were taken in good faith, but we +would like, before going farther, to know whom you are acting for."</p> + +<p>"You can deal with me. I have full powers."</p> + +<p>"You decline to disclose your principal?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"Do I understand the project is to build a mill at once and start to cut +this timber?"</p> + +<p>"That is my information."</p> + +<p>"Aha!... May I ask how much land you have?"</p> + +<p>Johnnie exhibited a map, on which was blocked off the timber in +question. "You see," he said, "there's one fifteen-thousand-acre strip I +couldn't get hold of. It cuts right across the triangle from river to +river."</p> + +<p>Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane.</p> + +<p>"It belongs to a woman who wouldn't do business," Johnnie added.</p> + +<p>"What figure did you pay for the land?"</p> + +<p>"That is hardly a fair question."</p> + +<p>"What do you ask for your options? That's a fair question, isn't it?" +"They're not for sale."</p> + +<p>"But we may make an offer. It might be profitable for your principals to +sell. My clients feel they need this property, lying as it does between +their holdings."</p> + +<p>"I'll listen."</p> + +<p>There followed whispered arguments among the three, resulting in an +offer of a dollar and seventy-five cents an acre for the whole +tract—exactly what Johnnie had agreed to pay.</p> + +<p>"I said I'd listen," said Johnnie, "but I don't seem to hear anything."</p> + +<p>Another conference and a bid of two dollars. Johnnie shrugged his +shoulders. Two dollars and a half an acre was finally offered, and then +Johnnie leaned forward and tapped with his finger on his desk. "If you +gentlemen mean business, let's talk business. I've got what you want. +You can't get it unless I want to sell, and I don't want to sell. I and +my clients know what that timber is worth to us, but any business man +will consider a quick profit if it is <i>enough</i> profit. In five years +that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years +it will be worth fifteen to twenty.... But if you want to buy to-day you +can have it for three dollars through and through."</p> + +<p>"We've got to have it," said Crane, and Keith nodded.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood's.</p> + +<p>"Our bank has made arrangements with your local bank to give us what +money we need," said Keith.</p> + +<p>And then, clattering upstairs, came a small boy. Without ceremony he +burst into the room. "Mr. Bones," he shouted, "I was sent to tell you +that strip of timber you tried to buy from the lady is for sale." Then +he whisked out of sight.</p> + +<p>Johnnie shrugged his shoulders. "Costs me some profit," he said. +"Confound that woman!... Well, we can go to the bank and close this up. +Then you fellows can finish up by buying that last fifteen thousand +acres."</p> + +<p>"You bet we will," said Crane, savagely.</p> + +<p>At the bank fifty-five thousand eight hundred dollars in the form of a +certified check was deposited in the hands of the cashier to be paid to +Johnnie when he should deliver proper deeds to the property sold.... It +represented a profit of twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty +dollars.</p> + +<p>"Now for the other parcel," said Crane, and getting the information as +to ownership, he and his companions took buggy to the spot. It was a +comfortable farmhouse, white painted and agreeable to look upon, but the +pleasure of the view was ruined for Crane and Keith by reason of a bulky +figure standing on the porch in conversation with a woman.</p> + +<p>"Baines!" ejaculated Crane. It sounded like a swear word as he said it.</p> + +<p>The three rushed the piazza.</p> + +<p>"Madam," said Crane, not deigning to recognize Scattergood's presence, +"you own a tract of timber—fifteen thousand acres. We hear it is for +sale. We want to buy it."</p> + +<p>"This gentleman was just making me an offer for it," she said, pointing +to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"We raise his offer twenty-five cents an acre," said Crane, and drew +from his-pocket a huge roll of bills—it being his idea of the +psychology of women that the sight of actual money would have a +favorable effect.</p> + +<p>"That makes two dollars an acre," said she, and looked at Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Two and a quarter," said he.</p> + +<p>"Two and a half," roared Crane.</p> + +<p>"Two seventy-five," said Scattergood. "Three dollars."</p> + +<p>"Three ten," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Three and a quarter" said Crane. He glared at Scattergood. "If you want +it worse than that," he shouted, "why, confound you, you can have it!"</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Scattergood, placidly.</p> + +<p>The woman figured a moment. "That makes forty-eight thousand seven +hundred and fifty dollars," she said. "I kind of like even money. You +can have it for an even fifty thousand."</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked at her and grinned. One might have detected +admiration in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Done," said Crane. "We'll get into town and close the deal, ma'am, if +you don't mind."</p> + +<p>"Your buggy seems to be crowded," said Scattergood. "I'll drive the lady +in, if you want I should."</p> + +<p>"We want nothing from you at all, Baines."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Scattergood, placidly, and, getting into his buggy, he +drove away. He drove rapidly, and alighted at Johnnie Bones's office. +Presently he emerged, carrying a legal-appearing document in his hand, +and went across to the bank, where he handed the document to the +cashier.</p> + +<p>Presently the parties appeared, entered the bank, and the cashier, upon +being directed, executed a certified check to the lady for fifty +thousand dollars. Then he handed it to her, and the deed to Mr. Crane. +"You see," said he, "we have the deed all ready for you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scattergood, stepping through the door. "I had it fixed up +for you. I aim to be prompt when I'm tendin' to my wife's business +matters. Gentlemen, I guess you hain't met Mrs. Baines real proper +yet...."</p> + +<p>It was not a happy moment for Messrs. Crane and Keith, but they +weathered it, not suavely, not with complete dignity, but after a +fashion.... Their departure might, perhaps, have been termed brusque.</p> + +<p>"Well, Scattergood," said Mandy, "it was a real good deal."</p> + +<p>"The way you h'isted 'em to fifty thousand was what got my eye," he +said, proudly. "I wouldn't 'a' had the nerve."</p> + +<p>"I knew they'd pay it," she said. "Seems like a reasonable profit, +though the land's been a-layin' there unproductive for thirty year. +Father, he give a thousand dollars for it, and the taxes must 'a' been a +couple of thousand more. Say forty-seven thousand dollars profit...."</p> + +<p>"And I come out of the other deals perty fair. Made twenty-three +thousand off of the options, and nine or ten off of the other things. +Guess the Baines family's a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars +richer by a good day's work."</p> + +<p>"But it can't lay idle," she said.</p> + +<p>"Not a minnit. We'll buy that sixty thousand acres 'way back up the +river for sixty-six cents, like we planned, and have some workin' +capital.... And, Mandy, Crane and Keith hain't got that timber for +keeps. It's comin' back to us some of these days. I feel it in my +bones...."</p> + +<p>"Kind of a nice wind-up for our honeymoon," said Mrs. Baines, +practically.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_III"></a><h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines was on his way to the city! An exclamation point +deserves to be placed after this because it rightly belongs in a class +with the statement that the mountain was coming to Mohammed. Scattergood +had fully as much in common with cities as eels with the Desert of +Sahara.</p> + +<p>He had not started the journey brashly, on impulse, but after debate and +discussion with Mandy, his wife. Mandy's conclusion was that if +Scattergood <i>had</i> to go to the city he might as well get at it and have +it over, exercising the care of an exceedingly prudent man in the +circumstances, and following minutely advice that would be forthcoming +from <i>her</i>. Undoubtedly, she thought, he could manage the matter and +return to Coldriver unscathed.</p> + +<p>So Scattergood was clambering into the stage—his stage that plied +between Coldriver village and the railroad, twenty-four miles distant. +When he settled in his seat the stage sagged noticeably on that side, +for Scattergood added to his weight yearly as he added to his other +possessions. Mandy stood by, watching anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Remember," said she, "I pinned your money in the right leg of your +pants, clost to the knee."</p> + +<p>"Mandy," said he, confidentially, "I feel the lump of it. I hope I don't +have to git after it sudden. Dunno but I should have fetched along a +ferret to send up after it."</p> + +<p>"Don't git friendly with no strangers—dressed-up ones, especial. And +never set down your valise. There's a white shirt and a collar and two +pairs of sox, and what not, in there. Make quite an object for some +sharper."</p> + +<p>He nodded solemnly.</p> + +<p>"If you git invited out to <i>his house</i>," she said, "it'll save you a +dollar hotel bill, anyhow, and be a heap sight safer."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Mandy, as usual," he agreed. "G'by, Mandy. I calculate +you won't have no trouble mindin' the store."</p> + +<p>"G'by, Scattergood," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "I'll be relieved to +see you gittin' back."</p> + +<p>There seemed to be little sentiment in these, their words of parting, +but in reality it was an exceedingly sentimental passage for them. +Between Scattergood and his wife there was a deep, true, abiding +affection. Folks who regarded it as a business partnership—and there +were many of them—lacked the seeing eye.</p> + +<p>The stage rattled off down the valley—Scattergood's valley. He had +invaded it some years before because valleys were his hobby and because +<i>this</i> valley offered him the opportunity he had been searching for. +Scattergood knew what could be done with a valley, and he was busy doing +it, but he was only at the beginning. As he bumped along he could see +busy villages where only hamlets rested; he could see mills turning +timber into finished products; he could see business and life and +activity where there were only silence and rocks and trees. And where +ran the rutted mountain road, over which his stage was carrying him +uncomfortably, he could see the railroad that was to make his dream a +reality. He could see a railroad stretching all the way from Coldriver +village to the main line, and by virtue of this railroad Scattergood +would rule the valley.</p> + +<p>He had arrived with forty-odd dollars in his pocket. His few years of +labor there, assisted by a wise and business-like marriage, had +increased that forty dollars to what some folks would call wealth. +First, he owned a prosperous hardware store. This was his business. It +netted him a couple of thousand dollars a year. The valley was his +avocation. It had netted him well over a hundred thousand dollars, most +of which was growing on the mountain sides in straight, clear spruce, in +birch, beech, and maple. It had netted him certain strategic holdings of +land along Coldriver itself, sites for future dams, for mills yet to be +built—for railroad yards, depots, and terminals. Quietly, almost +stealthily, he had gotten a hold on the valley. Now he was ready to grip +it with both hands and to make it his own.... That is why he journeyed +to the city.</p> + +<p>He put his canvas telescope between his feet so that he could feel it. +It was as well, he determined, to practice caution where none was +needed, so he would be letter perfect in the art when he reached the +dangers of the city. Between Scattergood's shoes and the feet they +inclosed, were sox. Before his union with Mandy he had been a stranger +to such effeteness. Even now he was prone to discard them as soon as he +was out of range of her vision. To-day he had not escaped, for, warm as +the day was, heavy white woolen sox folded and festooned themselves +modishly over the tops of his shoes. He could not wriggle a toe, which +made his mental processes difficult, for his toes were first aids to his +brain.</p> + +<p>However, he was going to visit a railroad president, and railroad +presidents were said by Mandy to go in for style. Scattergood mournfully +arose to the necessities of the situation.</p> + +<p>The twenty-four-mile ride was not long to Scattergood, for he occupied +it by studying again every inch of his valley. He never tired of +studying it. As the law book to the lawyer so the valley was to +Scattergood—something never to be laid aside, something to be kept +fresh in mind and never neglected. He never passed the length of it +without seeing a new possibility.</p> + +<p>Scattergood flagged the train. The four-hour ride to the city he +occupied in talking to the conductor or brake-man or any member of the +train's crew he could engage in conversation. He was asking them about +their jobs, what they did, and why. He was asking question after +question about railroads and railroading, in his quaint, characteristic +manner. It was his intention to own a railroad, and he was at work +finding out how the thing was done.</p> + +<p>Next morning at seven he was on hand at the terminal offices of the G. +and B. An hour later minor employees began to arrive.</p> + +<p>"Young feller," he said, accosting a pleasant-faced boy, "where d'you +calc'late I'll find Mr. Castle?"</p> + +<p>"President Castle?" asked the boy.</p> + +<p>"That's the feller," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"About now he'll be eating grapefruit and poached egg," said the boy.</p> + +<p>"Don't he work none durin' the day?"</p> + +<p>The boy laughed good-humoredly. "He gets down about nine thirty, and +when he don't go off somewheres he's mostly here till four—except +between one and two, when he's at lunch."</p> + +<p>"Gosh!" said Scattergood. "Must be wearin' him to the bone. 'Most five +hours a day he sticks to it. Bear up under it perty well, young feller, +does he? Keep his health and strength?"</p> + +<p>"He works enough to get paid fifty thousand a year for it," said the +boy.</p> + +<p>"That settles it," said Scattergood. "I've picked my job. I'm a-goin' to +be a railroad president." He put his canvas telescope down, and placed a +heavy foot on it for safety. "Calc'late I kin sit here and wait, can't +I?"</p> + +<p>The boy nodded and went on. During the next hour more than one dozen +young men and women passed that spot to eye with appreciation the caller +who waited for Mr. Castle. Scattergood was unaware of their scrutiny, +for he was building a railroad down his valley—a railroad of which he +was the president.</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked frequently at a big, open-faced, silver watch which +was connected to his vest in pickpocket-proof fashion with a braided +leather thong. When it told him nine thirty had arrived, he got up, his +telescope in his hand, and ambled heavily down the corridor. He poked +his head in at an open door, and called, amiably, "Kin anybody tell me +where to find Mr. Castle?"</p> + +<p>He was directed, and presently opened a door marked "President's +Office." The room within did not contain the president. It was crossed +by a railing, behind which sat an office boy. Behind him was a +stenographer.</p> + +<p>"President in?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The boy looked at him severely, and replied, shortly, that the president +was busy.</p> + +<p>"Havin' only five hours to do all his work," said Scattergood, "I +calc'lated he <i>would</i> be some took up. Tell him Scattergood Baines wants +to have a talk to him, sonny."</p> + +<p>"Have an appointment?"</p> + +<p>"No, sonny," said Scattergood, "but if you don't scamper into his room +fairly <i>spry</i>, the seat of your pants is goin' to have an appointment +with my hand." He leaned over the railing as he said it, and the boy, +regarding Scattergood's face a moment, arose and whisked into the next +room.</p> + +<p>Shortly there appeared a youngish man, constructed by nature to adorn +wearing apparel.</p> + +<p>"Be you Mr. Castle?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I'm his secretary. What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Young man, I'm disapp'inted. When I see you I figgered you must be +president of the railroad or the Queen of Sheeby. I want to see Mr. +Castle."</p> + +<p>"What is your business with him?"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't fit for young ears to listen to," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"If you have any business with Mr. Castle, state it to me."</p> + +<p>"Um!... I come quite consid'able of a distance to see <i>him</i>—which I +calc'late to <i>do</i>." He reached over, with astonishing suddenness in one +so bulky, and twirled the secretary about with his ham of a hand. At the +same time he leaned against the gate, which was not fastened to restrain +such a weight. "Now, forrard march, young feller. Lead the way. I'm +follerin' you." And thus Scattergood entered the presence.</p> + +<p>He saw behind a huge, flat desk a very thin man, who leaned forward, +clutching his temples as though to restrain within bounds the machinery +of the brain inside. It was President Castle's habitual posture when +working. The temples and dome of the head seemed to bulge, as if there +was too much inside for the strength of the restraining walls. The +president looked up and fastened eyes that themselves bulged from +hollowed sockets. It was the face of a man who ran his mental dynamo at +top speed in defiance of nature's laws against speeding.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he snapped. "<i>Well—well</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Name's Scattergood Baines. Figger to build a railroad. Want to see you +about it," said Scattergood, succinctly.</p> + +<p>"Not interested. Busy. Get out," said Castle.</p> + +<p>Scattergood dropped the secretary, and lumbered up to the president's +desk. He leaned over it heavily. "I've come to see you about this here +thing," he said, quietly. "Either you'll talk to me about it <i>now</i>, or +I'll have to sort of arrange so that you'll come to <i>me</i>, askin' to talk +about it, later. Now you kin save both our time."</p> + +<p>Castle regarded Scattergood with eyes that seemed to burn with +unnatural nervous energy—it was a brief scrutiny. "Clear out," he said +to his secretary. "Sit down," to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Obleeged," said Scattergood. "I'm figgerin' on buildin' a railroad down +Coldriver Valley from Coldriver to connect with the G. and B. narrow +gauge. Carry freight and passengers. Want you to agree about train +service, freight transfer, buildin' a station, and sich matters."</p> + +<p>Here was a man who could get down to business, President Castle +perceived, and who could state his business clearly and to the point.</p> + +<p>"I know the valley. Been talking about it. Where do you come in?"</p> + +<p>"I calculate to build the road."</p> + +<p>"For Crane and Keith?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"They're the men backing it, aren't they? In to see me about it last +week."</p> + +<p>Crane and Keith! Scattergood's career in the valley had been one of +warfare with Crane and Keith. He had beaten them with his dam and boom +company; he had beaten them in certain stumpage operations. Now they +were after his railroad and his valley.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." he said, and reached down mechanically to loosen his shoe. Here +was need for careful thought.</p> + +<p>"I gave them all necessary information," said the president.</p> + +<p>"Don't concern me none," said Scattergood. "This here is to be <i>my</i> +railroad, and I'm the feller that's goin' to own and run it. Crane and +Keith hain't in it at all."</p> + +<p>"You're too late. The G. and B. has agreed to handle their freight and +to stop passengers at their station. Tentatively agreed to lease and +operate the road when built.... Good morning." "I calculate there's +room for argument," said Scattergood. "I own right consid'able of that +right of way."</p> + +<p>"Railroad can take it under the right of eminent domain," said the +president.</p> + +<p>"Kin one railroad take from another one?" asked Scattergood, a bit +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wa-al, you see, Mr. Castle, I got me a charter to build this +railroad. Legislature up and give me one."</p> + +<p>"Makes no difference. We've made an agreement with Crane and Keith which +<i>stands</i>. You can't build your road, whatever you've got. Frankly, we +won't tolerate a road there that we don't control. Good morning."</p> + +<p>"That final, Mr. President?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"If I was to build in spite of you I calc'late you'd fix things so's +runnin' it wouldn't do much good to me, eh? Stop no trains for me, and +sich like?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Mornin', Mr. President. If you ever git up to Coldriver don't go +to the hotel. Come right to my house. Mandy'll be glad to see you. +Mornin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood and Johnnie Bones, the young lawyer whom Scattergood had +taken to his heart, were studying a railway map of the state with +special reference to the G. & B. It showed them that the G. & B. +traversed a southerly corner of the state and had within its boundaries +some forty miles of track.</p> + +<p>"The idee," said Scattergood, "is to make that forty mile of track +consid'able more of a worry to Castle than all the rest of his +railroad."</p> + +<p>"Meddling with the railroads is a dangerous pastime," said Johnnie. +"Besides, how can you manage it?"</p> + +<p>"We got a legislature, hain't we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the boys feel pretty friendly to the railroads, I +understand."</p> + +<p>"Feel perty friendly to me, too," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I doubt if you could pass any legislation they wanted to fight hard."</p> + +<p>"Um!... I'll look out for that end, Johnnie. Now what I want is for you +to draw up a bill for me that'll sort of irritate 'em where irritation +does the most hurt—which, I calc'late, is in the pocketbook. Here's my +notion: To make a pop'lar measure of it; somethin' that'll appeal to the +folks. We kin git the papers to start a holler and have folks demandin' +action of their representatives, and sich like. Taxes! That'll fetch 'em +every time."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Johnnie, dubiously, "but—"</p> + +<p>"You <i>listen</i>" said Scattergood. "It stands to reason that the state +don't realize much out of that there forty mile of track. The G. and B. +gits the use of the state, so to speak, without payin' a fair rent for +it. You draw up a bill pervidin' that the railroad has got to pay a fee +of, say a dollar, for every passenger car it runs over them forty miles, +and fifty cents for every freight car. That'll mount to a consid'able +sum every year, eh?"</p> + +<p>"It'll amount to so much," said Johnnie, gazing ruefully at his client, +"that there'll be the devil to pay. You'll pull every railroad in the +state down around your ears."</p> + +<p>"Let 'em drop."</p> + +<p>"And I don't know if the law'll hold water—even if you got it passed. +It's darn-fool legislation, Mr. Baines—but some darn-fool legislation +<i>sticks</i>. I don't believe this would, but it <i>might</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's plenty to suit me," said Scattergood, slipping on his shoes and +standing up. "You git at it.... And say," he said, as a sort of +afterthought, "I want to git through a leetle bill for my stage line. +Here's about it. Won't take more'n fifty words." He handed Johnnie a +slip, crumpled and grimy, with lead-pencil notes on. "This won't cause +no trouble, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went back to his hardware store and sat down in his +reinforced armchair on the piazza. As he sat there young Jim Hands drove +up with his girl, alighted, and went into the ice-cream parlor for +refreshment. Scattergood studied the rig. It lacked something to give it +the final touch of style dear to the country youth.</p> + +<p>Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a +resplendent buggy whip—one with a white silk bow tied above its handle. +This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his +chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig. +He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished +it through the air to try its excellence.</p> + +<p>"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim.</p> + +<p>"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good +whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked."</p> + +<p>Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and +felt in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I <i>did</i> need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips +fetchin'?"</p> + +<p>"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to +you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy."</p> + +<p>The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills, +which he passed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off +with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by +methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the +business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for. +Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business +opportunity slip—large or small—and that he manufactured for himself +fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail +salesmanship to the rank of an art.</p> + +<p>Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain +wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had +pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and +weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find +them and ship them at once.</p> + +<p>Presently Tim Plant, teamster, drove by, and Scattergood hailed him.</p> + +<p>"Tim," he said, "you owe me a leetle bill. This hain't a dun, but I got +a mite of work to be done, and seein' things wasn't brisk with you, I +figgered you might want to work it out—jest to keep busy."</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Tim.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Scattergood elevated himself to the seat beside Tim, and was +driven to the spot he had selected for the Coldriver terminal of his +railroad.</p> + +<p>"I want about a hunderd feet graded along here," he said, "to lay rails +on."</p> + +<p>"Rails!... Gosh! Scattergood, you hain't thinkin' of buildin' a +railroad, be you?"</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" said Scattergood. "I jest got a half dozen rails comin', and I +figgered I'd like to see how they'd look all laid down on the spot. Give +folks an idee how a railroad 'u'd look if there was one."</p> + +<p>In which manner Scattergood collected a doubtful bill, obtained a +quantity of labor at what might be called wholesale rates—and actually +started work on his railroad. Actual, patent for the world to see. The +railroad was begun. Not Crane & Keith, not President Castle, not a court +in the world could deny that actual construction had begun. Scattergood +was insuring himself against possible steps by the enemy to nullify his +charter.</p> + +<p>"What's this here <i>eminent domain</i>?" Scattergood asked Johnnie Bones.</p> + +<p>"It's a legal thing that allows railroads to take land necessary to its +operation—paying for it, of course."</p> + +<p>"Anybody's land?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Crane and Keith, f'r instance?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Have to be right of way, or jest land for railroad yards, or to +build railroad buildin's on?"</p> + +<p>"Any land <i>necessary</i> to a railroad."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Who says if it's necessary?"</p> + +<p>"The courts."</p> + +<p>"How'd you git at it?"</p> + +<p>"Start what are called condemnation proceedings."</p> + +<p>"All right, Johnnie, start me some."</p> + +<p>"Against whom, and for what, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"Against Crane and Keith, to git their land down at the G. and B. All +their mill yards, you know. Don't want the mill buildin'. They're +welcome to that. Jest their yards."</p> + +<p>"But they can't run the mill without the log yard and the yard to pile +out their lumber."</p> + +<p>"Be too bad, wouldn't it? Calc'late I'm a heap sorry for Crane and +Keith. Them fellers arouses my sympathy mighty frequent."</p> + +<p>"But you're not a railroad, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Yes I be, Johnnie. To-morrow I'll be layin' rails to prove it."</p> + +<p>"But you own land right adjoining Crane and Keith's yards. Plenty of +it."</p> + +<p>"Not plenty, Johnnie.... Not plenty. As long as Crane and Keith owns +<i>anything</i> in this neighborhood I hain't got plenty of it. Get the idee?"</p> + +<p>"You want to run them out?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, they hain't been exactly friendly to me. I like to dwell among +friends, Johnnie. Lately they been makin' a sight of trouble for me. +Seems like I ought to sort of return the favor. 'Tain't jest spite, +Johnnie. Spite's a luxury I can't afford if there hain't a money profit +in it. Seems like there might be a dollar or two in this here +proceedin'—if handled jest right."</p> + +<p>Johnnie didn't see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object +in a great many things that Scattergood undertook. It was not his +business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood's +directions. The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood's +right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead.</p> + +<p>"Didn't know Crane's sister married President Castle of the G. and B., +did you, Johnnie?"</p> + +<p>"No. What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Consid'able.... Consid'able. Goes some ways toward provin' to me I was +expected to call on Castle and that things was arranged on purpose. +Proves to my satisfaction that Crane and Keith went out of their way to +start this rumpus with me.... You start them condemnation proceedin's as +quick as you kin."</p> + +<p>Johnnie started them. Scattergood waited a few days; watched with +interest the laying of the first rails of the Coldriver Railroad, and +then made the day's drive to the state capital with drafts of his pair +of bills in his pocket. He hunted up the representative from his +town—Amri Striker by name.</p> + +<p>"Amri," said he, "how's your disposition these days, eh? Feel like doin' +favors?"</p> + +<p>"Guess a lot of us boys feel like doin' favors for you, Scattergood." +Which was not short of the truth, for Scattergood had been studying the +science of politics as it was practiced in his state and putting to +practical use his education. Indeed, he added to the science not a few +contrivances characteristic of himself, which made the old-timers +scratch their heads and admit that a new man had arisen who must be +reckoned with. Not yet did Scattergood hold the state in the hollow of +his hand, naming governors, senators, directing legislation, as he did +when his years were heavier on his shoulders. Probably, however, there +was no single individual in the commonwealth who could exert as much +influence as he. If there was a single man to compare with him it was +Lafe Siggins, from the northern part of the state. All men admitted that +a partnership between Scattergood and Lafe would be unbeatable.</p> + +<p>"Got a bill I want introduced, Amri," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Let's see her, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>Amri read the bill; then he turned around in his chair and looked out of +the window. Then he walked to the door and opened it suddenly, and +peered up and down the hall.</p> + +<p>"The dum thing's loaded with dynamite," he said, when he came back.</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated on some explosion," said Scattergood. "But I calc'late the +folks'll be for it. Shouldn't be s'prised if the feller who introduced +it and made a fight for it would stand mighty well, back home. Might git +to be Senator, Amri. No tellin'."</p> + +<p>"Can't no sich bill be passed. The boys likes their passes, and I guess +there's some that gits more than passes out of the railroads."</p> + +<p>"If this bill's introduced, Amri," said Scattergood, solemnly, "there'll +be a chance for some of the boys to fat up their savings' +account—pervidin' there's a good chance of its passin'. The +railroads'll git scairt and send quite a bank roll up this way."</p> + +<p>"You bet," said Amri, with watering mouth.</p> + +<p>"Lafe in town?"</p> + +<p>"Come in last week."</p> + +<p>"Lafe, I understand, hain't in politics for fun."</p> + +<p>"Lafe's in right where he kin git the most the quickest."</p> + +<p>"Run out and git him to step up here," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>In half an hour Lafe Siggins, tall, bony, long, and solemn of face, +stepped into the room, and closed the door after him cautiously.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Scattergood!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Lafe!... Want your backin' for a pop'lar measure. I've up and +invented a new way of taxin' a railroad."</p> + +<p>Lafe started for the door. "Afternoon," he said, with a tone of +finality.</p> + +<p>"But," said Scattergood, "I figger you to do the fightin' for the +railroads—reapin' whatever benefits you can figger out of it for +yourself."</p> + +<p>Lafe paused, considered, and returned. "What's the idee?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I jest don't want this bill to pass too easy," said Scattergood, +soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't," said Lafe.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Railroads is more liberal, hain't they, when there's a good +chance of their gittin' licked? Suppose this come to a fight, and it +looked like they was goin' to git the worst of it. Supposin' the outcome +hung on two or three votes, eh? And them votes looked dubious."</p> + +<p>Lafe pressed his thin lips together.</p> + +<p>"I guess I kin account for near half of the boys, Lafe, and I guess you +kin line up clost to half with the railroads, can't you? Well, you don't +stand to lose nothin', do you? All we got to do is keep them decidin' +votes where we want 'em." Then he leaned over and whispered in Lafe's +ear briefly.</p> + +<p>Lafe's thin lips curved upward a trifle at the ends. "Scattergood," +said he, "this here's an idee. Never recollect nothin' resemblin' it +since I been in politics. What <i>you</i> after?"</p> + +<p>"Jest pleasure, Lafe.... Jest pleasure. Is it a deal?"</p> + +<p>"It's a deal."</p> + +<p>"Amri outside?"</p> + +<p>"Standin' guard, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"When you go out send him in."</p> + +<p>Amri opened the door that Lafe closed behind him.</p> + +<p>"All fixed," said Scattergood. "I want to see these boys to-night." +Scattergood handed Amri a list of names. "And say, Amri, here's a leetle +bill you might jest slip along quick. Don't amount to nothin', but it +might help me some. Like to git the Governor's signature to it as soon +as it kin be done."</p> + +<p>Amri read it cautiously. It was just a harmless little measure having to +do with stage lines. "All right," he said, carelessly.</p> + +<p>Crane was in President Castle's office, and his demeanor was that of a +man who has heard disquieting news.</p> + +<p>"I told you," he said, in tones of reproach, "that he wasn't safe to +monkey with. Keith and I thought he was just a fat, backwoods rube, but +we got burnt, and burnt good. We were going to let him alone, but you +got us into this—and now you've got to get us out again. Know what he's +done? Nothing much but start condemnation proceedings against us to take +our mill yards down on the railroad for a site for a depot and freight +sheds. That's all. And us with close to a hundred thousand tied up in +that mill. If he puts it through ..."</p> + +<p>"He won't," snapped Castle.</p> + +<p>"He's started to build his railroad. Actually laying rails."</p> + +<p>"So I heard. That's to hold his charter.... Don't you worry. He can't +build that road, and you men will. As soon as I found out he had that +charter, and saw the possibilities of that valley, I made up my mind he +had to be eliminated. And he will be."</p> + +<p>"Keith and I tried that."</p> + +<p>"I saw him," said Castle. "He's no fool. You thought he was. I'm not +making any such mistake. Going after you the way he has proves it."</p> + +<p>"And he'll be going after you, too. You want to mind your eye."</p> + +<p>"It's a little different tackling the G. and B., don't you think? And I +doubt if he figures we're really backing you."</p> + +<p>"What he figures and what you think he figures are mighty wide apart +sometimes. It cost me money to find that out."</p> + +<p>The telephone interrupted. Castle answered: "Yes, Hammond, I can see you +now. What is it?... All right. Come right up." Hammond was the +railroad's general counsel.</p> + +<p>He appeared presently.</p> + +<p>"I thought we had the legislature up yonder tamed," he said, angrily, as +he entered the office.</p> + +<p>"We have."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Take a look at this." He handed to the president Scattergood's +novel taxation, measure. "What you make of that? Who's behind it? What's +the game?"</p> + +<p>Castle read it carefully; then he turned to Crane. "You win," he said, +succinctly. "Your friend Scattergood has brought the fight right on to +our front porch.... What about it, Hammond? Will such a tom-fool law +stand water?"</p> + +<p>"Can't tell. My judgment is that it wouldn't, but it's such a fool law +that nobody can tell. And if it stuck—" He sucked in his breath. "It +would give every jay legisature a show to rough the railroads +beautifully."</p> + +<p>"It would hurt.... Of course it mustn't pass. Get after it and don't let +any grass grow. Kill it in committee. That's the safest way.... Have +Lafe Siggins look after it."</p> + +<p>Hammond bustled out, and Castle turned to his brother-in-law. "I +underestimated this Scattergood <i>some</i>," he said. "Now I'll go after +him.... For reasons of necessity we will discontinue all train service +at the flag station at the mouth of Coldriver Valley. That'll leave his +stage line dangling in the air. Just for a taste of what we can do.... +I'll have Hammond look after that condemnation matter for you."</p> + +<p>"He'll be coming around to offer to sidetrack that legislation if you'll +let him build his railroad."</p> + +<p>"Probably. I guess we won't trade."</p> + +<p>But Scattergood did not come around to offer a compromise. He seemed to +have lost interest in the matter wholly and to give his time solely to +his hardware store. But the Transient Car bill, as it came to be called, +began mysteriously to attract unprecedented attention. The press of the +state showed unusual interest in it. In short, it became the one big +measure of the legislative session. Everything else was secondary to it. +When a railroad measure is hotly discussed in every loafing place in a +state there is a measure that legislators handle with gloves. It is +loaded. When the home folks get really interested in a thing they are +apt to demand explanations. Wherefore it was but natural that President +Castle's experts found it impossible to strangle the bill in committee. +It was reported out, and then Hammond found it wise to journey to the +capital to take charge of things himself.</p> + +<p>At the end of a week, Mr. Hammond, general counsel for the G. & B. and +expert handler of legislatures, was forced to write President Castle +that he faced a condition new in his broad experience.</p> + +<p>"The chances," he said, "are more than even that this bill passes. Men +we have been able to depend on are refractory. Siggins is doing his +best, but so far he has been able to account for only forty-five per +cent of the votes. The strange thing about it," he finished, with +genuine amazement, "is that the other side doesn't seem to be spending a +penny."</p> + +<p>Which was perfectly true. Neither in that fight nor in any of the scores +of legislative battles in which Scattergood took part in his after life +did he spend a dollar to buy a vote or to influence legislation. Perhaps +it was scruple on his part; perhaps economy; perhaps he felt that his +own peculiar methods were more efficacious than mere barter and sale.</p> + +<p>From end to end, the state was in excitement over the measure. Skillful +work had made it seem a vital thing to the people, and hundreds of +letters and telegrams poured in to representatives. It looked as if +public opinion were overwhelmingly with the bill. It was Scattergood's +first use of the weapon of public opinion. In this battle he learned its +potentialities. Men who knew him well and were close to him in political +matters declare he became the most skillful creator of a fictitious +public opinion that ever lived in the state. It was in keeping with his +methods that he always seemed to be acting in response to a demand from +the public rather than that he excited the public to demand what +Scattergood wanted. But that was when Scattergood's hair was touched +with gray and his girth had increased by twoscore pounds.</p> + +<p>"I can't find any trace of Scattergood Baines in this matter," Hammond +reported to President Castle.</p> + +<p>That was true. Scattergood stayed at home, tending vigorously to his +hardware business. Representatives did not call on him; he did not call +on them. No trails led to his door.</p> + +<p>President Castle had expected overtures from Scattergood, but none +materialized. To a man of Castle's experience this was more than +strange; it was uncanny. He began to consider the situation really +serious. Was the man so confident as his silence indicated?</p> + +<p>"Get the votes," he wired succinctly to Hammond, and Hammond, reading +the message correctly, dipped into the emergency barrel of the railroad +with generous hands. Prosperity had come to that legislature. Yet he was +able, at the end of another two weeks, to guarantee six votes less than +a majority. The opposition had captured one more vote than he, and +needed but five to pass their measure. Hammond faced the task of +acquiring those five unplaced legislators, and of weaning one away from +Scattergood—and the bill was due to come up in the House in two days.</p> + +<p>That day President Castle himself arrived in the capital, and, after +discussing the situation with Hammond, wired Scattergood, asking for an +appointment. The mountain was going to Mohammed. Scattergood replied not +a word.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late," he said to Mandy, "that President Castle's raisin' him a +blister."</p> + +<p>On the morning of the day on which the bill was to come to a vote +Scattergood appeared unostentatiously in the capital, but word of his +presence flashed from tongue to tongue with miraculous speed. Word of it +came to President Castle, who pocketed his pride for excellent business +reasons, and sent up his card to Scattergood's room.</p> + +<p>"Guess I kin see him a minute," said Scattergood, and the president +ascended with thoughts in his heart which Scattergood was well able to +lead.</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Castle, without preface, "what do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin' you've got, I calc'late," said Scattergood, serenely.</p> + +<p>"You're back of this infernal bill. The railroads can't permit it to +pass. It won't pass."</p> + +<p>"Then what you wastin' your time on me for?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"If we let you build your infernal little railroad will you drop out of +this?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't in it to speak of."</p> + +<p>"Will you take your hands off—if we give you your railroad and +guarantee train service?"</p> + +<p>"Can't seem to see my way clear."</p> + +<p>"What do you gain by passing this bill? You're nothing ahead. It won't +give you your railroad. It won't give you anything."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late you're right."</p> + +<p>"Listen to reason, man. You want <i>something</i>. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Me?... Um!... I'm a plain kind of a man, Mr. President, with a plain +kind of a wife. Hain't never met Mandy, have you? Wa-al, her and me is +perty contented with life. We got a good hardware store ..."</p> + +<p>"Rot! What do you want?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood leaned forward, his round face, with its bulging cheeks, as +expressionless as some particularly big and ruddy apple.</p> + +<p>"If you're achin' to do favors for me, Mr. President you kin drop in +along about supper time. Right now can't think of a thing you kin do for +me. But I'll try ... I'll spend the afternoon thinkin' over all the +things you might be able to do, and I'll try to pick one of 'em out.... +I got to see a hardware salesman now. Afternoon Mr. President."</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Castle, losing his temper for the first time in a dozen +years, "we'll smash you for this. We'll drive you out of the state. +Well—"</p> + +<p>"Don't slam the door," said Scattergood, placidly; "it might disturb the +other folks in the hotel."</p> + +<p>That afternoon the galleries of the House were jammed. Below, in their +seats, the legislators sat uncomfortably. There was a tenseness in the +air which made men's skin tingle. The Transient Car bill was about to +come to a vote. Everything had been done by both sides that could be +done. There could be no more outside interference; no more money +influence. It was all over. Now the matter was in the hands of those +uneasy men, who, even now, might hold steadfast to their principles or +to the money that had bought them or to the power that had compelled +them—or who might, for reasons secret to their several souls, change +sides with astonishing suddenness, upsetting all calculations. Such +things have been done.... But, even without the happening of the +unexpected, no man could say how the votes would fall. Neither side had +obtained a sure majority.</p> + +<p>The preliminary formalities went forward. Then began the roll call, and +from his place in the gallery Hammond checked off on his list name after +name, as they voted yea or nay—and President Castle watched and kept +mental count. Scattergood was not present. The thing was even, +dangerously even. For every yea there sounded a balancing nay. The count +stood sixty-one for, sixty against ... with ten more votes to call.... +With six votes to call the count was even.</p> + +<p>"Whittaker," called the clerk's monotonous voice.</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Robbins."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Baker."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Hooper."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Bolger."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>"Brock."</p> + +<p>"Nay."</p> + +<p>The six final votes had been cast—and cast solidly against +Scattergood's bill. Scattergood was beaten, decisively, destructively +beaten. Not only was he defeated here, but he was smashed where the +damage was even more destructive—in his prestige. He was a discredited +political leader.... Lafe Siggins could not restrain a chuckle, for +Scattergood had played into his hands. Scattergood had allowed himself +to be eliminated from calculation in the state, leaving Siggins as sole, +undisputed, victorious boss. It had been a clever scheme that +Scattergood had outlined to Lafe—so clever that Lafe hadn't seen the +great good that lay in it for himself—until days later. He shrugged his +shoulders. It was just another case of a man unfamiliar with the game +overplaying his hand.</p> + +<p>President Castle shook hands openly with Hammond. True, there was a +demonstration of disapproval from the gallery—but that was only the +people! It did not signify.</p> + +<p>"We got him," said Castle.</p> + +<p>"But it was a close squeak."</p> + +<p>Castle looked grimly down on the representatives, now huddled together +in whispering groups.</p> + +<p>"I don't often have the impulse to crow over a man," he said, "but this +Baines was so infernally cocky. He told me I might see him at six +o'clock and he'd tell me what I could do for him. Well, I'm going to see +him." His voice was grim and forbidding.</p> + +<p>On the way they picked up Siggins and invited him to dinner. The three +went to the hotel, where, sitting calmly, placidly in the lobby, was +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Castle walked directly to him. "You were going to tell me what I could +do for you—at this hour, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Did say somethin' like that."</p> + +<p>Castle eyed Scattergood venomously, found him a hard man to crow over. +He admitted Scattergood to be a good loser.</p> + +<p>"I expect you'll be asking favors for some time," Castle said, "and not +getting them. I told you we'd lick you—and we have. I told you we'd +smash you and drive you out of the state. We'll do that just as +surely ..."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so," said Scattergood, phlegmatically. "Maybe so. Nobody kin +tell.... Howdy, Siggins! Lookin' mighty jubilant about somethin'. Glad +to see it.... And Mr. Hammond seems pleased, too. Done a good job of +work, didn't you? Bet your boss is pleased with you, eh?"</p> + +<p>"When you're ready to turn your chunks of right of way over to Crane and +Keith, let them know," said Castle. "I guess the G. and B. loses +interest in you from this on—or it will presently."</p> + +<p>"Jest a jiffy," said Scattergood, as the trio turned away. "Seems like +you was goin' to do a favor for me. Well, you hain't done it yet.... +Guess I need a favor perty bad at this minute, eh? Wa-al, 'tain't a big +one. Jest sort of cast your eye over this here." Scattergood handed +Castle a folded paper of documentary appearance.</p> + +<p>Castle snatched it and read it. It was brief. Not more than fifty words. +It was a copy of a bill having to do with stage lines, passed by both +Houses and signed by the Governor. It provided that wherever any stage +line or <i>other transportation company of whatsoever nature</i> intersected +the line of a railroad or terminated on such line, the railroad should +be compelled to establish a regular station on demand, for the handling +of passengers and freight, and should stop all trains except through +trains, and should establish sidetracks for the handling and transfer of +freight.</p> + +<p>A few formal words, backed by the authority of the state, compelling the +G. & B. to do all, and more than all, that Scattergood had requested of +them! A few words making possible Scattergood's railroad more surely +than agreement with President Castle could have made it!</p> + +<p>"While you folks was busy with the Transient Car bill," Scattergood +said, amiably, "the boys sort of tended to this for me. If I'd thought +Hammond was int'rested I might have called it to his attention. But I +figgered he was paid to watch out for sich things, and I didn't want to +interfere none. Jest as well, I take it."</p> + +<p>Castle was scowling at Hammond, momentarily at a loss for words. Siggins +was gazing at Scattergood with thin lips parted a trifle. His joy was +blanketed.</p> + +<p>"Somethin' else," said Scattergood, looking from one to another, and +finally at Lafe. "Siggins figgered that my gittin' a beatin' on this +bill would sort of make him boss of the state. You see, Mr. President, +this here bill wasn't <i>meant</i> to pass. It was fixed up for a couple of +reasons. One was to git something which I'll tell you about in a second. +Another was to make the boys in the House sort of prosperous like, and +grateful to me for gittin' 'em the prosperity—with the railroads payin' +for it. The last was to settle things between Lafe and me. I sort of +wanted Lafe and the boys in politics to understand which was which.... +And they'll understand.... Now, Mr. President, the thing I wanted to git +was in two parts. First one was to git your attention on this here bill +so's you wouldn't notice my little stage-line thing. The other was +pretty nigh as valuable. I got it. It's a list of every man in this +legislature that took money for a vote on this thing, with how much +money he took and the hour and minute it was paid him—and <i>who by</i>. +Seems like I managed to git <i>your</i> name, Mr. President, connected with +them last six votes that you took over body and britches this noon. And +I kin <i>prove</i> every item of it.... With the folks around the state +feelin' like they do, I shouldn't be s'prised if I could make a heap of +trouble."</p> + +<p>President Castle was a big man or he would not hold the position that +was his. He knew when a fight was over. "You win," he said, tersely. +"Name it."</p> + +<p>"Two things. First off I want an agreement with your road, made by a +full vote of the board of directors, agreein' to do jest what this bill +pervides—in case of emergencies. And second, I want your folks should +handle the bonds of my railroad—construction bonds. Guess I could +manage it without, but I need my money for somethin' else. About two +hunderd thousand dollars' worth of bonds'll do it."</p> + +<p>Castle shrugged his shoulders—seeing possibilities for the future. +However, he knew Scattergood had weighed those possibilities himself.</p> + +<p>"Agreed," he said. There was a moment's silence. "By the way," he asked, +"what was the idea of the condemnation proceedings against Crane and +Keith?"</p> + +<p>"Jest a mite of business. With the railroad goin', I need a good mill up +on a site I got below Coldriver. Seems like Crane and Keith got a might +timid, and yestiddy they up and sold out that mill to a friend of +mine—actin' for me—for fifty-five thousand dollars. Figger I got it +dirt cheap. Wuth close to a hunderd thousand, hain't it?... I'm goin' to +move it to Coldriver, lock, stock, and barrel."</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Castle, presently, "the G. and B. will keep hands off +your valley. It will be better for us to work together than at odds. +Suppose we bury the hatchet and work for each other's interest.... I'm +paid to know a coming man when I see one."</p> + +<p>"Was hopin' you'd see it that way, Mr. President. I hain't one that +hankers for strife ... not even with Lafe, here, if he can figger he's +willin' to admit what he's got to admit."</p> + +<p>"I take my orders from you," said Lafe.</p> + +<p>In which authentic manner Scattergood Baines, in one transaction, made +possible and financed his railroad, obtained his first mill, and became +undisputed political dictator of his state. Characteristically, there +was charged to expense for the whole transaction a sum that a very +ordinary man could earn in a week. Scattergood loved cheap results.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a><h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING</h3> +<br /> + +<p>It is known to all the world that Scattergood came to own the stage line +that plied down the valley to the railroad, but minute research and a +sifting of dubious testimony was required to unearth the true details of +that transaction in which the peg leg of Deacon Pettybone figured in a +dominant manner.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had long had his eye on the stage line, because his valley, +the Coldriver Valley, was dominated by it. Transportation was king, and +Scattergood knew that if his vision of developing that valley and of +acquiring riches for himself out of the development were ever to become +actuality, he must first control the means of transporting passengers +and commodities. But the stage line was not to be acquired, because +Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper, who owned it in partnership, had not +been on speaking terms for twenty years. So bitter was the feud that +either would have borne cheerfully a loss to prevent the other from +making a profit. The stage line was a worry and an annoyance to both of +them, but neither of them would sell, because he was afraid his enemy +might derive some advantage.</p> + +<p>As Scattergood well knew, the feud had its inception in religion as +religion is practiced in that community. Deacon Pettybone had been born +a Congregationalist. Elder Hooper was the sturdiest pillar of the +Congregationalist church. They had grown up together from boyhood, as +chums, and later as business partners, but at the mature age of forty +Deacon Pettybone had attended a revival service in the Baptist church. +When he came out of that service the mischief was done—he had been +converted to the tenets of immersion and straightway withdrew from the +church of his birth to enter the fold of its bitterest rival in +Coldriver, if it were possible for the Baptists to be bitterer rivals of +the Congregationalist than the Methodists and Universalists were. +Coldriver's population was less than four hundred. It required a great +deal of religion to get that four hundred safely past the snares and +pitfalls of Coldriver, for there were no fewer than five full-grown +churches, of which the Roman Catholic was the fifth, and a body of folks +who met in one another's houses of a Sabbath under the denomination of +the United Brethren. Five churches worshiped God through the crackling +parchment of their mortgages, when one, or at most two, might have +pointed the way to heaven free and clear, and with no worries over +semiannual interest.</p> + +<p>When Pettybone turned apostate there was such a commotion as had never +before disturbed Coldriver; it subsided, and was forgotten as the years +dragged on, by all but Pettybone and Hooper, who continued tenaciously +to hate each other with a bitter hatred—and the more so that their +financial affairs were so inextricably mingled.</p> + +<p>Even when Pettybone's leg was mashed by a log, and he lay between life +and death, there was no hint of a reconciliation; and when Pettybone +appeared again on Coldriver's streets, hobbling on a peg leg of his own +fashioning, the fires of vindictiveness burned higher and hotter than +ever.</p> + +<p>The situation would have been hopeless to anybody not possessed of +Scattergood's optimism and resource. It is reported that Scattergood +propounded a saying early in his career at Coldriver, to this effect:</p> + +<p>"Anybody kin git anythin' done if he wants it hard enough. Trouble is, +most folks hain't got a sufficient capacity for wantin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's capacity for wanting was abnormal, and his ability to want +until he got was what made him the remarkable figure in the life of his +state that he was destined to become.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was sitting on the piazza of his hardware store, basking in +the sunshine, and gazing up the dusty road which passed between +Coldriver's business structures, and disappeared over the hill. His eyes +were half closed, and his bulk, which later became phenomenal, filled +comfortably the specially reinforced chair which came to be called his +throne. Pliny Pickett slouched around the corner, and, as he approached, +the unmistakable odor of horses became noticeable. Inhabitants of +Coldriver knew when Pliny came into a room even if their backs were +turned.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Pliny," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Fetch any passengers?"</p> + +<p>"Drummer 'n' a fat woman to visit the Bogles. Say, Scattergood, looks +like you're goin' to have competition."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Don't say."</p> + +<p>"Hardware," said Pliny, nasally. "Station's heaped with it. Every +merchant in town's layin' in a stock."</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Scattergood, without emotion. "Kettleman and Locker?" +They were the grocers.</p> + +<p>Pliny nodded. "An' Lumley and Penny mixin' it in with dry goods, and +Atwell minglin' it with clothin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood reached down and unlaced his shoes. His mind worked more +freely when his toes were unconfined, so that he might wriggle them as +he reasoned. Pliny knew the sign and grinned.</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged," said Scattergood, and Pliny moved off.</p> + +<p>"Pliny," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Was you thinkin' of buyin' a stove?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Could think about it, couldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Might manage it."</p> + +<p>"Folks thinkin' of buyin' stoves gits prices, don't they? Kind of +inquires around to see where they kin buy cheapest?"</p> + +<p>"Most does."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>Something of the sort was not unanticipated by Scattergood. He knew the +merchants of the town had not forgiven him for once getting decidedly +the better of them in a certain transaction, and he knew now that they +had combined against him. Their idea was transparent to him. It was +their hope to put him out of business by adding hardware to their stocks +and to sell it at cost, until he gave up the ship. They could afford it. +It would not interfere with their normal profits.</p> + +<p>Scattergood wriggled his toes furiously and squinted his eyes. They +alighted on a young man in clerical black, who crossed the square from +the post office. It was no other than Jason Hooper, son of Elder Hooper, +who had been educated to the ministry and had recently come to occupy +the pulpit of his father's church—a pleasant and worthy young man. +Almost simultaneously Scattergood's eyes perceived Selina Pettybone, +daughter of Deacon Pettybone, just entering the post office.</p> + +<p>"Purty as a picture," said Scattergood to himself, and then he chuckled.</p> + +<p>The young minister nodded to Scattergood, and Scattergood spoke in +return. "Mornin', Parson," he said. "How d'you find business?"</p> + +<p>"Business?" The young man looked a bit startled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how's the marryin' industry, f'r instance? Brisk?"</p> + +<p>Jason smiled. "It might be brisker."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Maybe folks figgers you hain't had enough experience to do their +marryin' jest accordin' to rule—seein' 's you hain't married yourself."</p> + +<p>Jason blushed and frowned. This was a subject that had been brought to +his attention insistently; he had been informed that a minister should +marry, and there were several marriageable daughters in his church.</p> + +<p>"You aren't going to pick a wife for me, too?" he said, with a rueful +smile.</p> + +<p>"Dunno but I might," said Scattergood. "Got any preferences as to weight +and color?"</p> + +<p>"My only preference is to have them all—a long way off," said the young +minister.</p> + +<p>"Some day you'll have opposite leanin's. There'll be a girl you'll want +to snuggle right clost to.... G'-by, Parson, I'll keep my eyes open for +you."</p> + +<p>A few days later consignments of hardware began to arrive, and +Scattergood, sitting on the piazza of his store, watched them carried +with much ostentation into the stores of his rivals. It was noticed that +he scarcely had his shoes on during this week and that he even walked to +the post office barefooted, squirming his delighted toes into the warm +sand with apparent enjoyment. Immediately Locker and Kettleman and +Lumley and the rest made it known to Coldriver and environs that they +were dealing in hardware and not for profit, but merely as a convenience +to their patrons. They emphasized the fact that they would sell hardware +at cost, and exhibited prices which Scattergood studied and saw that he +could not meet.</p> + +<p>The town watched the affair, expecting much of Scattergood, but he made +no move. Apparently he was contented to sit on his piazza and see +customers passing him by for the alluring bargains offered beyond. +Coldriver was disappointed in Scattergood, and it said so, much as a +disgruntled critic will speak of an actor who has made a flat failure in +a favorite piece.</p> + +<p>On a certain afternoon Scattergood was seen to accost Selina Pettybone, +who paused, and drew nearer, showing signs of regret and interest.</p> + +<p>"Seliny," said Scattergood, "you're one of them Daughters of Dorcas, or +half sisters of Mehitable, or somethin' religious and charitable, hain't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Selina, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"What does sich folks do when they git to hear of a case of misery and +distress?"</p> + +<p>"They do what they can, Mr. Baines," said Selina.</p> + +<p>"Um!... If you heard Xenophon Banks was took sick of a busted leg, and +his wife was dead these two year, and a 'leven-year-old girl was tryin' +to nuss her pa and look after four more, what d'ye calc'late you'd +calc'late?"</p> + +<p>"I'd calculate," said Selina, "that I ought to go out there to the farm +and see about it at once."</p> + +<p>"Usin' your buggy or mine?"</p> + +<p>"Mine, thank you."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Selina."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mr. Baines," she said, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Scattergood watched her disappear in the direction of her home and then +got up leisurely and ambled toward the Congregational parsonage, in +which young Jason Hooper lived in solitary dignity. Mr. Hooper was in +his study.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Parson?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"Bible say anythin' regardin' visitin' the sick an' ministerin' to the +oppressed?"</p> + +<p>"A great deal, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Think it's meant, eh? Or was it put there jest to preach about?"</p> + +<p>"It is meant, undoubtedly."</p> + +<p>"For ministers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Xenophon Banks busted his leg. 'Leven-year-old daughter's tryin' +to carry him and four other childern on to her back, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"I'll go at once, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>Scattergood fidgeted. "Calculate Xenophon wasn't forehanded. Six mouths +to feed. <i>More mealtimes than meals</i>," he said, and fumbled in his +pocket. He was visibly embarrassed. "Here's ten dollars that was give me +to be used for sich a purpose. The feller that give it let on he wanted +it to come like it was give by the church, and him not mentioned. Git +the idee?"</p> + +<p>"I get the idea perfectly," said young Mr. Hooper, his face lighting as +he surveyed Scattergood with a whimsical twinkle—and as he saw this +scheming, money-hungry, power-hungry man in a new light. "The man may +feel confident I shall not betray him."</p> + +<p>"If I was a minister in sich a case I wouldn't forgit some stick candy +for them five childern. Seems like candy's 'most necessary for sich. Dum +foolishness, but keeps 'em quiet.... Git a big bag of candy.... And, if +I was doin' this, I wouldn't let no grass grow under my feet."</p> + +<p>So it happened that Selina Pettybone and the Rev. Jason Hooper, +respectively, daughter of the leading deacon of the Baptist church, and +parson of the Congregational church, arrived at Xenophon Banks's little +house within ten minutes of each other, and each was greatly embarrassed +by the other's presence, for the family feud had compelled them to be +coldly distant to each other all of their short lives.... But there was +much to do, and embarrassment of such kind between an unusually pretty +and wholesome girl, and a reasonably well-looking and kindly young man, +is not an emotion that cannot be easily dissipated.</p> + +<p>About a week later Scattergood chanced to pass Deacon Pettybone's +house, and saw the old gentleman sitting on the front porch, shaping a +large piece of wood with a draw-shave.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, Deacon," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Set and rest your legs," said the deacon. "Jest puttin' the finishin' +touches on this timber leg of mine."</p> + +<p>"Sturdy-lookin' leg, Deacon."</p> + +<p>"Best I ever made. Always calc'late to keep one ahead. Soon's one leg +wears out and I put on the spare one, I set to work fashionin' another, +to have by me. Always manage to figger some improvement."</p> + +<p>"More int'restin' than cuttin' out ax handles," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The deacon looked his scorn. "Anybody kin cut an ax handle, but lemme +tell you it takes study and figgerin' and <i>brains</i> to turn out a timber +leg that's full as good if not better 'n a real one.... I aim to varnish +this here leg and hang it in the harness room. Wisht I could keep it by +me in the kitchen, but the ol' woman says it sp'iles her appetite. +Wimmin is full of notions. Claims she'd go crazy with a leg a-hangin' +back of the stove, and some day she'd up and slam it in the oven and +serve it up for a roast. You kin thank your stars you hain't got +wimmin's notions to worry you, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"How d'ye stand on the proposition to have the town build a sidewalk up +the hill apast the Congregational church, Deacon?"</p> + +<p>The deacon pounded on the porch with his nearly finished leg, and grew +red in the face. "All the doin's of ol' man Hooper. Connivin' and +squillickin' around for his own ends. Lemme tell you, Scattergood, no +town meetin' of Coldriver'll ever vote sich a steal only over my dead +body. Jest you tell that far and wide."</p> + +<p>Business had been almost at a standstill for Scattergood. The only +sales he made were of small articles his competitors had forgotten or +neglected to stock. He had not taken in enough money for a month to pay +for the wear and tear on his fixtures. Coldriver was coming to set him +down as a failure and a black disappointment; but it marveled that he +took no action whatever and showed no signs of worry. His eyes were as +blue and his manner as humorous as it had ever been. Most of his +conversation seemed to be on the subject of the sidewalk past the +Congregational church, and it was carried on in low tones, and never to +more than one individual at a time. If those individuals had compared +notes they would have been astonished. Scattergood's attitude on the +matter was widely different, depending on whether he talked with Baptist +or Congregationalist. One might almost say that both sides were coming +to him for advice on how to conduct its campaign to carry the town +meeting—and one would have been right.</p> + +<p>The matter had developed into the hottest political issue Coldriver had +ever seen. No presidential election had come near to rivaling it, and +the local-option issue had stirred up fewer heartburnings and given rise +to less bellowing and to fewer hard words. The town meeting was less +than a month away.</p> + +<p>But even in the heat of the campaign Scattergood found time to drive out +to Xenophon Banks's. The road to Banks's was fairly well traveled these +days, for there was hardly a day that did not see either Selina +Pettybone or Parson Hooper driving out to the little house, and, +strangely enough, the days on which both were present appeared to be in +the majority. Scattergood dropped out now and then with pockets full of +stick candy, which he never delivered himself, but which he always +handed to the minister or to Selina to be given anonymously after he was +gone. He seemed as much interested in watching Selina and Jason as he +was in talking with Xenophon, and he might have been perceived +frequently to nod his head with satisfaction—especially on the day when +he heard Jason call Selina by her first name, and on the other day when +he saw the young minister retaining Selina's hand longer than he should +have done in saying good afternoon. That day Jason drove back to town +with Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Likely-lookin' girl—Seliny," observed Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful," said the parson, and Scattergood grinned.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Single ministers is a menace. Yes, sir, churches has busted up +on account of their ministers not bein' married."</p> + +<p>There was no reply.</p> + +<p>"But I calculate you're different. You're jest made and created to be an +old batch. Never seen sich a feller. Couldn't no girl interest you, not +if she was the Queen of Sheeby."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Jason, after a pause, "I'm very miserable. I—I think +I shall resign from my church and go away."</p> + +<p>"Sandrich Islands or somewheres—missionery feller?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I—why, yes, that's what I'll do.... I wish I'd never seen her." Then +he corrected himself sharply. "No, I don't. I'm glad I've seen her. I've +got that much, anyhow. I can always remember her and think about how +sweet and beautiful she was—"</p> + +<p>"And die at the age of eighty with her name comin' from your lips on +your last breath. To be sure.... Seems to me, though, it would be a +sight more satisfyin' to live them fifty-odd years <i>with</i> her and raise +up a fam'ly, and git some benefits out of that sweetness and beauty and +sich like, besides mullin' 'em over in your mind. Speakin' of Seliny, +wasn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Don't hanker to marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines—"</p> + +<p>"Then why in tunket don't you?"</p> + +<p>"She's a Baptist."</p> + +<p>"White, hain't she?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Respectable?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, sir."</p> + +<p>"Don't call to mind no state law ag'in' Congregationalists marryin' +Baptists."</p> + +<p>"My congregation wouldn't allow it."</p> + +<p>"Hain't never seen no deed of sale of you to your congregation."</p> + +<p>"Her father would never permit it?"</p> + +<p>"Huh!..."</p> + +<p>"And she's an obedient daughter."</p> + +<p>"Has she said so?"</p> + +<p>"Y-yes."</p> + +<p>"Ho! Kind of human, after all, hain't you? Look pleased when she said +it?"</p> + +<p>"She cried."</p> + +<p>"Comfort her—some."</p> + +<p>"I—She—she loves me, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Well, I snum! Kind of disobedient to love you, hain't it? Knows her +father 'd be set ag'in' it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but she can't help that."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"You—why, you <i>fall</i> in love! You don't do it on purpose, Mr. Baines. +It just comes to you."</p> + +<p>"From where?" said Scattergood, abruptly.</p> + +<p>The young minister stared.</p> + +<p>"Who's to blame for there bein' love?" Scattergood demanded.</p> + +<p>After a pause the young man answered. "God," he said. "Why does He send +it?"</p> + +<p>"So that people will marry, and the love will keep them together, strong +to bear the trials and labors of life. I think love is a kind of wages +that God pays to men and women for living on His earth."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Does He send love sort of helter-skelter and hit-or-miss, or +does He aim it at certain folks?"</p> + +<p>"I have often preached that marriages were made in heaven."</p> + +<p>"Then it's a kind of a command, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Which d'ye calculate is the wust disobedience? To refuse to obey an +order sich as this, or to disobey a parent that runs counter to the +wants of the Almighty?"</p> + +<p>The young man's face was alight with happiness. "Mr. Baines," he said, +"I'm grateful to you. I shall marry Selina."</p> + +<p>"Maybe," said Scattergood. "It runs in my mind you got to have dealin's +with Deacon Pettybone, and the deacon always figgers that the news he +gits from heaven is fresher and more dependable than what anybody else +gits. Might ask him and see."</p> + +<p>A few days after that Coldriver knew that Parson Hooper had asked the +hand of Selina from her father and had been rejected with language and +almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had +married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been +enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him +as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it +espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to +marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean, +narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing became a +public question, second in importance only to the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"Hold your hosses," Scattergood advised Jason. "Let's see what a mite +of dickerin' and persuasion'll do with the deacon. Then, if measures +fails, my advice to you as a human bein' and a citizen is to git Seliny +into a buckboard and run off with her. But hold on a spell."</p> + +<p>So Jason held on, and the town meeting approached, and Scattergood +continued to sit in idleness on the piazza of his store and twiddle his +bare toes in the sunshine. Deacon Pettybone was a busy man, organizing +the forces of the Baptists, and seeking diligently to round up the votes +of neutrals. Elder Hooper, the leader of the Congregationalist party, +was equally occupied, and no man might hazard a guess at the outcome of +the affair.</p> + +<p>"This here is a great principle," said Deacon Pettybone, "and men gives +their lives and sacrifices their families for sich. I'm a-goin' to fight +to the last gasp."</p> + +<p>"Don't blame ye a mite," said Scattergood. "If them Congregationalists +rule this town meetin' you might's well throw up your hands. They'll +rule the town forever."</p> + +<p>"It's got to be pervented."</p> + +<p>"And nobody but you kin manage it," said Scattergood. "The hull thing +rests with you. Why, if you was sick so's to be absent from that meetin' +the Congregationalists 'u'd win, hands down."</p> + +<p>"I b'lieve it," said the deacon, "and nothin' on earth'll keep me +away—nothin'. If I was a-layin' at my last gasp I'd git myself carried +there."</p> + +<p>"Deacon," said Scattergood, solemnly, "much is dependin' on you. +Coldriver's fort'nit to have sich a man at the helm."</p> + +<p>Even the cribbage game under the barber shop was suspended, and the +cribbage game was an institution. It was the deacon's one shortcoming, +but even there he strove to get the better of the enemy, for the two men +who were considered his only worthy antagonists at the game were +Congregationalists. The three bickered and quarreled and threatened +each other with violence, but they played daily. There were few +afternoons when a ring of spectators did not surround the table, +breathlessly watching the champions. It was the great local sporting +event, and who shall quarrel with the good deacon for touching cards in +the innocent game of cribbage? Certainly his pastor did not do so, nor +did the fellow members of his congregation. Indeed, there was even pride +in his prowess.</p> + +<p>But the game was discontinued, and Hamilcar Jones and Tilley Newcamp +were loud in their excoriations of their late antagonist. The +Congregationalists had no hotter adherents than they, nor none who +entered the conflict with more bitterness of spirit. Scattergood saw to +it that he encountered them on the evening before the momentous town +meeting.</p> + +<p>"Evenin', Ham. Evening Tilley."</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"How's things lookin' for to-morrer?"</p> + +<p>"Mighty even, Scattergood. If 'twan't for that ol' gallus Pettybone, +we'd git that sidewalk with votes to spare."</p> + +<p>"Um!... If he was absent from the meetin' things might git to happen."</p> + +<p>"Ho! Tie him to home, and there wouldn't even be a fight."</p> + +<p>"Got a wooden leg, hain't he?"</p> + +<p>"Wisht he had three."</p> + +<p>"Got two, one hangin' in the harness room. Harness room's never locked. +If 'twas a boy could squirm through the window."</p> + +<p>"What of it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin'. Jest happened to think of it.... Ever stop to think what a +comical thing it 'u'd be if somebody was to ketch a wooden-legged man +and saw his leg off about halfway up? Jest lay him across a saw buck +and saw her off while he hollered and fit. Most comical notion I ever +had."</p> + +<p>"Would make a feller laugh."</p> + +<p>"More 'special if his spare leg was stole away and he didn't have +nothin' but the sawed-off one. Sich a man would have difficulty gittin' +any place he wanted to git to.... G'-by, Ham. G'-by, Tilley. Hope the +meetin' comes out right to-morrer."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went inside and looked at his bank book. In two months his +deposits from sales had amounted to something like a hundred dollars. +The situation spelled nothing less than bankruptcy, but Scattergood +replaced the book and waddled out to his piazza, where he sat in the +cool of the evening, twiddling his toes and looking from the store of +one competitor to the store of another, reflectively.</p> + +<p>At a late hour a small boy named Newcamp delivered a bulky package to +Scattergood, and vanished into the darkness. The package was about large +enough to contain a timber leg.</p> + +<p>The town seethed with politics next morning, and the deacon was in the +center of it. The meeting was called for ten o'clock. At nine thirty a +small boy wriggled up to the deacon and whispered in his ear. The deacon +quickly made his way out of the crowd and down the stairs into the +basement room under the barber shop—for news had been given him of a +chance to swap for votes. He burst into the room, and stopped, frowning, +for Tilley Newcamp stood before him. Hamilcar Jones was not at the +moment visible, because he was behind the door, which he slammed shut +and locked.</p> + +<p>No word was uttered, but a Trojan struggle ensued. It was two against +one, but even those odds did not daunt the deacon. It was full five +minutes before he was flat on his back, panting and uttering such +burning and searing words as might properly fall from the lips of a +Baptist deacon. Tilley Newcamp, who was heavy, sat on his chest. +Hamilcar Jones dragged up a saw buck and laid the deacon's timber leg +across it.... The deacon saw and comprehended, and lifted up his voice. +Another five minutes were consumed in returning him to quiescence. And +then the saw did its work, while the deacon breathed threats of blood +and torture, and regretted that his religion prevented him from using +language better suited to his purpose. The leg was severed; a fragment +full ten inches long fell from the end, and the deacon's assailants drew +away, their fell purpose accomplished.</p> + +<p>There was a rapping on the door. It was Scattergood Baines, and he was +admitted. His face was full of wrath as he gazed within, and he quivered +with fury as he ordered the two miscreants out of the place.</p> + +<p>"What's this, Deacon, what's this?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>The deacon told him at length, and fluently.</p> + +<p>"I was jest in time. Now we kin send for that spare leg and you kin git +to the meetin'. Lucky you had that spare leg."</p> + +<p>The deacon sat on the floor, speechless now, staring down at all that +remained to him of his timber leg. Scattergood, with great show of +solicitude, dispatched a youngster to the deacon's house for his extra +limb. He returned empty-handed.</p> + +<p>"This here boy says the leg hain't in the harness room. Sure you left it +there?"</p> + +<p>Again the deacon found his voice, and his words were to the general +effect that the blame swizzled, ornery, ill-sired, and regrettably +reared pew-gags had, in defiance of law and order, stolen and made away +with his leg—and what was he to do?</p> + +<p>"Deacon, you can't go like that. If this story got into the meetin' it +would do fer you. You'd git laughed out. Them Congregationalists 'u'd +win. You got to have a sound leg to travel on, and I don't see but one +way to git it."</p> + +<p>"How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Call in young Parson Hooper and make him force them adherents of hisn +to give it up."</p> + +<p>Scattergood did not wait for the permission he surmised would not be +given, but sent word for Jason Hooper, who came, saw, and was most +remarkably astonished.</p> + +<p>"Parson," said Scattergood, "this here outrage is onendurable. Some of +you Congregationers done it, and stole his other leg. As leader of your +flock and a honest man, it's your bounden duty to git it back."</p> + +<p>"But I—I know nothing about it. What can I do? I—There isn't a thing +you can do."</p> + +<p>"Deacon," said Scattergood, "there hain't a soul in the world can git +back your leg in time but this young man. Maybe he don't know he kin do +it, but he kin. Hain't you got no offer to make?"</p> + +<p>The parson started to say something, but Scattergood silenced him with a +waggle of the head.</p> + +<p>"I got to git to that meetin'," bellowed the deacon. "There hain't +nothin' in the world I wouldn't give to git there, and git there whole +and hearty, and so's not to be laughed at."</p> + +<p>"Remind you of any leetle want of yourn?" asked Scattergood. He took the +young man aside and whispered to him.</p> + +<p>"Deacon," he said, presently, "Parson Hooper says as how he don't see no +reason for interferin' and helpin' his enemy." The parson had said +nothing of the sort. "But I kin see a reason, Deacon. If this here young +man was a member of your family, so to speak, and was related to you +clost by ties of love and marriage, I don't see how he'd have a right +to hold his hand.... Want this man's daughter f'r your wedded wife, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the parson, faintly.</p> + +<p>"Hear that, Deacon? Hear that?"</p> + +<p>"Never, by the hornswoggled whale that swallered Jonah."</p> + +<p>"Meetin's about to start," said Scattergood, looking at his watch.</p> + +<p>The deacon sweated and bellowed, but Scattergood adroitly waved the red +flag of animosity before his eyes, and pictured black ruin and +defeat—until the deacon was ready to surrender life itself.</p> + +<p>"Git me my leg," he shouted, "and you kin have anythin'.... Git me my +leg."</p> + +<p>"Is it a promise, Deacon? Calculate it's a promise?"</p> + +<p>"I promise. I promise, solemn."</p> + +<p>Scattergood whispered again in the pastor's ear, who stuttered and +flushed and choked, and hurried out of the room, presently to reappear +with the deacon's spare leg.</p> + +<p>"Now, young feller, make your preparations for that there weddin'.... +Scoot."</p> + +<p>It is of record that the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in +the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to +triumph—and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too +late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all +against him, and he could not withstand the pressure.</p> + +<p>And then....</p> + +<p>"Parson," said Scattergood, "your pa and the deacon ought to make up."</p> + +<p>"They'll never do it, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Deacon'll have to let your pa come to the weddin'. There'll be makin' +up and reconciliations when there's a grandson, but I can't wait. I'm in +a all-fired hurry. You go to the deacon and tell him your pa sent him +to say that he's ready to bury the hatchet and begs the deacon's pardon +for everythin'—everythin'."</p> + +<p>"But it wouldn't be true."</p> + +<p>"It's got to be true. Hain't I sayin' it's true? And then you go to your +pa and tell him the deacon wants to make up, and begs <i>his</i> pardon out +and out. Tell both of 'em to be at my store at three o'clock, but don't +tell neither t'other's to be there."</p> + +<p>At three o'clock Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper came face to face in +Scattergood's place of business.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, gents?" said Scattergood. "Lookin' forward to bein' mutual +grandads, I calc'late. Must be quite a feelin' to know you're in line to +be a grandad."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted the deacon.</p> + +<p>"Wumph!" coughed the elder.</p> + +<p>"To think of you old coots dandlin' a baby on your knees—and buyin' it +pep'mint candy and the Lord knows what, and walkin' down the street, +each of you holdin' one of its hands and it walkin' betwixt you.... +Dummed if I don't congratulate you."</p> + +<p>The deacon looked at the elder and the elder looked at the deacon. They +grinned, frostily at first, then more broadly.</p> + +<p>"By hek! Eph," said the deacon.</p> + +<p>"I'll be snummed!" said the elder, and they shook hands there and then.</p> + +<p>"Step back here a minute. I got a mite of business. You won't want the +nuisance of that stage line—with a grandson to fetch up. I'm kinder +hankerin' to run the thing—not that it'll be much of an investment."</p> + +<p>"What you offerin'?" asked the deacon.</p> + +<p>Scattergood mentioned the sum. "Cash," he concluded.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late we better sell," said the elder.</p> + +<p>An hour later, with the papers in his pocket to prove ownership, +Scattergood visited the stores of his rivals, Locker, Kettleman, Lumley, +and Penny.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "you been a-tryin' to crowd me out of business. I +hain't made a cent of profit f'r two months, and I calc'late on a profit +of two hunderd and fifty a month. Jest gimme your check for five hunderd +dollars and I'll take your stocks of hardware off'n your hands at, say, +fifty cents on the dollar, and we'll call it a day."</p> + +<p>"Scattergood, we got you where we want you. You can't hold out another +sixty days."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. But, gentlemen, I guess we kin do business. I jest bought the +only means of transportin' goods, wares, and merchandise into Coldriver. +Beginnin' now, rates for freight goes up. I've studied the law, and +there hain't no way to pervent me. I kin charge what I want for +freighting and what I want will be so much not a one of you kin do +business.... And I'll put in groceries and what not, myself. Gittin' my +freight free, I calc'late to under-sell you quite consid'able.... Kin we +do business?"</p> + +<p>The enemy went into executive session. They surrendered. Scattergood +pocketed a check for five hundred dollars, and came into possession of a +fine stock of hardware at fifty cents on the dollar. Likewise, he owned +the stage line and franchise, controlling the only right of way by which +a railroad could reach up the valley. It had required politics, marrying +and giving in marriage, and patience, to accomplish it, but it was done.</p> + +<p>That evening Mrs. Hooper and Mrs. Pettybone, childhood friends, long +separated by the feud, stopped to speak to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows how we appreciate what you done Minnie and me," said Mrs. +Pettybone.</p> + +<p>"Blessed is the peacemaker," said Mrs. Hooper.</p> + +<p>"Thankee, ladies. I don't mind bein' a peacemaker any time—when I kin +do it at a profit."</p> + +<p>"It's always done at a profit, Mr. Baines, if you read the Good Book. +This day you laid up a treasure in heaven."</p> + +<p>"Trouble with depositin' profits in heaven," said Scattergood, very +soberly, "is that you got to wait so tarnation long to draw your +int'rest."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_V"></a><h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"It's a telegram from Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood Baines to his +wife, Mandy, as he tore open the yellow envelope and read the brief +message it contained.</p> + +<p>"Telegram!" said Mandy. "Why didn't he write? Them telegrams come +high.... Huh! Jest one word—'Come.' Costs as much to send ten as it +does one, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Identical," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Mandy, sharply, "if he was bound to telegraph why didn't he +git his money's worth?"</p> + +<p>"I calc'late he thought he said a plenty," Scattergood replied. "Johnnie +he don't like to put no more in writin' that's apt to pass from hand to +hand than he's obleeged to.... Mandy, looks like we better start for +home."</p> + +<p>"What d'you s'pose it kin be?" Mandy asked, already busy laying clothing +in their canvas telescope. "Mostly telegrams announces death or +sickness."</p> + +<p>"I kin think of sixty-nine things it <i>might</i> be," said Scattergood, "but +I got a feelin' it hain't none of 'em."</p> + +<p>"We shouldn't of come away on this vacation," said Mandy. "Johnnie Bones +is too young a boy to leave in charge."</p> + +<p>"Johnnie Bones is a dum good lawyer, Mandy, and a dum far-seein' young +man. I don't calc'late Johnnie's done us no harm. Hain't no hurry, +Mandy. We can't git a train home for five hours."</p> + +<p>"We'll be settin' right in the depot waitin' for it," said Mandy, who +declined to take chances. "Be sure you keep your money in the pants +pocket on the side I'm walkin' on. Pickpockets 'u'd have some difficulty +gittin' past me."</p> + +<p>"Only thing ag'in' Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood, "is that he hain't +a first-rate hardware clerk."</p> + +<p>Scattergood, in spite of the ownership of twenty-four miles of +narrow-gauge railroad, of a hundred-odd thousand acres of spruce, and of +a sawmill whose capacity was thirty thousand feet a day, persisted in +regarding these things as side lines, and in looking upon his little +hardware store in Coldriver as the vital business of his life. It was +now ten years since Scattergood had walked up Coldriver Valley to the +village of Coldriver. It was ten years since he had embarked on the +conquest of that desirable valley, with a total working capital of forty +dollars and some cents—and he not only controlled the valley's business +and timber and transportation, but generally supervised the politics of +the state. He could have borne up manfully if all of it were taken away +from him—excepting the hardware store. To have ill befall that would +have been disaster, indeed.</p> + +<p>On the train Scattergood turned over a seat to have a resting place for +his feet, took off his shoes, displaying white woolen socks, a +refinement forced upon him by Mandy, and leaned back to doze and +speculate. When Mandy thought him safely asleep she covered his feet +with a paper, to conceal from the public view this evidence of a +character not overgiven to refinements. It is characteristic of +Scattergood that, though wide awake, he gave no sign of knowledge of +Mandy's act. Scattergood was thinking, and to think, with him, meant so +to unfetter his feet that he could wriggle his toes pleasurably.</p> + +<p>Johnnie Bones was waiting for Scattergood at the station.</p> + +<p>"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "did you sell that kitchen range to Sam +Kettleman?"</p> + +<p>"Almost, Mr. Baines, almost. But when it came to unwrapping the weasel +skin and laying money on the counter, Sam guessed Mrs. Kettleman could +keep on cooking a spell with what she had."</p> + +<p>"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "you're dum near perfect; but you got your +shortcomings. Hardware's one of 'em.... What about that telegram of +yourn?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mandy.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Castle, president of the G. and B.—"</p> + +<p>"I know what job he's holdin' down, Johnnie."</p> + +<p>"—came to see you yesterday. I wouldn't tell him where you were, so he +had to tell me what he wanted. He wants to buy your railroad. Said to +have you wire him right off."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." Scattergood walked deliberately, with heavy-footed stride, to +the telegraph operator, and wrote a brief but eminently characteristic +message. "I might," the telegram said to President Castle.</p> + +<p>"Now, folks," he said, "we'll go up to the store and sort of figger on +what Castle's got in mind."</p> + +<p>They sat down on the veranda, under the wooden awning, and Scattergood's +specially reinforced chair creaked under his great weight as he stooped +to remove his shoes. For a moment he wriggled his toes, just as a golfer +waggles his driver preparatory to the stroke. "Um!..." he said.</p> + +<p>"Castle," said he, presently, "works for jest two objects—makin' money +and payin' off grudges. Most gen'ally he tries to figger so's to combine +'em."</p> + +<p>Johnnie and Mandy waited. They knew better than to interrupt +Scattergood's train of thought. Had they done so he would have uttered +no rebuke, but would have hoisted himself out of his chair and would +have waddled away up the dusty street, and neither of them would ever +hear another word of the matter.</p> + +<p>"He knows I wouldn't sell this road without gittin' money for it. +<i>Therefore</i> he's figgerin' on makin' a lot of money out of it, or payin' +off a doggone big grudge.... Somebody we don't know about is calc'latin' +on movin' into this valley, Johnnie. Somebody that's goin' to do a heap +of shippin'—and that means timber cuttin'.... And it must be settled or +Castle wouldn't come out and offer to buy."</p> + +<p>Johnnie and Mandy had followed the reasoning and nodded assent.</p> + +<p>"What timber be they goin' to cut?" Scattergood poked a chubby finger at +Johnnie, who shook his head.</p> + +<p>"The Goodhue tract, back of Tupper Falls. Uh-huh! Because there hain't +no other sizable tract that I hain't got strings on. And the mills, +whatever kind they be, will be at Tupper Falls. Mills <i>got</i> to be there. +Can't git timber out to no other place. And, Johnnie, buyin' timber is a +heap more important and difficult than buyin' mill sites. Eh?... +Johnnie, you ketch the first train for Tupper Falls. I own a mite of +land along the railroad, Johnnie, but you buy all the rest from the +falls to the station. Not in my name, Johnnie. Git deeds to folks whose +names we're entitled to use—and the more deeds the better. Scoot."</p> + +<p>"Now, Scattergood, don't go actin' hasty," said Mandy. "You don't +<i>know</i>—"</p> + +<p>"The only thing I don't know, Mandy, is whether Johnnie 's too late to +buy that land. Knowin' nobody else wants it, and it hain't no good for +nothin' but what they want it for, these folks may not have bought +<i>yit</i>...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood shouted suddenly at the passing drayman. "Hey, Pete.... Come +here and git a cookin' range and take it up to Sam Kettleman's house. +Git a man to help you. Tell Mis' Kettleman I sent it, and she's to try +it a week to see if she likes it. Set it up for her and all."</p> + +<p>Scattergood settled back to watch with approval, while two men hoisted +the heavy stove on the wagon and drove away with it. Presently Sam +Kettleman appeared on the porch of his grocery across the street, and +Scattergood called to him: "Well, Sam, glad you decided to git the woman +a new stove. Shows you're up an' doin'. It's all set up by this time."</p> + +<p>Sam stared a moment; then, smitten speechless, he rushed across the road +and stood, a picture of rage, glaring at Scattergood. "I didn't buy no +stove. You know dum well I didn't buy no stove. I can't afford no stove. +You jest git right up there and haul it back here, d'you hear me?"</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Sam, don't it beat all—me makin' a mistake like that? Sure +I'll send after it, right off.... Now I won't have to order one special +for Locker." Locker was the rival grocer. "I kin haul this one right to +his house, and explain to him how he come to git it so soon. I'll say: +'Locker, we jest hauled this stove down from Sam Kettleman's. Had it all +set up there and then Sam he figgered it was too expensive a stove for +him and he couldn't afford it right now on account of business not bein' +brisk.'"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Kettleman.</p> + +<p>"'Twon't cause a mite of talk that anybody'll pay attention to. +Everybody knows what Locker's wife is. Tongue wagglin' at both ends. And +I'll take pains to conterdict whatever story she goes spreadin' about +you bein' too mean to git your wife things to do with in the kitchen, +and about how you're 'most bankrupt and ready to give up business. +Nobody'll b'lieve her, anyhow, Sam, but if they do I'll explain it to +'em."</p> + +<p>"Now—"</p> + +<p>"Locker's wife'll be glad to have it, too. She'd have to wait two +weeks for hers, and now she'll git it right off. Oven's cracked on hern, +and she allows she sp'iles every batch of bread she bakes—and her +pledged to furnish six loaves for the Methodist Ladies' Food Sale...."</p> + +<p>"Scattergood Baines, if you dast touch my stove I'll have the law onto +you. You can't go enterin' my house and removin' things without my +permission, I kin tell you. Don't you try to forgit it, neither. If you +think you can gouge me out of my stove jest to make it more convenient +for Mis' Locker, you're thinkin' <i>wrong</i>...."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't your stove till it's paid for, Sam."</p> + +<p>"Then, by gum! it'll be mine darn quick. Thirty-eight dollars, was it? +Now you gimme a receipt.... Locker!..."</p> + +<p>Scattergood waddled into the store, wrote a receipt, and put the money +in the safe. When Sam had recrossed the road again he turned to Johnnie +Bones. "Sellin' hard-ware's easy if you put your mind to it, Johnnie. +Trouble with you is you don't take no int'rest in it.... Next time +you'll know better. Train's goin' in fifteen minutes. Better hustle."</p> + +<p>Next noon Scattergood was in his usual place on the piazza of his store +when the train came in. Presently Mr. Castle, president of the G. & B., +came into view, and Scattergood closed his eyes as if enjoying a midday +snooze. Mr. Castle approached, stopped, regarded Scattergood with a +pucker of his thin lips, and said to himself that the man must be an +accident. It was one of Scattergood's most valuable qualities that his +appearance and manner gave that opinion to people, even when they had +suffered discomfiture at his hands. Mr. Castle coughed, and Scattergood +opened his eyes sleepily and peered over the rolls of fat that were his +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Howdy?" said Scattergood, not moving.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Mr. Baines. You got my message?"</p> + +<p>"Seein' as you got my reply to it, I must have," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Can we talk here?"</p> + +<p>"I kin."</p> + +<p>Mr. Castle looked about. No one was within earshot. He occupied a chair +at Scattergood's side.</p> + +<p>"I understand your message to mean that you are willing to sell your +railroad."</p> + +<p>"I calculate that message meant jest what it said."</p> + +<p>"I know what your railroad cost you—almost to a penny."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood, without interest.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you why I want it. My idea is to extend it through to +Humboldt—twenty miles. May have to tunnel Hopper Mountain, but it will +give me a short line to compete with the V. and M. from Montreal."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood, who knew well that such an extension was +not only impracticable from the point of view of engineering, but also +from the standpoint of traffic to be obtained. "Good idee."</p> + +<p>"I'll pay you cost and a profit of twenty-five thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Hain't interested special," said Scattergood. "I git that much fun out +of railroadin'."</p> + +<p>"It isn't paying interest on your investment."</p> + +<p>"I calculate it's goin' to. I'm aimin' to see it does."</p> + +<p>"Set a figure yourself."</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no figger in mind."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines, I'll be frank with you. I want your railroad."</p> + +<p>"So I jedged," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I <i>need</i> it. I'll pay you a profit of fifty thousand—and that's my +last word."</p> + +<p>Scattergood closed his eyes, opened them again, and sat erect. "Now that +business is over with," he said, "better come up and set down to table +with Mandy and me. Mandy's cookin' is considered some better 'n at the +hotel."</p> + +<p>"You refuse?"</p> + +<p>"I was wonderin'," said Scattergood, "if you had any notion if I could +buy the Goodhue timber reasonable?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Mr. Castle, startled. "The Goodhue timber?"</p> + +<p>"Back of Tupper Falls."</p> + +<p>"Who told—" Mr. Castle snapped his teeth together sharply.</p> + +<p>"Leetle bird," said Scattergood. "Dinner's ready."</p> + +<p>"There might come a time when you'd be mighty glad to sell for less than +I'm offering."</p> + +<p>"Once there was a boy," said Scattergood, "and he up and says to another +boy, 'I kin lick you,' The story come to me that the boy sort of +overestimated his weight.'"</p> + +<p>"I'm not threatening you," said Castle.</p> + +<p>"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you +goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?"</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in +Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information."</p> + +<p>"Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg, +and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all +fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used +right."</p> + +<p>"Will you answer a fair question?"</p> + +<p>"If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another."</p> + +<p>"Has McKettrick got to you first?"</p> + +<p>It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face +showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who +McKettrick was—but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any +conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe +what he desired—and Castle believed.</p> + +<p>"He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling +them to you. It cost <i>me</i> money to find out."</p> + +<p>"Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Did he offer to buy your road?"</p> + +<p>"If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'."</p> + +<p>It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information, +though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a +haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle +knew less after the interview than he had known when he came; +Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover.</p> + +<p>Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he +had been partially successful.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on +the quiet. Three strips from the river to the hill were not to be had, +but I bought four strips, two at the ends and two between the pieces I +couldn't get."</p> + +<p>"Better call it a side of bacon, Johnnie. Strip of fat and strip of +lean. Dunno but it's better as it lays. Hear anythin' about the Goodhue +tract?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody's been cruising it for a month back—without a brass band."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Send a wire, Johnnie. Lumberman's Trust Company, Boston. Set +price Goodhue tract...."</p> + +<p>Johnnie telephoned the wire. Two hours later the answer came, "Goodhue +tract no longer in our hands."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever wonder, Johnnie, why I never got int'rested into that +Goodhue timber?"</p> + +<p>Johnnie shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Because," said Scattergood, "you got to log it by rail. Forty thousand +acres of it, and no stream runnin' through it big enough to drive logs +down.... But I got an idee, Johnnie, that loggin' by rail can be done +economical. Know who bought that timber?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"McKettrick of the Seaboard Box and Paper Company, biggest concern of +the kind in America. Calc'late they'll be makin' pulp here to ship to +their paper mills. Calculate I'll give 'em a commodity rate of around +seven cents to the G. and B. Johnnie, our orchard's goin' to begin +givin' a crop. That'll give us sixteen dollars and eighty cents for +haulin' a minimum car of twenty-four thousand. And this hain't goin' to +be any one-car mill, neither. Five cars a day'll be increasin' our +revenue twenty-four thousand three hunderd dollars a year—on outgoin' +freight. Then there's incomin' freight to figger. All we got to do is +set still and take <i>that</i>. Beauty of controllin' the transportation of a +region. But it seems like we ought to git more out of it than that—if +we stir around some. Especial when you come to consider that McKettrick +and Castle is flyin' at each other's throats. It's a situation, Johnnie, +that man owes a duty to himself to take advantage of."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went back to his hardware store and seated himself on the +piazza. Presently a team drove up from down the valley and a tall, gaunt +individual, with hair of the color of a dead leaf, alighted.</p> + +<p>"I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said.</p> + +<p>"You kin," Scattergood replied.</p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him."</p> + +<p>The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks +to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and +disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the +scrutiny stopped.</p> + +<p>"Some mistake," he said; "I want the owner of the Coldriver Valley +Railroad."</p> + +<p>"It may be a mistake," said Scattergood. "Calculate it <i>is</i> a mistake to +own a railroad. But 'tain't the only mistake I ever made."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> own the road?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to."</p> + +<p>Evidently the stranger was not impressed by Scattergood in a manner to +arouse him to a notable exertion of courtesy. He allowed it to appear in +his manner that he set a light value on Scattergood; in fact, that it +was not exactly pleasant to him to be compelled to do business with such +a human being. Scattergood's eyes twinkled and he wriggled his toes.</p> + +<p>"Well, Baines," said the stranger, "I want to talk business to you."</p> + +<p>"Step into my private office," said Scattergood, motioning to a chair at +his side, "and rest your legs."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of establishing a plant below," said the stranger. "A very +considerable plant. In studying the situation it seems as if your +railroad might be run as an adjunct to my business. I suppose it can be +bought."</p> + +<p>"Supposing" said Scattergood, "is free as air."</p> + +<p>"I'll take it off your hands at a fair figure."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't layin' heavy on my hands," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"How much did it cost you?"</p> + +<p>"A heap less 'n I'll sell for.... You hain't mentioned your name."</p> + +<p>"McKettrick."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded.</p> + +<p>"I'd sell to a man of that name."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"One million dollars," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You're—you're <i>crazy</i>," said McKettrick. It was an exclamation of +disgust, a statement of belief, and a cry of pain. "I might go a quarter +of a million."</p> + +<p>"This here's a one-price store—marked plain on the goods. Customers is +requested not to haggle."</p> + +<p>"You're not serious?"</p> + +<p>"One million dollars."</p> + +<p>"I'll build a road down my side of the river."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. Can be done. Twelve mile of tunnel and the rest trestle. +Wouldn't cost more 'n fifteen, twenty million—if you're figgerin' on +the west side of the stream.... How you figgerin' on gettin' your pulp +wood down to Tupper Falls?"</p> + +<p>"What?... What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Goin' to log, yourself, or job it?"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Baines, what do you know?"</p> + +<p>"About what's needful. I try to keep posted."</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you know. I insist."</p> + +<p>Scattergood opened his eyes and peered over his dumpling cheeks at +McKettrick, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"And how you found it out."</p> + +<p>"I've been figgerin' over your case," said Scattergood. "I'll give you a +sidetrack into your yards pervidin' you pay the cost of bridgin' and +layin' the track, me to furnish ties and rails. <i>Also</i>, I'll give you a +commodity rate of seven cents to the G. and B. As to sellin', I don't +calc'late you want to buy at a million. But that hain't no sign you and +me can't do business. You got to log by rail. You got to cut consid'able +number of cords of pulpwood. I'll build your loggin' road, and I'll +contract to cut your pulp and deliver it.... Want to go into it with +me?"</p> + +<p>McKettrick peered at Scattergood with awakened interest. His scrutiny +told him nothing.</p> + +<p>"What backing have you?"</p> + +<p>"My own."</p> + +<p>McKettrick almost sneered.</p> + +<p>"Been lookin' me up?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Let's step to the bank."</p> + +<p>McKettrick followed Scattergood's bulky figure-wondering.</p> + +<p>In the bank Scattergood presented the treasurer. "Mr. Noble, meet Mr. +McKettrick. He wants you should tell him somethin' about me. For +instance, Noble, about how fur you calculate my credit could be +stretched."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines would have no difficulty borrowing from five hundred +thousand to three quarters of a million," said Noble.</p> + +<p>"How's his reppitation for keepin' his word?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"The whole state knows your word is kept to the letter."</p> + +<p>"What you calculate I'm wuth—visible prop'ty?"</p> + +<p>"I'd say a million and a half to two millions."</p> + +<p>"Backin' enough to suit you, Mr. McKettrick?" asked Scattergood.</p> + +<p>McKettrick wore a dazed look. Scattergood did not look like two +millions; he did not look like ten thousand. His bearing became more +respectful.</p> + +<p>"I'll listen to any proposition you wish to make," he said.</p> + +<p>"Come over to Johnnie Bones's," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>In a moment they were sitting in Johnnie's office, and McKettrick and +Johnnie were acquainted.</p> + +<p>"Here's my proposition," said Scattergood. "I'll build and equip a +loggin' road accordin' to your surveys. You furnish right of way and +enough money to give you forty-nine per cent of the stock in the company +we'll form. I kin build cheaper 'n you, and I know the country and kin +git the labor. You pay the new railroad a set price for haulin' +pulpwood—say dollar 'n a quarter to two dollars a cord, as we figger it +later.... Then I'll take the job of loggin' for you and layin' down the +pulpwood at sidings. It'll save you labor and expense and trouble. I've +showed I was responsible. The new railroad company'll put up bonds, and +so'll the loggin' company—if you say so."</p> + +<p>This was the beginning of some weeks of negotiations, during which +Scattergood became convinced that McKettrick was wishful of using him so +long as he proved useful; then, when the day arrived for a showing of +profit on the profit sheet, the same McKettrick was planning to see that +no profit would be there and that Scattergood Baines should be +eliminated from consideration—to McKettrick's profit in the sum of +whatever amount Scattergood invested in the construction of the +railroad. It was a situation that exactly suited Scattergood's love of +business excitement.</p> + +<p>"If McKettrick had come up here wearin' better manners," said +Scattergood to Johnnie, "and if he hadn't got himself all rigged out as +little Red Ridin' Hood's grandmother—figgerin' I'd qualify for little +Red Ridin' Hood without the eyesight for big ears and big teeth that +little girl had—why, I might 'a' give him a reg'lar business deal. But +seem's he's as he is, I calc'late I'm privileged to git what I kin git."</p> + +<p>Therefore Scattergood made it a clause in the contract that all the +stock in the new railroad and construction company should remain in his +own name until the road was completed and ready to operate. Then 49 per +cent should be transferred to McKettrick. This McKettrick regarded as a +harmless eccentricity of the lamb he was about to fleece.</p> + +<p>The new company was organized with Johnnie Bones as president, +Scattergood as treasurer, an employee of McKettrick's as secretary, and +Mandy Baines and another employee of McKettrick's as the remaining two +directors.</p> + +<p>While the negotiations regarding the railroad were being carried on, +another matter arose to irritate Mr. McKettrick, and, in some measure, +to take the keen edge off his attention. Scattergood usually endeavored +to have some matter arise to irritate and distract when he was engaged +on a major operation, and it was for this reason he had bought the four +strips of land at Tupper Falls.</p> + +<p>McKettrick awoke suddenly to find that his men had not secured the site +for his mills, and that, apparently, it could not be secured. He +discussed the thing with Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Prob'ly some old scissor bills that got a notion of hangin' on to their +land," Scattergood said.</p> + +<p>"It can't be that, for the sales to the present owners were recent. The +new owners refuse absolutely to sell."</p> + +<p>"And pulp mills hain't got no right of eminent domain like railroads."</p> + +<p>"All substantial businesses ought to have it," said McKettrick. "You +know these folks. I wish you'd see what you can do."</p> + +<p>"Glad to," Scattergood promised, and two days later he reported that all +four landowners might be brought to terms. Three would sell, surely; one +was holding back strangely, but the three had put the matter into the +hands of a local real-estate and insurance broker, by name Wangen. +"We'll go see him," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Which they did. "My clients," said Wangen, importantly, "realize the +value of their property. That, I may say, is why they bought."</p> + +<p>"It cost the three of 'em less 'n three thousand dollars for the three +passels," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Prices have gone up," said Wangen.</p> + +<p>"Give them two hundred dollars profit apiece," said McKettrick.</p> + +<p>"Consid'able difference between givin' it and their takin' it," said +Scattergood. "I agree with that," said Wangen.</p> + +<p>"Now, Wangen, you and me has done consid'able business," said +Scattergood, "and you hain't goin' to hold up a friend of mine."</p> + +<p>"If it was a personal thing, Mr. Baines; but I've got to do my best for +my clients."</p> + +<p>"What's your proposition?"</p> + +<p>"Five thousand dollars apiece for the three strips."</p> + +<p>"It's an outrage," roared McKettrick. "I'll never be robbed like that."</p> + +<p>"Take it," said Wangen, "or leave it."</p> + +<p>"You've <i>got</i> to have it," Scattergood whispered.</p> + +<p>McKettrick spluttered and stormed and pleaded, but Wangen was firm and +gave but one answer. There could be but one result: McKettrick wrote a +check for fifteen thousand dollars—and still had one strip to buy—a +strip not at an edge of his mill site, but bisecting it.</p> + +<p>This strip caused the worry when Scattergood needed attention distracted +the most. But Scattergood managed finally to secure it for McKettrick +for seventy-five hundred dollars. Thus it will be seen how Scattergood +resorted to the law of necessity, and how McKettrick suffered from +failure to build securely his commercial structure from its foundation. +Twenty-two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars were paid by +McKettrick for land that had cost Scattergood exactly three thousand six +hundred dollars. Scattergood believed in always paying for services +rendered, so Wangen and each of the four ostensible landowners were +given a hundred dollars. Net profit to Scattergood, eighteen thousand +one hundred and fifty dollars.</p> + +<p>"Which it wouldn't 'a' cost him if he hadn't looked sneerin' at my +stockin' feet," said Scattergood to Johnnie Bones.</p> + +<p>Johnnie Bones prepared the papers for the incorporation of the new +railroad, and the organization was perfected. There were two thousand +shares of one hundred dollars each. McKettrick put in his right of way +at five thousand, an excessive figure, as Scattergood knew well, and +gave his check for the balance of his 49 per cent. Scattergood deposited +a check for his 51 per cent, or one hundred and two thousand dollars. +Work was begun grading the right of way immediately.</p> + +<p>McKettrick vanished from the region and did not appear again except for +flying visits to his rising plant at Tupper Falls. He never inspected so +much as a foot of the new railroad back into the Goodhue tract—and +this, Scattergood very correctly took to be suspicious. The work was +left utterly in Scattergood's hands, with no check upon him and no +inspection. It was not like a man of McKettrick's character—unless +there were an object.</p> + +<p>Once or twice Scattergood encountered President Castle of the G. & B. +while the road was building.</p> + +<p>"Hear you're putting in a logging road for McKettrick," he said.</p> + +<p>"For me," said Scattergood. "Stock stands in my name. Calculate to +operate it myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Castle, and drummed with his fingers on the window ledge. +Scattergood said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Own the right of way?" asked Castle.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't precisely a right of way," said Scattergood. "It's a easement, +or property right, or whatever the lawyers would call it, to run tracks +over any part of McKettrick's property and operate a loggin' +railroad—where McKettrick says he wants to get logs from."</p> + +<p>"No definite right of way?"</p> + +<p>"Jest what I described."</p> + +<p>"Capitalized for two hundred thousand, I see."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!"</p> + +<p>"Any stock for sale?"</p> + +<p>"Not at the present writin'."</p> + +<p>"At a price?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, now—"</p> + +<p>"Say a profit of twenty dollars a share."</p> + +<p>"It'll pay dividends on more 'n that figger," said Scattergood, +"which," he added, "you know dum well."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Castle, "but for a quick turnover—and I'm not figuring +dividends altogether."</p> + +<p>"Kind of got a bone to pick with McKettrick, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe."</p> + +<p>"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "I'll sell you forty-nine per +cent of the stock at a hunderd and twenty. Stock to stand in my name +till the road's ready to operate, I don't want it known I've been +sellin' any.... Shouldn't be s'prised if you was able to pick up control +one way and another—but I hain't goin' to sell it to you."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Castle, closing his eyes and squinting through a slit +between the lids. "It's a deal, Mr. Baines," he said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You'll find a certified check in the mail the day after I get the +proper papers."</p> + +<p>Which transaction gave Scattergood another profit on the whole affair of +nineteen thousand six hundred dollars—this time a capitalization of the +spite of man toward man. It will be seen that McKettrick owned 49 per +cent of the stock, Castle, 49 per cent, and Scattergood, 2 per cent. He +was now in a position to await developments.</p> + +<p>They arrived as the railway was on the point of running its first train. +McKettrick brought them in person. He burst upon Scattergood as +Scattergood sat in front of his hardware store, and began to storm.</p> + +<p>"What's this? What's this?" he roared. "What's that railroad doing up +the easterly side of our timber? It's waste money, lost money. It'll +have to be rebuilt. We've made all arrangements to cut off the westerly +side. Now we'll have to swamp roads and log by team till the road can be +moved."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood, "so <i>that's</i> it, eh? I was wonderin' how it +would come."</p> + +<p>"It was an inexcusable blunder, and it'll cost you money. You know how +the railroad's contract with the company reads. Who gave you directions +to run up the easterly side?"</p> + +<p>"My engineer got 'em in your office."</p> + +<p>"Oh, your engineer. He made the mistake, eh? Then the mistake's yours, +all right, for every scrap of writing in our office has the word +'westerly' in it, plain and distinct. It means tearing up those rails, +grading a new line—and you'll pay for it. I sha'n't stand loss for your +mistake. It'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars for that blunder."</p> + +<p>"Hain't you discoverin' it a mite late?"</p> + +<p>"It was left wholly to you."</p> + +<p>"Seems like I noticed it," said Scattergood. "So all that work's lost, +eh? Seems a pity, too."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem to take it seriously."</p> + +<p>"You bet I do, and I calculate to look into it <i>some</i>."</p> + +<p>"It won't do any good. The mistake is plain."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't be s'prised. I git your idee, McKettrick. You've been +figgerin' from the start on smougin' me out of what I invested in that +road, eh?... By the way, your stock's in your name. I'll git the +certificates out of the safe."</p> + +<p>McKettrick shoved the envelope in his pocket. "The Seaboard Box and +Paper Company will force you to remove your tracks from our land. I'll +sue you for damages for your blunder. The Seaboard will sue the new +railroad for damages for failure to have the tracks into the cuttings +on time. I guess when we begin collecting judgments by levying on the +new road, there won't be much of it left. The Seaboard will come pretty +close to owning it."</p> + +<p>"And you and I will be frozen out, eh?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>McKettrick purred and smiled. "Exactly," he said. "Now, my advice to you +is not to fight the thing. You can't deny the blunder and you'll save +cost of litigation."</p> + +<p>"What's your proposition?"</p> + +<p>"Transfer your stock to the Seaboard."</p> + +<p>"And lose a hunderd and two thousand?"</p> + +<p>"It's not our fault if you make expensive mistakes."</p> + +<p>"Course not," said Scattergood. "I admit I hain't much on litigation. +S'posin' you and me meets in Boston to-morrow with our lawyers, and sort +of figger this thing out."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to figure out—but I'll meet you to-morrow. You're +sensible to settle."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I be," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle's 49 per cent of +the railroad's stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the +hands of the railroad's chief executive.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow. There will be a meeting at his hotel +at three o'clock. McKettrick will be there."</p> + +<p>"I'll come," said President Castle.</p> + +<p>The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized. +McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with +Johnnie Bones—and last came President Castle.</p> + +<p>At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet.</p> + +<p>"What do <i>you</i> want here?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths +of disagreeability, "I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this +concern. I imagine I have a right to be here."</p> + +<p>"What's that? What's that?" McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat +placidly removing his shoes.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I'll relieve my feet," he said.</p> + +<p>"So I got you, too," McKettrick said to Castle. "I didn't figure on +<i>that</i> luck."</p> + +<p>"Got me? I'm interested."</p> + +<p>McKettrick explained at length, and, as he explained, Castle glared at +him, and then at Scattergood, with increasing rage. As he saw it there +was a plot between Scattergood and McKettrick to get him—and he +appeared to have been gotten. He started to speak, but Scattergood +stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Jest a minute, Mr. Castle," he said. "'Tain't time for you to cuss yet. +Maybe you won't git to do no reg'lar cussin' a-tall. You see, McKettrick +he up and made a little error himself. Regardin' me makin' an error. +Yass.... I don't calc'late to make errors costin' upward of a hunderd +thousand. No.... Not," he said, "that I got any doubts about the word +'westerly' appearin' in all the papers McKettrick's got regardin' this +enterprise. What I doubt some is whether the word 'westerly' was there +right from the start off of the beginnin'. In other words, it looks to +me kind of as if McKettrick had done a mite of fixin' up to them +documents. Rubbin' out and writin' in, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks!" said McKettrick. "Of course that is what you would +charge."</p> + +<p>"McKettrick," said Scattergood, "did you figger I'd take notes in lead +pencil on my cuff of where I was to build that railroad? Did you figger +I was goin' to lay down a railroad without knowin' the place I put it +was where it b'longed? Castle he knows me better 'n you, and he +wouldn't guess I'd do sich a thing. No, sir, Mr. McKettrick. I took +them original papers out of your office for jest a day, and bein' as +they constituted an easement on land, I got 'em recorded in the office +of the recorder of deeds. Paid reg'lar money in fees to have it done. +And who you think I got to compare the records with the original in case +somethin' come up, eh? Why, the circuit jedge of this county and the +prosecutin' attorney—they both bein' personal and political friends of +mine.... That's what I done, and if you'll search them records you'll +find the word 'easterly' standin' cool and ca'm in every place where it +ought to be.... So, if you're figgerin' on litigation, I guess maybe +we'll litigate, eh?"</p> + +<p>"These are the references to the records," said Johnnie Bones, laying a +memorandum on the table. "You'll find them correct."</p> + +<p>"Knowing Baines as I do," said President Castle, "I'm satisfied."</p> + +<p>McKettrick and his attorney were conversing in hoarse whispers. +McKettrick looked like a man who had come out of a warm bath into a +cold-storage room. He was speechless, but his lawyer spoke for him.</p> + +<p>"You win," he said, succinctly.</p> + +<p>"Always calc'late to when I kin," said Scattergood. "Now, don't hurry, +gentlemen. I got another leetle matter to call to your attention. +McKettrick there's got forty-nine per cent of the stock in the railroad +that's built where it ought to be, and Castle's got another forty-nine +per cent. That leaves two men with all but two per cent of the stock, +and neither of them in control. If I know them men they hain't apt to +git together and agree peaceable and reasonable. Therefore, the feller +that has the remainin' two per cent of the stock, or forty shares, +stands perty clost to controllin' the corporation, eh? Him votin' with +either of the forty-nine per cents? Sounds that way, don't it?... And I +got that two per cent.... Do I hear any suggestions?"</p> + +<p>Castle stood up and bowed. "I take off my hat to you, Baines.... I bid +ten thousand."</p> + +<p>"Eleven," choked McKettrick.</p> + +<p>"This here road's goin' to be mighty profitable. Contract with the +Seaboard folks makes it look like it would pay eighteen, twenty per cent +on the investment, maybe more. And control—hain't that wuth a figger?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen," said Castle.</p> + +<p>"Sixteen."</p> + +<p>"Seventeen five hundred."</p> + +<p>"That's enough," said Scattergood. "I got a leetle grudge ag'in' +McKettrick for havin' bad manners, and for regardin' me as somethin' to +pick and eat. It'll hurt him some to have you control this road, Castle, +so you git it, at seventeen thousand five hunderd. I don't want to burn +you, and I calc'late the figger you're payin' is clost to bein' fair. +I'm satisfied. Write a check."</p> + +<p>Castle drew out his check book, and in a moment passed the valuable slip +across to Scattergood. "Thankee," said Baines, "and good day.... Another +time, McKettrick, don't look sneerin' at white woolen socks."</p> + +<p>He walked out of the room, followed by Johnnie Bones.</p> + +<p>"Perty fair deal for a scissor bill," said Scattergood. "This last +check, deductin' four thousand as cost of stock, gives me a profit of +twelve thousand two hunderd and fifty for the day. Add that to eighteen +thousand one hunderd and fifty on the strips of land, and nineteen +thousand six hunderd on the stock I sold Castle first, and what do we +git?"</p> + +<p>"Even fifty thousand," said Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"I always did cotton to round figgers," said Scattergood, comfortably. +"Let's git us a meal of vittles."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a><h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines was not a man to shingle his roof before he built his +foundations. He knew the value of shingles, and was not without some +appreciation for frescoes and porticoes and didos, but he liked to reach +them in the ordinary course of logical procedure. His completed +structure, according to the plans carefully printed on his brain, was +the domination of Coldriver Valley through ownership of its means of +transportation and of its water power. He wanted to be rich, not for the +sake of being rich, but because a great deal of money is, aside from +love or hate, the most powerful lever in the world. For five years, now, +Scattergood had moved along slowly and irresistibly, buying a bit of +timber here, acquiring a dam site there, taking over the stage line to +the railroad twenty-four miles away, and establishing a credit and a +reputation for shrewdness that were worth much more to him than dollars +and cents in the bank.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Scattergood had amassed considerable more money +than even the gimlet eyes and whispering tongues of Coldriver had been +able to credit him with. It is doubtful if anybody realized just how +strong a foot-hold Scattergood was getting in that valley, but the men +who came closest to it were Messrs. Crane and Keith, lumbermen, who were +beginning to experience a feeling of growing irritation toward the fat +hardware merchant. They were irritated because, every now and then, they +found themselves shut off from the water, or from a bit of timber, or +from some other desirable property, by some small holding of +Scattergood's which seemed to have dropped into just the right spot to +create the maximum amount of trouble for them. It could be nothing but +chance, they told each other, for they had sat in judgment on +Scattergood, and their judgment had been that he was a lazy lout with +more than a fair share of luck.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing but luck," Crane told his partner. "The man hasn't a brain +in his head—just a big lump of fat."</p> + +<p>"But he's always getting in the way—and he does seem to know a +water-power site when he sees it."</p> + +<p>"Anybody does," said Crane. "He's a doggone nuisance and we might as +well settle with him one time as another—and the time to settle is +before his luck gives him a genuine strangle hold on this valley. We've +got too much timber on these hills to take any risks."</p> + +<p>"I leave it with you, Crane. You're the outside man. But when you bust +him, bust him good."</p> + +<p>Crane retired to his office and devoted his head to the subject +exclusively, and because Crane's head was that sort of head he devised +an enterprise which, if Scattergood could be made to involve himself in +it, would result in the extinction of that gentleman in the Coldriver +Valley.</p> + +<p>It was a week later that a gentleman, whose clothes and bearing +guaranteed him to be a genuine denizen of the city, stopped at +Scattergood's store. Scattergood was sitting, as usual, on the piazza, +in his especially reinforced chair, laying in wait for somebody to whom +he could sell a bit of hardware, no matter how small.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," said the gentleman. "Is this Mr. Scattergood Baines?"</p> + +<p>"It's Scattergood Baines, all right. Don't call to mind bein' christened +Mister."</p> + +<p>"My name is Blossom."</p> + +<p>"Perty name," said Scattergood, unsmilingly.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I can have a little talk with you, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"Havin' it, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Blossom smiled appreciatively, and sat down beside Scattergood. "I'm +interested in the new Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company. You've heard of it, +haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Some," said Scattergood. "Some."</p> + +<p>"We are starting to build our mill. It will be the largest in America, +with the most modern machinery. Now we're looking about for somebody to +supply us spruce cut to the proper length for pulpwood. You own +considerable spruce, do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to have title to a tree or two."</p> + +<p>"Good. I came up to find out if you are in a position to swing a rather +big contract—to deliver us at the mill a minimum of twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood?"</p> + +<p>"Depends," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Mr. Blossom drew a jackknife from his pocket and began leisurely to +sharpen a pencil. It was a rather battered jackknife, and Scattergood +noticed that one blade had been broken off. He stretched out his hand. +"Jackknife's kind of lame, hain't it? Don't 'pear to be as stylish as +the rest of you?"</p> + +<p>"It is a bit dilapidated."</p> + +<p>"Got some good ones inside. Fine line of jackknives. Only carry the +best. Show 'em to you."</p> + +<p>He lifted himself out of the groaning chair and went into the store, to +return with a dozen or more knives, which he showed to Mr. Blossom, and +Mr. Blossom looked at them gravely. He was smiling to himself. A man who +could interrupt a deal involving upward of a hundred thousand dollars to +try to sell a jackknife certainly was not of a caliber to give serious +worry to an astute business man.</p> + +<p>"Recommend the pearl-handled one," said Scattergood. "Two dollars 'n' a +half."</p> + +<p>"I'll take it," said Mr. Blossom, and he stuck his old knife in a post, +replacing it in his pocket with the new purchase.</p> + +<p>"Cash," said Scattergood, and Mr. Blossom handed over the currency.</p> + +<p>"Speakin' of pulpwood," said Scattergood, "how much you figger on +payin'?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Blossom named a price, delivered at the mill.</p> + +<p>"Pay when?"</p> + +<p>"On delivery."</p> + +<p>"When want it delivered, eh? What date?"</p> + +<p>"Before May first."</p> + +<p>"Water power or steam?" said Scattergood, somewhat irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>"Both. We're putting in steam engines and boilers, but we're going to +depend mostly on water power."</p> + +<p>"Goin' to build a dam, eh? Big dam?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Stock company?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. We'll be solid. Capitalized for a quarter of a million and bonded +for a quarter of a million. Gives us half a million capital to start +business."</p> + +<p>"Stock all sold?"</p> + +<p>"Every share."</p> + +<p>"Who to?"</p> + +<p>"Mostly in small blocks in Boston."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Bonds sold?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Who bought 'em?"</p> + +<p>"They're underwritten by the Commonwealth Security Trust Company."</p> + +<p>"Want to know!... Got authority? Vested with authority to put it in +writin'?"</p> + +<p>"The contract, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to mean that."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Lawyer acrost the street," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You can swing it?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to."</p> + +<p>"You have the capital to make good?"</p> + +<p>"Know I have, don't you? Wouldn't have come to me if you hadn't?"</p> + +<p>"You'll have to borrow heavily."</p> + +<p>"My lookout, hain't it? Don't need to worry you?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least."</p> + +<p>"Lawyer's still acrost the street."</p> + +<p>So Scattergood and Mr. Blossom went across the street and up the narrow +stairs to Lawyer Norton's office, where a contract was drafted and +signed, obligating Scattergood to deliver to the Higgins's Bridge Pulp +Company twenty-five thousand cords of pulp, on or before May 1st, +payment to be made on delivery. Mr. Blossom went away wearing a +satisfied expression, and in the course of the day sent to Crane & Keith +a brief message, a message of two words. "He bit," was the telegram.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went back to his chair, and presently might have been seen +to unlace his shoes absent-mindedly. For an hour he sat there, twiddling +his bare toes. Then he got up, jerked Mr. Blossom's old jackknife from +the post where it had been abandoned, and pocketed it.</p> + +<p>"If nothin' else happens," he said to himself, "I'm figgered to make a +profit of sixty cents and a tradin' knife."</p> + +<p>There followed a very busy fall and winter for Scattergood. Not that he +neglected his hardware store, but from its porch, and later from a post +beside its big stove, he recruited men for his camps and directed the +labor of cutting and piling pulpwood along the banks of Coldriver. +Also, from time to time, he visited various banks to borrow the money +necessary to carry on the operation, sometimes on notes and collateral, +sometimes on timber mortgages. The sum of his borrowing mounted and +mounted, until, before the arrival of spring, his credit had been +strained to the uttermost.</p> + +<p>Nor had the pulp company been idle. Its new mills had arisen beside the +river at Higgins's Bridge, machinery had been installed, and the little +hamlet was beginning to speculate in town lots and to look forward to +unexampled prosperity.</p> + +<p>But before the ice was out of the river disquieting rumors began to +breathe out of Higgins's Bridge. They were the meerest vapor of +conjecture at first, apparently based upon no evidence whatever, but +friends delighted to convey them to Scattergood, as friends always +delight to perform such a disagreeable duty.</p> + +<p>"Hear things hain't goin' right down to the new pulp mill," said Deacon +Pettybone, one bitterly cold afternoon, when he came into Scattergood's +store to thaw the icicles out of his sparse beard.</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Be perty bad for you if they was to go wrong, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Perty bad, Deacon."</p> + +<p>"'Most ruin you, wouldn't it? Clean you out? Leave you with nothin'?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't mortgaged my health. Hain't mortgaged my brains. Have them left, +Deacon. Don't figger I'm clean bankrupt till them two is gone."</p> + +<p>But it was to be noticed that Scattergood toasted his bare toes a great +deal during the ensuing days. He scarcely put on his shoes except when +he was going out to wallow through the drifts; and, as Coldriver knew, +when Scattergood waggled his bare toes he was struggling with a +problem.</p> + +<p>Also it might have been noticed that he pored much over the detailed +maps in the county atlas, studying the flow of streams and the lie of +timber. It might have been seen that several large blocks of timber had +been marked by Scattergood with red crosses, and that certain other +limits had been blotted out in black. The black pieces were neither +numerous nor individually extensive, but they belonged to Scattergood. +Those marked with red crosses were the property of Messrs. Crane & +Keith.</p> + +<p>Now, it may be taken as axiomatic that in those early days the value of +a piece of timber depended upon its accessibility to flowing water down +which logs might be driven. A medium piece of timber on the banks of a +stream which came to plentiful flood in the spring was worth more in +hard dollars and cents than a much larger and finer piece back in the +hills. A piece of timber which had no access whatever to water +approximated worthlessness. On the atlas, the largest pieces of Crane & +Keith timber were back from the river—not too far back, but still +separated from it by narrow strips which, for the most part, were farms. +Some few pieces ran down to the river, but it was apparent that Crane & +Keith were looking to the future—buying timber when it was at its +lowest, and preparing to hold for a better day. They had bought +strategically. More than one tributary valley was in their hands, and, +when the day ripened, small land purchases would connect their holdings, +bring them to water, and place them in such a commanding position that +the valley would be as surely theirs as if they owned every foot of it. +Inasmuch as Scattergood planned, himself, to control Coldriver Valley, +the prospect was not pleasing to him.</p> + +<p>Scattergood closed the atlas and put on his shoes. "Um!..." he said. +"Calculate that'll keep their minds off'n other things a spell. If +they see me dickerin' there, they won't figger I'm dickerin' some place +else."</p> + +<p>If Scattergood had been a general, history would have recorded that he +won his battles by making feints at some vulnerable point in the enemy's +line, and then struck his major blow at a distance where he was not +suspected to be operating at all.</p> + +<p>It chanced that Crane & Keith were cutting timber from the Bottle—a +valley so named. Their rollways were piled high, and it was time for +them to team to the river. To reach the river they must pass through the +Bottleneck and over the farm belonging to Old Man Plumm. There was +another road into the valley—a public road—but it was a fifteen-mile +haul. Old Man Plumm was a non-assertive person, and good-natured. His +farm was a ramshackle, down-at-heels, worthless place, off which he +gleaned the meagerest of livelihoods, so that he had not been averse to +permitting Crane & Keith to traverse his land for a nominal +consideration. It was cheaper for Crane & Keith than purchase—and so +the matter stood.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went across the road to Lawyer Norton's office.</p> + +<p>"Goin' up Bottleneck way perty soon?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not that I know of, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Nice drive. Old Man Plumm's got a farm there."</p> + +<p>"I know that, of course."</p> + +<p>"Don't figger to visit him?"</p> + +<p>"Why—" said Norton, beginning to see that Scattergood had something in +view—"I could."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't try to buy the farm, would you?"</p> + +<p>Norton hesitated. "I—I might."</p> + +<p>"Cash?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"In your own name, eh? Not in anybody else's."</p> + +<p>"How much should I pay?"</p> + +<p>"Folks always pays what they have to—no more—no less. Immediate +possession. Always a good thing. Got any money?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Call at the bank. They'll give you what's needed. Ought to be back with +the deed by night. Fast hoss?"</p> + +<p>"Fast enough."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Norton."</p> + +<p>That night Norton returned with the deed and with Old Man Plumm, who +took the morning stage for Connecticut and his youngest daughter.</p> + +<p>"Hear folks is trespassin' on your land, Norton. Name of Crane and +Keith. Haulin' logs acrost. No contract with you? No contract with +Plumm?"</p> + +<p>"No contract."</p> + +<p>"Hain't got a right to do it, have they?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"If I owned that land I'd give 'em notice," said Scattergood. "G'-by, +Norton. Goin'to Boston to-day. Set tight, Norton. G'-by."</p> + +<p>Twenty-four hours later both Crane and Keith were in Coldriver, storming +up to Lawyer Norton's office. Scattergood was in Boston and not visible.</p> + +<p>"What does this mean?" blustered Crane, displaying to Norton the notice +mailed at Scattergood's direction.</p> + +<p>"What it says."</p> + +<p>"You can't stop us hauling to the river."</p> + +<p>Norton shrugged his shoulders. "You can use the state road."</p> + +<p>"Fifteen miles! You know it's impossible. We've got millions of feet on +our rollways. It'll doze and spoil if we don't get it out."</p> + +<p>"That's your lookout."</p> + +<p>"What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"It's some kind of a hold-up. What'll you take for that farm?"</p> + +<p>"Not for sale."</p> + +<p>"What will it cost us to haul across you?"</p> + +<p>"You can't haul across. Not for money, marbles, or chalk. Use the road."</p> + +<p>That was the best Crane & Keith could get out of Norton, though they +besieged him for a week, though they consulted lawyers, though they made +threats, and though they begged and promised. Norton was a stubborn man.</p> + +<p>During this week Scattergood had been in Boston. His first visit had +been to Linderman, president of the Atlantic Pulp and Paper Company.</p> + +<p>"Have you an appointment with Mr. Linderman?" asked a clerk.</p> + +<p>"Never heard of me."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm afraid you can't see him. He's very busy."</p> + +<p>"That his office? That door?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He in? Right in there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Scattergood walked calmly toward it. The slender clerk interposed. +Scattergood picked him up, tucked him under a huge arm, and waddled +through the great man's door.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Linderman? Howdy?"</p> + +<p>Linderman looked up and frowned, then his eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>"Who are you? What have you there?"</p> + +<p>"Young feller I found outside. 'Fraid of steppin' on him, so I picked +him up to save him. You can run along now, sonny," he said to the clerk. +"He let on I couldn't see you," Scattergood explained.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Scattergood Baines."</p> + +<p>"Of Coldriver?" Scattergood was surprised, but did not show it. "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Sit down."</p> + +<p>"Thankee.... Come to do a mite of business with you. Interested in pulp, +hain't you. Quite consid'able interested?"</p> + +<p>"Very much."</p> + +<p>"Know the Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. Understand they're in difficulties."</p> + +<p>"In some, and goin' to be in more. That's why I come down."</p> + +<p>Thereupon Scattergood explained in detail his contract with the pulp +company, and his theories of what that company was planning to do to +him. "Double barreled," he said. "Crane and Keith owns them bonds. +Figger on freezin' out the stockholders and buyin' 'em out for a song. +Figger on bustin' me. Next we hear the mill'll be in receiver's hands. +No money. Can't pay no contracts. My notes'll come due, and I'm done +for. Simple. Crane thought it up."</p> + +<p>"What do you want of me? So far as I can see, you are up against it. You +can't borrow any more, and your notes won't be extended. You're done."</p> + +<p>"Hain't started yet—not yet. Figger to start to-day. That's why I come +to see you."</p> + +<p>"But I can do nothing for you."</p> + +<p>"Higgins's Bridge mill's good, hain't it? Logical payin' proposition? +Money to be made?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Like to own it cheap?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Crane and Keith is gittin' ready for a killin'. Own big block of stock. +Paid par. Want to sell, I hear ... if anybody's fool enough to buy. Then +want to buy back for dum' near nothin' when receivership comes. Good +scheme. Money in it. Crane thought it up."</p> + +<p>"What's your idea?"</p> + +<p>"Buy all they got. Option the rest. Easy.... What happens when a man +sells somethin' he hain't got?"</p> + +<p>"He has to get it some place."</p> + +<p>"If he can't get it, what?"</p> + +<p>"Makes it expensive for him."</p> + +<p>"Thought so. Figgered that way.... Nobody to interfere. Crane and Keith +left orders to sell. They won't be takin' notice. Got 'em worried some +place else. Mighty worried." Scattergood recounted the story of Plumm's +farm.</p> + +<p>Mr. Linderman scrutinized Scattergood intently and nodded his head. "And +you want me—"</p> + +<p>"Put up the money. Git the stock. Lemme handle it. Gimme twenty per +cent."</p> + +<p>"In stock?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late so."</p> + +<p>"Baines," said Linderman, "I'll go you. Crane and Keith are due for a +lesson."</p> + +<p>"Ready now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mr. Linderman. Have money when I want it. G'-by."</p> + +<p>Scattergood had a list of stockholders in the pulp company and knew they +were worried. He spent two days in interviewing a dozen of them, and +found little difficulty optioning their stock at a pleasant figure. They +imagined he must be crazy, and he did nothing to destroy the belief.</p> + +<p>Then he called at the offices of Crane & Keith.</p> + +<p>"Want to see the boss man," he said.</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"Hear you got stock for sale. Pulp company. Figger to buy."</p> + +<p>Here was a lamb ready for the slaughter. Mr. McCann, who received him, +could see the delight of his employers, and his own profit, if he +should succeed in taking this fat backwoodsman into camp.</p> + +<p>"You want to buy stock in the pulp company, I understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"How much you got?"</p> + +<p>"Guess we can sell you all you want."</p> + +<p>"Money-makin' proposition, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"But you're willin' to sell? Kind of funny, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no. We have so many enterprises."</p> + +<p>"Glad you want to sell. I figger to make money on this stock. Want to +buy a lot of it."</p> + +<p>"About how many shares?"</p> + +<p>"What you askin'?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Par."</p> + +<p>"Shucks! Give you thirty."</p> + +<p>There was haggling and bickering until a price of sixty was agreed upon, +and Mr. McCann's heart expanded with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Now, how many shares?"</p> + +<p>"Want control. Want fifty-one per cent, anyhow. Got 'em?"</p> + +<p>"Of course." This was not the fact, but Mr. McCann was not addicted to +unnecessary facts. He knew where he could get the rest for less than 60. +There would be an additional profit and additional credit coming to him. +In cold reality, Crane & Keith owned some 40 per cent of the stock.</p> + +<p>"Take all you'll sell."</p> + +<p>"I can let you have fifteen hundred shares—for cash." This was an even +60 per cent, but McCann knew where he could get the other 20.</p> + +<p>"Come to the bank. Come now. Give you the cash."</p> + +<p>"I can't deliver but one thousand shares to-day, but I can give you the +other five hundred to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Suits me. Pay for 'em all to-day. Gimme what you got and a receipt for +the rest. Comin' to the bank?"</p> + +<p>Mr. McCann put on his coat and hat and accompanied Scattergood to the +bank, where he received a certified check for the full amount, gave +Scattergood in return a thousand shares of stock, and a receipt which +recited that Scattergood had paid for five hundred shares more, to be +delivered within twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went to see Mr. Linderman; McCann went out to round up five +hundred shares of stock. By midnight he was a worried young man. The +stock he had thought to pick up so readily was not to be had. Everybody +seemed to have disposed of it and nobody seemed to know exactly who had +been doing the buying, for the options had been taken in a number of +names. Next morning McCann sought diligently until he found Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I've been a bit delayed in the delivery of the rest of the stock," he +told Scattergood, and there was cold moisture on his forehead. "Would +you mind waiting until to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Guess I'll have to," said Scattergood. "G'-by. Better be movin' around +spry. I want to git back home."</p> + +<p>That night McCann wired his employers to get back home as quickly as +conveyances would carry them. They did so, and in no happy mood, for +Lawyer Norton had remained immovable in his position. Young McCann told +his tale hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Who did you say you sold to?" demanded Crane.</p> + +<p>"Fat man by the name of Baines."</p> + +<p>"Baines! He's busted. Hasn't a cent."</p> + +<p>"Paid cash."</p> + +<p>Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane. Just then the telephone +rang. It was Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Want to speak to Mr. Crane," he said.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" Crane said, gruffly. "What's this about your buying pulp +company stock?"</p> + +<p>"Bought some. Bought a little. Called up to see why your young man +wasn't deliverin'. Want to git home."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get the money?"</p> + +<p>"Have to know that? Have to know where it come from before you kin make +delivery? Hain't inquisitive, be you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Crane made use of language. "I want to see you—got to have a talk. +Come right down here."</p> + +<p>"Jest been measurin'," said Scattergood, "and I figger it's a mite +longer from here to there than it is from there to here. If you want to +see me, here I be."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood gave an office address and hung up the receiver.</p> + +<p>"They'll be here in a minnit," he said to Mr. Linderman, and he was not +exaggerating greatly as to the time required to bring the gentlemen to +him. "Know Mr. Linderman—Crane and Keith?" said Scattergood. "Come in +and set."</p> + +<p>"What do you want with pulp company stock?" Crane demanded.</p> + +<p>"Paper the kitchen. Maybe, if I kin git enough, I'll paper the parlor. +Lack five hunderd shares for the parlor. Got'em with you?"</p> + +<p>"No, and we're not going to get them."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Paid for 'em, didn't I? Got a receipt?"</p> + +<p>"What's Linderman doing in this?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Linderman leaned forward a little. "I'm in a legitimate business +transaction—something quite foreign to you gentlemen's notions of doing +business. I came into it to make a profit, but mostly to teach you +fellows a lesson in decent business methods. I don't like you. I don't +like your ways. If you like your ways you must expect to pay for the +pleasure you get out of them.... Mr. Baines is waiting for delivery of +the stock he bought."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know we haven't got it?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"We can't deliver."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can. Go out in the open market and buy. Now, I own a few +shares, for instance. I might sell."</p> + +<p>The faces of Messrs. Crane and Keith did not picture lively enjoyment. +They were caught. If it had been Scattergood alone they might have +wriggled out of it, they thought, for they had scant respect for his +sagacity, but Linderman—well, Linderman was not to be trifled with.</p> + +<p>"How much?" said Crane.</p> + +<p>"You need five hundred shares. Par is a hundred, is it not? I will part +with mine for three hundred. First, last, and only offer. In ten minutes +the price goes up to three fifty, and fifty for each five minutes after +that."</p> + +<p>"It's robbery ..." Mr. Crane spluttered, and made uncouth sounds of +rage.</p> + +<p>"Now you know how the other fellow has been feeling. Seven minutes +left...."</p> + +<p>Four more minutes sped before the surrender came.</p> + +<p>"Certified check," said Mr. Linderman. "My messenger will go to the bank +for you."</p> + +<p>The check was drawn for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and Crane +and Keith settled back sullenly.</p> + +<p>"You can retain your bonds. I believe you have about a quarter of a +million dollars' worth of them. Glad to have you finance the mill for +me. It will, of course, go ahead under my direction," said Linderman. "I +guess I can iron out the difficulties you gentlemen have arranged for, +and there will be no receivership. That will relieve Mr. Baines, who has +a considerable contract with the company." Mr. Crane swore softly.</p> + +<p>Scattergood heaved himself to his feet. "One other leetle matter, Crane. +There's the Plumm farm. Kind of exercised about that, hain't you? Stayed +up in the country a week to look after it—while I was dickerin' down +here.... Like to buy that farm?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer.</p> + +<p>"Calculate to take a hint from Mr. Linderman. That farm's mine, and you +can't haul a log acrost it. My price is fifteen thousand. Bought it for +two. Price goes up hunderd dollars a minute. Cash deal."</p> + +<p>That surrender was more prompt, and a second check was sent to the bank +to be certified.</p> + +<p>"G'-by, gentlemen," said Scattergood, and Messrs. Crane and Keith took +their departure in no dignified manner, but with rancor in their hearts, +which there was no method of salving.</p> + +<p>"Let's take stock," said Scattergood. "Like to know jest how we come +out."</p> + +<p>"Let's see. We bought the stock at an average of sixty dollars a share. +That makes a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in expenses, doesn't it? +The five hundred shares just transferred cost thirty thousand dollars +and we sold them for a hundred and fifty thousand. Profit on that part +of the deal is a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. That made the +total capital stock in the mill worth a quarter of a million of +anybody's money; cost us exactly thirty thousand dollars, didn't it? +Nice deal.... And you cleaned up an extra thirteen thousand on your side +issue. Not bad."</p> + +<p>"I git five hunderd shares worth fifty thousand dollars, don't I? Then +my thirteen. That's sixty-three thousand. Then my profit on twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood—which is goin' to be paid, I jedge. That'll +be anyhow another twenty-five thousand. Calc'late this deal's about +fixed me so's I kin go ahead with a number of plans. Much obleeged, Mr. +Linderman. You come in handy."</p> + +<p>"So did you, Mr. Baines. Mighty handy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, me. I had to. I was jest takin' out reasonable insurance ag'in' +loss...."</p> + +<p>"I guess you have a permanent insurance policy against loss, inside your +head."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood, slipping his feet into his shoes, preparatory +to leaving, "difficulty about that kind of insurance is that most folks +lets it lapse 'long about the first week after they're born."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a><h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The world has come to think of Scattergood Baines as an astute and +perhaps tricky business man, or as the political despot of a state. +Because this is so it has overlooked or neglected many stories about the +man much more indicative of character, and more fascinating of detail +than those well-known and often-repeated tales of his sagacity in +trading or his readiness in outwitting a political enemy. To one who +makes a careful study of Scattergood's life with a view to writing a +truthful biography, he inevitably becomes more interesting and more +lovable when seen simply as a neighbor, a fellow townsman of other New +Englanders, and as a country hardware merchant. There is a certain charm +in the naïveté with which he was wont to stick his pudgy finger in the +affairs of others with benignant purpose; and it is not easy to believe +other tales of hardness, of ruthless beating down of opposition, when +one repeatedly comes upon well-authenticated instances in which he has +stood quietly hidden behind the scenes to pull the strings and to make +his neighbors bow and dance and posture in accordance with some schemes +which he has formulated for their greater happiness.</p> + +<p>Scattergood loved to meddle. Perhaps that is his dominant trait. He +could see nothing moving in the community about him and withhold his +hand. If Old Man Bogle set about buying a wheelbarrow, Scattergood would +intervene in the transaction; if Pliny Pickett stopped at the Widow +Ware's gate to deliver a message, Scattergood saw an opportunity to +unite lonely hearts—and set about uniting them forthwith; if little Sam +Kettleman, junior, and Wade Lumley's boy, Tom, came to blows, +Scattergood became peacemaker or referee, as the needs of the moment +seemed to dictate. It would be difficult to find a pie in Coldriver +which was not marked by his thumb. So it came about that when he became +convinced that Grandmother Penny was unhappy because of various +restrictions and inhibitions placed on her by her son, the dry-goods +merchant, and by her daughter-in-law, he determined to intervene. +Scattergood was partial to old ladies, and this partiality can be traced +to his earliest days in Coldriver. He loved white hair and wrinkled +cheeks and eyes that had once been youthful and glowing, but were dulled +and dimmed by watching the long procession of the years.</p> + +<p>Now he sat on the piazza of his hardware store, his shoes on the +planking beside him, and his pudgy toes wriggling like the trained +fingers of an eminent pianist. It was a knotty problem. An ordinary +problem Scattergood could solve with shoes on feet, but let the matter +take on eminent difficulty and his toes must be given freedom and elbow +room, as one might say. Later in life his wife, Mandy, after he had +married her, tried to cure him of this habit, which she considered +vulgar, but at this point she failed signally.</p> + +<p>The facts about Grandmother Penny were, not that she was consciously ill +treated. Her bodily comfort was seen to. She was well fed and reasonably +clothed, and had a good bed in which to sleep. Where she was sinned +against was in this: that her family looked upon her white hair and her +wrinkles and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that her interest in +life was gone—in short, that she was content to cumber the earth and to +wait for the long sleep. To them she was simply one who tarries and is +content. Scattergood looked into her sharp, old eyes, eyes that were +capable of sudden gleams of humor or flashes of anger, and he <i>knew</i>. He +knew that death seemed as distant to Grandmother Penny as it had seemed +fifty years ago. He knew that her interest in life was as keen, her +yearning to participate in the affairs of life as strong, as they had +been when Grandfather Penny—now long gone to his reward—had driven his +horse over the hills with one hand while he utilized the other arm for +more important and delightful purposes.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was remembering his own grandmother. He had known her as no +other living soul had known her, because she had been his boyhood +intimate, his defender, always his advocate, and because the boyish love +which he had given her had made his eyes keen to perceive. His parents +had fancied Grandma Baines to be content when she was in constant +revolt. They had supposed that life meant nothing more to her now than +to sit in a comfortable rocker and to knit interminable stockings and to +remember past years. Scattergood knew that the present compelled her +interest and that the future thrilled her. She wanted to participate in +life, to be in the midst of events—to continue to live so long as the +power of movement and of perception remained to her. He was now able to +see that the old lady had done much to mold his character, and as he +recalled incident after incident his face wore a softer, more melancholy +expression than Coldriver was wont to associate with it. He was +regretting that in his thoughtless youth he had failed to accomplish +more to make gladder his grandmother's few remaining years.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late," said Scattergood to himself—but aloud—"that I'll kind +of substitute Grandmother Penny for Grandma Baines—pervidin' Grandma +Baines is fixed so's she kin see; more'n likely she'll understand what +I'm up to, and it'll tickle her—I'm goin' to up and borrow me a +grandmother."</p> + +<p>He wriggled his toes and considered. What thing had his grandmother most +desired?</p> + +<p>"Independence was what she craved," he said, and considered the point. +"She didn't want to be beholdin' to folks. She wanted to be fixed so's +she could do as she pleased, and nobody to interfere. I calc'late if +Grandma Baines 'd 'a' been left alone she'd 'a' found her another +husband and they'd 'a' had a home of their own with all the fixin's. It +wasn't so much doin' that grandma wanted, it was knowin' she <i>could</i> do +if she wanted to."</p> + +<p>Scattergood's specially reinforced chair creaked as he strained forward +to pick up his shoepacs and draw them on. It required no small exertion, +and he straightened up, red of face and panting a trifle. He walked up +the street, crossed the bridge, and descended to the little room under +the barber shop where the checker or cribbage championship of the state +was decided daily. Two ancient citizens were playing checkers, while a +third stood over them, watching with that thrilled concentration with +which the ordinary person might watch an only son essaying to cross +Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Scattergood knew better than to interrupt +the game, so he stood by until, by a breath-taking triple jump, Old Man +Bogle sent his antagonist down to defeat. Then, and only then, did +Scattergood speak to the old gentleman who had been the spectator.</p> + +<p>"Morning Mr. Spackles," he said.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Scattergood. See that last jump of Bogle's? I swanny if +'twan't about as clever a move as I see this year."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "I come down here to find out could I +ask you some advice. You bein' experienced like you be, it 'peared to +me like you was the one man that could help me out."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." grunted Mr. Spackles, his old blue eyes widening with the +distinction of the moment. "If I kin be of any service to you, I +calculate I'm willin'. 'Tain't often folks comes to me for advice any +more, or anythin' else, for that matter. Guess they figger I'm too old +to 'mount to anythin'."</p> + +<p>"Feel like takin' a mite of a walk?"</p> + +<p>"Who? Me? I'm skittisher'n a colt this mornin'. Bet I kin walk twenty +mile 'fore sundown."</p> + +<p>They moved toward the door, but there Mr. Spackles paused to look back +grandly upon the checker players. "Sorry I can't linger to watch you, +boys," he said, loftily, "but they's important matters me and +Scattergood got to discuss. Seems like he's feelin' the need of sound +advice."</p> + +<p>When they were gone the checker players scrutinized each other, and then +with one accord scrambled to the door and stared out after Scattergood +and Mr. Spackles.</p> + +<p>"I swanny!" said Old Man Bogle.</p> + +<p>"What d'you figger Scattergood wanted of that ol' coot?" demanded Old +Man Peterson.</p> + +<p>"Somethin' deep," hazarded Old Man Bogle. "I always did hold Spackles +was a brainy cuss. Hain't he 'most as good a checker player as I be? +What gits me, though, is how Scattergood come to pick him instid of me."</p> + +<p>"Huh!..." grunted Old Man Peterson, and they resumed their game.</p> + +<p>Scattergood walked along in silence for a few paces; then he regarded +Mr. Spackles appraisingly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Spackles," said he, deferentially, "I dunno when I come acrost a +man that holds his years like you do. Mind if I ask you jest how old you +be?"</p> + +<p>"Sixty-six year," said Spackles.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't never 'a' b'lieved it," marveled Scattergood. "Wouldn't 'a' +set you down for a day more 'n fifty-five or six, not with them clear +eyes and them ruddy cheeks and the way you step out."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to be nigh as good as I ever was, Scattergood. J'ints creak +some, but what I got inside my head it don't never creak none to speak +of."</p> + +<p>"What I want to ask you, Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "is if you +calc'late a man that's got to be past sixty and a woman that's got to be +past sixty has got any business hitchin' up and marryin' each other."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Depends. I'd say it depends. If the feller was perserved like I +be, and the woman was his equal in mind and body, I'd say they was no +reason ag'in' it—'ceptin' it might be money."</p> + +<p>"Ever think of marryin', yourself, Mr. Spackles?"</p> + +<p>"Figgered some. Figgered some. But knowed they wasn't no use. Son and +daughter wouldn't hear to it. Couldn't support a wife, nohow. Son and +daughter calc'lates to be mighty kind to me, Scattergood, and gives me +dum near all I kin ask, but both of 'em says I got to the time of life +where it hain't becomin' in 'em to allow me to work."</p> + +<p>"How much kin sich a couple as I been talkin' about live on?"</p> + +<p>"When I married, forty-odd year ago, I was gittin' a dollar a day. Me +'n' Ma we done fine and saved money. Livin's higher now. Calc'late it +'u'd take nigh a dollar 'n' a half to git on comfortable."</p> + +<p>"Figger fifty dollars a month 'u'd do it? Think that 'u'd be enough?"</p> + +<p>"Scattergood, you listen here to me. I hain't never earned as much as +fifty dollar a month reg'lar in my whole life—and I got consid'able +pleasure out of livin', too." They had walked up the street until they +were passing the Penny residence. Grandmother Penny was sitting on the +porch, knitting as usual. She looked very neat and dainty as she sat +there in her white lace cap and her lavender dress.</p> + +<p>"Fine-lookin' old lady," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles regarded Grandmother Penny and nodded with the air of a +connoisseur. "Dum'd if she hain't." He lifted his hat and yelled across +the road: "Mornin', Ellen."</p> + +<p>"Mornin', James," replied Grandmother Penny, and bobbed her head. "Won't +you folks stop and set? Sun's a-comin' down powerful hot."</p> + +<p>"Don't mind if we do," said Scattergood. He seated himself, and mopped +his brow, and fanned himself with his broad straw hat, whose flapping +brim was beginning to ravel about the edges. Presently he stood up.</p> + +<p>"Got to be movin' along, Mis' Penny. Seems like I'm mighty busy off and +on. But I dunno what I'd do without Mr. Spackles, here, to advise with +once in a while. He's jest been givin' me the benefit of his thinkin' +this mornin'."</p> + +<p>With inward satisfaction Scattergood noticed how the old lady turned a +pert, sharp look upon Mr. Spackles, regarding him with awakened +interest. To be considered a man of wisdom by Scattergood Baines was a +distinction in Coldriver even in those days, and for a man actually to +be consulted and asked for advice by the ample hardware merchant was to +lift him into an intellectual class to which few could aspire.</p> + +<p>"I hope he gin you good advice, Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny.</p> + +<p>"Allus does. If ever you're lookin' for level-headedness, and f'r a man +you kin depend on, jest send a call for Mr. Spackles. G'-by, ma'am. +G'-by, Mr. Spackles, and much 'bleeged to you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles was a little bewildered, for he had not the least idea +upon what subject he had advised Scattergood, but he was of an acuteness +not to pass by any of the advantage that accrued from the situation. He +replied, with lofty kindness, "Any time you want for to consult with me, +young man, jest come right ahead."</p> + +<p>When Scattergood was gone, Mr. Spackles turned to the old lady and +waggled his head.</p> + +<p>"Ellen, that there's a mighty promisin' young man. Time's comin' when +he's a-goin' to amount to suthin'. I'm a-calc'latin' on guidin' him all +I kin."</p> + +<p>"I want to know," said Grandmother Penny, almost breathless at this new +importance of Mr. Spackles's, and Mr. Spackles basked in her admiration, +and added to it by apochryphal narratives of his relations with +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>For a week Scattergood let matters rest. He was content, for more than +once he saw Mr. Spackles's faded overalls and ragged hat on the Penny +premises, and watched the old gentleman in animated conversation with +Grandmother Penny, who seemed to be perter and brighter and handsomer +than she had ever seemed before.</p> + +<p>On one such day Scattergood crossed the street and entered the gate.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, folks?" he said. "Wonder if I kin speak with Mr. Spackles +without interferin'?"</p> + +<p>"Certain you kin," said Grandmother Penny, cordially.</p> + +<p>"Got a important bankin' matter over to the county seat, Mr. Spackles, +and I was wonderin' if I could figger on your help?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure you kin, Scattergood. To be sure."</p> + +<p>"Got to have a brainy man over there day after to-morrer. B'jing! that's +circus day, too. Didn't think of that till this minnit. Wonder if you'd +drive my boss and buggy over and fix up a deal with the president of the +bank?"</p> + +<p>"Glad to 'bleege," said the flattered Mr. Spackles.</p> + +<p>"Circus day," Scattergood repeated. "Been to a circus lately, Mis' +Penny?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't seen one for years."</p> + +<p>"No?... Mr. Spackles, what be you thinkin' of? To be sure. Why, you kin +bundle Mis' Penny into the buggy and take her along with you! Finish the +business in no time, bein' spry like you be, and then you and her kin +take in the circus and the side show, and stay f'r the concert. How's +that?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles was suddenly red and embarrassed, but Grandmother Penny +beamed.</p> + +<p>"Why," says she, "makes me feel like a young girl ag'in. To be sure I'll +go. Daughter'll make a fuss, but I jest don't care if she does. I'm +a-goin'."</p> + +<p>"That's the way to talk," said Scattergood. "Mr. Spackles'll be round +f'r you bright and early. Now, if you kin spare him, I calc'late we got +to talk business."</p> + +<p>When they were in the street Mr. Spackles choked and coughed, and said +with some vexation:</p> + +<p>"You went and got me in f'r it that time."</p> + +<p>"How so, Mr. Spackles? Don't you want to take Mis' Penny to the circus?"</p> + +<p>"Course I do, but circuses cost money. I hain't got more 'n a quarter to +my name."</p> + +<p>"H'm!... Didn't calc'late I was askin' you to take a day of your time +for <i>nothin</i>', did you? F'r a trip like this here, with a lot hangin' on +to it, I'd say ten dollars was about the fittin' pay. What say?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles's beaming face was answer enough.</p> + +<p>Grandmother Penny and Mr. Spackles went to the circus in a more or less +surreptitious manner. It was a wonderful day, a successful day, such a +day as neither of them had expected ever to see again, and when they +drove home through the moonlight, across the mountains, their souls +were no longer the souls of threescore and ten, but of twoscore and one.</p> + +<p>"Great day, wa'n't it, Ellen?" said Mr. Spackles, softly.</p> + +<p>"Don't call to mind nothin' approachin' it, James."</p> + +<p>"You be powerful good company, Ellen."</p> + +<p>"So be you, James."</p> + +<p>"I calculate to come and set with you, often," said James, diffidently.</p> + +<p>"Whenever the notion strikes you, James," replied Grandmother Penny, and +she blushed for the first time in a score of years.</p> + +<p>Two days later Pliny Pickett stopped to speak to Scattergood in front of +the hardware store. Pliny supplemented and amplified the weekly +newspaper, and so was very useful to Baines.</p> + +<p>"Hear tell Ol' Man Spackles is sparkin' Grandmother Penny," Pliny said, +with a grin. "Don't figger nothin' 'll come of it, though. Their +childern won't allow it."</p> + +<p>"Won't allow it, eh? What's the reason? What business is 't of theirn?"</p> + +<p>"Have to support 'em. The ol' folks hain't got no money. Spackles 's got +two-three hunderd laid by for to bury him, and so's Grandmother Penny. +Seems like ol' folks allus lays by for the funeral, but that's every red +cent they got. I hear tell Mis' Penny's son has forbid Spackles's comin' +around the house."</p> + +<p>This proved to be the fact, as Scattergood learned from no less an +authority than Mr. Spackles himself.</p> + +<p>"Felt like strikin' him right there 'n' then," said Mr. Spackles, +heatedly, "but I seen 'twouldn't do to abuse one of Ellen's childern."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Was you and Grandmother Penny figgerin' on hitchin' up?" +Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"I put the question," said Mr. Spackles, with the air of a youth of +twenty, "and Ellen up and allowed she'd have me. But I guess 'twon't +never come off now. Seems like I'll never be content ag'in, and Ellen's +that downcast I shouldn't be a mite s'prised if she jest give up and +passed away."</p> + +<p>"Difficulty's money, hain't it? Largely financial, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Ya-as."</p> + +<p>"Folks has got rich before. Maybe somethin' like that'll happen to you."</p> + +<p>"Have to happen mighty suddin, Scattergood, if it aims to do any good in +this world."</p> + +<p>"I've knowed men to invest a couple hunderd dollars into some venture +and come out at t'other end with thousands. You got couple hunderd, +hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Ellen and me both has—saved up to bury us."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Git buried, anyhow. Law compels it. Doggone little pleasure +spendin' money f'r your own coffin. More sensible to git some good out +of it.... I'm goin' away to the city f'r a week or sich a matter. When I +come back we'll kind of thrash things out and see what's to be done. +Meantime, don't you and Grandmother Penny up and elope."</p> + +<p>In this manner Scattergood planted the get-rich-quick idea in the head +of Mr. Spackles, who communicated it to Grandmother Penny in the course +of a clandestine meeting. The old folks discussed it, and hope made it +seem more and more plausible to them. Realizing the fewness of the days +remaining to them, they were anxious to utilize every moment. It was +Grandmother Penny who was the daring spirit. She was for drawing their +money out of the bank that very day and investing it somehow, somewhere, +in the hope of seeing it come back to them a hundredfold.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had neglected to take into consideration Grandmother Penny's +adventuresome spirit; he had also neglected to avail himself of the +information that a certain Mr. Baxter, registered from Boston, was at +the hotel, and that his business was selling shares of stock in a mine +which did not exist to gullible folks who wanted to become wealthy +without spending any labor in the process. He did a thriving business. +It was Coldriver's first experience with this particular method of +extracting money from the public, and it came to the front handsomely. +Mr. Spackles got wind of the opportunity and told it to Grandmother +Penny. She took charge of affairs, compelled her fiancé to go with her +to the bank, where they withdrew their savings, and then sought for Mr. +Baxter, who, in return for a bulk sum of some five hundred dollars, sold +them enough stock in the mine to paper the parlor. Also, he promised +them enormous returns in an exceedingly brief space of time. Their +profit on the transaction would, he assured them, be not less than ten +thousand dollars, and might mount to double that sum. They departed in a +state of extreme elation, and but for Mr. Spackles's conservatism +Grandmother Penny would have eloped with him then and there.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to, Ellen. I'd like to, mighty well, but 'tain't safe. Le's +git the money fust. The minnit the money comes in, off we mog to the +parson. But 'tain't safe yit. Jest hold your hosses."</p> + +<p>When Scattergood returned and was visible again on the piazza of his +hardware store, it was not long before the village financiers came to +him boasting of their achievement. He, Scattergood, was not the only man +in town with the ability to make money. No, indeed, and for proof of it +here were the stock certificates, purchased from a deluded young man for +a few cents a share, when common sense told you they were worth many, +many dollars. Scattergood listened to two or three without a word. +Finally he asked:</p> + +<p>"How many folks went into this here thing?"</p> + +<p>"Sev'ral. Sev'ral. Near's I kin figger, folks here bought nigh five +thousand dollars' wuth of stock off'n Baxter. Must 'a' been fifty or +sixty went into the deal."</p> + +<p>"Dum fools," said Scattergood, with sudden wrath. "Has it got so's I +don't dast to leave town without you folks messin' things up? Can't I +leave overnight and find things safe in the mornin'?... You hain't got +the sense Gawd give field mice—the whole kit and b'ilin' of you. Serves +you dum well right, tryin' to git somethin' f'r nothin'. Now git away +fr'm here. Don't pester me.... You've been swindled, that's what, and it +serves you doggone well right. Now git."</p> + +<p>It was one of the few times that Coldriver saw Scattergood in a rage. +The rage convinced them. Scattergood said they were swindled and he was +in a rage. Therefore he must be right. The news spread, and knots of +citizens with lowered heads and anxious eyes gathered on street corners +and whispered and nodded toward Scattergood, who sat heavily on his +piazza, speaking to nobody. It was Grandmother Penny who dared accost +him. She crept up to his place and said, tremulously:</p> + +<p>"Be you sure, Scattergood, about that feller bein' a swindler?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked down at her fiercely. Then his eyes softened and he +leaned forward and scrutinized her face.</p> + +<p>"Did you git into this mess, too, Grandmother Penny?"</p> + +<p>"Both me 'n' James," she said. "You let on that folks got rich quick by +investin'. Me 'n' James was powerful anxious to git money so's—so's we +could git married on it. So we drawed out our money and—and invested +it."</p> + +<p>"Come here, Grandmother," said Scattergood, and she stood just before +his chair, her head coming very little higher than his own as he sat +there, big and ominous. "So the skunk took <i>your</i> money, too. I hain't +carin' a whoop for them others. They got what was comin' to 'em, and I +didn't calculate to do nothin'. But you! By crimminy!... Wa-al, +Grandmother, you go off home and knit. I'll look into things. It's on +your account, and not on theirs." He shook his head fiercely toward the +town. "But I calculate I'll have to git theirn back, too.... And, +Grandmother—you and James kin rest easy. Hain't sayin' no more. Jest +wait, and don't worry, and don't say nothin' to nobody.... G'-by, +Grandmother Penny. G'-by."</p> + +<p>That evening Scattergood drove out of Coldriver in his rickety buggy. +Nobody had dared to speak to him, but, nevertheless, he carried in his +pocket a list of the town's investors in mining stock, together with the +amounts of their investments. He was not seen again for several days.</p> + +<p>Two days later Scattergood appeared in the lobby of the Mansion House, +in the county seat. He scrutinized the register, and found, to his +satisfaction, that a Mr. Bowman of Boston was occupying room 106. Mr. +Bowman had signed the hotel register in Coldriver as Mr. Baxter, also of +Boston. Scattergood seated himself in a chair and lighted one of the +cigars which made his presence so undesirable in an inclosed space. He +appeared to be taking a nap.</p> + +<p>Fifteen minutes after Scattergood began to nod, Sam Bangs, a politician +with some strength in the rural districts, came down the stairs in +company with a young man of prepossessing appearance, and clothing which +did not strike the beholder as either too gaudy or too stylish. Indeed +the young man impressed the world as being a sober, conservative person +in whose judgment it would be well to place confidence.</p> + +<p>When Bangs saw Scattergood he stopped and whispered a moment to his +companion, who nodded. They approached Scattergood, and Bangs touched +him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," he said, "I want you should meet my friend Mr. Bowman. +Mr. Bowman's a broker. Been buyin' some stocks off'n him—or calculate +to. I knowed you done consid'able investing so I took the liberty."</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked drowsily at the young man. "Set," he said. "Set and +have a cigar."</p> + +<p>The young Mr. Bowman accepted the cigar, but, after a glance at it, +thrust it into his mouth unlighted. The conversation began with national +politics, swung to crops, and veered finally to the subject of +investments. Mr. Bowman, backed in his statements by Mr. Bangs, spoke to +Scattergood of a certain mine whose stock could be had for a song, but +whose riches in mineral, about to be reached by a certain shaft or drift +or tunnel, were fabulous. Scattergood was interested. An appointment was +made for further discussion.</p> + +<p>The appointment was kept that evening, in the same lobby, and Mr. +Bowman, while finding more than ordinary difficulty in convincing this +fat country merchant, did eventually succeed in bringing him to a point +of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Looks good," said Scattergood. "Calc'late a feller could make a +killin'. I'm a-goin' into it hair, hide, and hoofs. Figger me f'r not +less 'n five thousand dollars' wuth of it. Ought to make me fifty +thousand if it makes a cent."</p> + +<p>"You're conservative, Mr. Baines, conservative."</p> + +<p>"Always calculated to be, Mr. Bowman." He looked up as a middle-aged man +with a drooping mustache approached. "Howdy, John? Still workin' f'r the +express company, be you?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to, Mr. Baines. Got charge of the local office. 'Tain't all +pleasure, neither. In a sight of trouble this minnit."</p> + +<p>"I want to know," said Scattergood. "Stand to lose my job," said John, +sadly. "Dunno where I'll find me another."</p> + +<p>"What you been doin', eh? What got you in bad?"</p> + +<p>"One of them dummed gold shipments from the state bank. Hadn't ought to +speak about it, 'cause the comp'ny's bein' awful secret. Hain't lettin' +it out." He glanced apprehensively at Mr. Bowman.</p> + +<p>"Needn't to be afraid of Mr. Bowman, John. What's the story?"</p> + +<p>"Bank shippin' bullion. Three chunks of it. Wuth fifty-odd thousand +dollars. I know, 'cause that's the comp'ny's liability wrote in black +and white.... Been stole," he said, after a brief pause.</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Out of my office, this mornin'. Not a trace. Jest up and disappeared. +Detectives and all can't run on to no clue. Might as well 'a' melted and +run through a crack. Jest gone, and that's all anybody kin find."</p> + +<p>"Mighty sorry to hear it, John. Hope you wasn't keerless, and don't +figger you was. Guess you won't be blamed when the facts comes out."</p> + +<p>"If they ever do," said John. "G' night, Mr. Baines. I'm mighty oneasy +in my mind."</p> + +<p>Scattergood turned the subject back at once to mining stocks.</p> + +<p>"You set me down for five thousand dollars. Don't let nobody else have +it. Got jest that sum comin' due tomorrer. You and me'll drive over to +git it, and you fetch them stock certificates along. Got 'em in that +little satchel you're always carryin'?"</p> + +<p>"No," smiled Mr. Bowman. "That's my purse. I take no chances on robbers, +like your express agent spoke of. I don't mind telling you that I have +fifteen thousand dollars in that bag—and I intend to keep it there."</p> + +<p>"Do tell!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Wa-al, you know your business. Now, +then, if you want to drive over six mile with me to-morrer, well git us +that money and I'll take the stock."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Mr. Bowman. "An early start. Can I take a train from there? +I'll be through here, I think."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Mighty funny thing about that gold, now +wa'n't it? Three bars. Wuth fifty thousand! Mighty slick work—to spirit +it off and nobody never find a trace."</p> + +<p>"The criminal classes," said Mr. Bowman, "have produced some remarkable +intellects. Good night, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"See you early in the mornin'," replied Scattergood.</p> + +<p>After a breakfast which Mr. Bowman watched Scattergood dispose of with +admiration and astonishment, the pair entered the old buggy and started +across the hills. In addition to his small bag Mr. Bowman brought a +large suitcase containing his apparel, so it was apparent he was leaving +the county seat for good. The morning came off hot and humid. +Scattergood kept his eyes open for a spring, but it was not until they +had driven some miles that an opportunity to find water appeared.</p> + +<p>"Calculate we kin git a drink there," said Scattergood, pointing to a +little shanty in a clearing by the roadside. He stopped his horse, and +they alighted and knocked. There was no reply. Scattergood pushed open +the door and then stepped back suddenly, for within were three +individuals of disreputable appearance, and one of them regarded +Scattergood over the leveled barrels of a shotgun.</p> + +<p>"Come right in and set," invited this individual, and Scattergood, +followed by Mr. Bowman, entered. On a table of pine wood, unconcealed, +lay three enormous bars of gold.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood, faintly, and leaned against the wall. "You +would come rammin' in," said the gentleman with the shotgun. "Now I +calc'late you got to stay."</p> + +<p>Scattergood grinned amiably. "Vallyble loaves of bread you got there," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Gold," said the man, succinctly.</p> + +<p>"Hain't no mines around here, be there?"</p> + +<p>"We hain't sayin'. But that there gold come from a mine, all +right—sometime."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late you been robbin' a train or somethin'," said Scattergood, +mildly. "Now don't git het up. 'Tain't none of my business. Doin' +robbin' for a reg'lar livin'?" he asked, innocently.</p> + +<p>"Hain't never done none before—" began one of the men, but his +companion directed him to "shut up and stay shut."</p> + +<p>"No harm talkin' 's I kin see. We got these fellers here and here they +stay till we git clean off. Kind of like to tell somebody the joke."</p> + +<p>"I'm doggone int'rested," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The rough individual with the gun laughed loudly. "May's well tell you," +he said, raucously. "Me and the boys was in town yestiddy, calc'latin' +to ship some ferns by express. Went into the office. Agent wa'n't there. +Safe was. Open. Ya-as, wide open. We seen three gold chunks inside, and +nobody around watchin'. Looked full better 'n ferns, so we jest took a +notion to carry 'em out to the wagin and drive off.... Now we got it, +I'm dummed if I know what to do with it. Hear tell it's wuth fifty +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowman spoke. "You'll find it mighty hard to dispose of."</p> + +<p>"Don't need to worry you."</p> + +<p>"Suppose you could sell it for a fair price, cash, and get away with the +money?"</p> + +<p>"That's our aim."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Bowman, "there's money in this if you aren't too +particular."</p> + +<p>"Hain't p'tic'lar a-tall. How you mean?"</p> + +<p>"What would you say to buying this gold—at a reasonable price? I can +dispose of it—through channels I am acquainted with. You can put in the +money we were going for, and I'll put in some more. Ought to show a +handsome profit."</p> + +<p>"Might nigh double my money, maybe, eh? Figger that? Gimme twict as much +to buy stock with."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed."</p> + +<p>"Let's dicker."</p> + +<p>"What will you men take to walk away and leave that gold?"</p> + +<p>"Forty thousand."</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks. I'll give you ten—and you're clear of the whole mess."</p> + +<p>There was a wrangle. For half an hour the dicker went on, and finally a +price of fifteen thousand dollars was agreed upon. Mr. Bowman was to pay +over the money, and Scattergood was to contribute his five thousand +dollars as soon as they got it. For one third of the profits.</p> + +<p>The money was paid over; the three robbers disappeared with alacrity, +leaving Scattergood and Bowman with the stolen gold.</p> + +<p>"We can take it along in the buggy, covered with ferns," said Bowman. +"Nobody'll suspect <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Be safe as a church," said Scattergood, boldly. "Lug her out."</p> + +<p>So they carried the gold to the buggy, covered it snugly with ferns, and +drove toward the next town, Scattergood talking excitedly of profits and +of how much mining stock he could purchase with the money received, and +of ample wealth from the transaction. Mr. Bowman smiled with the faint, +quiet smile of one whose soul is at peace. Just before they got to town +Scattergood suggested that they stop to make sure the gold was +completely concealed.</p> + +<p>They drove into the woods a few rods and uncovered the treasure. +Scattergood gloated over it.</p> + +<p>"I've heard tell you kin cut real gold like cheese," he said, and opened +his jackknife. With it he hacked off a shaving and held it up to the +light.</p> + +<p>"Is all gold this here way?" he asked. "Don't look to me to be the same +color all the way through. Looks like silver or suthin' inside."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowman snatched the shaving, scrutinized it, and uttered language in +a loud voice. He snatched Scattergood's knife and tested all three +ingots.</p> + +<p>"Lead!" he said, savagely. "Nothing but lead! We've been swindled!"</p> + +<p>"You mean it hain't gold a-tall?"</p> + +<p>"It's lead, I tell you."</p> + +<p>"I vum!... Them fellers stole lead! And they got off with all your +money. Gosh! I'm glad I didn't have none along." His eyes were mirthless +and his face vacuous. "Beats all. Never heard tell of nothin' sim'lar."</p> + +<p>They got into the buggy and drove silently into town. Mr. Bowman tried +to recover his spirits, but they were at low ebb. He did manage to hint +that Scattergood should stand his share of the loss, but in his heart he +knew that to be vain. Still, he could get that five thousand dollars for +the mining stock. It would be five thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," he said, "you're fortunate. You still can buy the stock and +make your pile."</p> + +<p>"This here deal," said Scattergood, "has kind of made me figger. 'Tain't +safe to buy gold chunks till you <i>know</i> they're gold. Likewise 'tain't +safe to buy mine stock till you know there's a mine. Calc'late I'll do a +mite of investigatin' 'fore I pungle over that five thousand.... Where +kin I leave you, Mr. Bowman? I'm calc'latin' to drive home from here. +Maybe I'll see you later. But I got to investigate."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowman made himself unpleasant for a brief time, but Scattergood was +vacuously stubborn. Presently he drove away, leaving Mr. Bowman on the +veranda of the hotel, scowling and uttering words of strength and +meaning. Mr. Bowman was very unhappy.</p> + +<p>Scattergood drove as rapidly as his horse could travel, arriving at +Coldriver just after the supper hour. He went directly to his store, +which had been left in charge of Mr. Spackles. Three men were waiting +there for him. They handed him a leather bag and he satisfied himself +that it contained fifteen thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged, boys," he said. "Do as much f'r you, some day. G'-by."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Spackles," he said, "kin you fetch Grandmother Penny over +here—right now?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate I kin," said Mr. Spackles, and he proved himself able to keep +his word.</p> + +<p>"Grandmother Penny," said Scattergood, when she arrived, "you and Mr. +Spackles up and made a investment. I been a-lookin' after that +investment f'r you—and f'r these other dum fools in town. Best I could +do f'r them others was to git their money back—every cent of it. But I +took keer to do a mite more f'r you and Mr. Spackles. I got your five +hunderd f'r you—and then I seen a way to git ten thousand more. Here +she be. Count it.... I don't guess there's any way this here money could +be put to better use."</p> + +<p>"F'r us? Ten thousand—"</p> + +<p>"I'll handle it f'r you. Give you int'rest of six hunderd a year. You +kin marry like you planned, and if your childern objects you kin tell +'em to go to blazes.... You'll want a place to live. Wa-al, I got twenty +acre back of town and a leetle house and furniture. Took it on a deal. +You kin move in and work it on shares. Ought to be able to live blamed +well."</p> + +<p>Grandmother Penny was crying.</p> + +<p>"You done all this f'r us, f'r James and me! There hain't no reason f'r +it. 'Tain't believable.... There hain't no way to say thankee."</p> + +<p>"I hain't wantin' you to say thankee, Grandmother Penny. Jest mog along +and marry this old coot, and git what joy you kin out of livin'."</p> + +<p>Mr. Spackles was inquisitive in addition to being grateful.</p> + +<p>"What I want to know," he demanded, "is how you managed it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Scattergood, "jest made use of the sayin' about curin' with +the hair of the dog that bit you. Figgered a swindler wouldn't never +suspect nobody of swindlin' him with one of his own tricks. This here +Mr. Baxter, or Mr. Bowman, or whatever his name is, used to make a +livin' sellin' gold bricks. When I found that there fact out I jest +calc'lated he was ripe to do a mite of gold-brick buyin' himself.... +Which he done."</p> + +<p>"Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny, "I'm a-goin' to kiss you."</p> + +<p>Scattergood presented his cheek, and Grandmother Penny threw her arms +around his neck and pressed her lips to his weather-beaten face. He +smiled, but as if he were smiling at somebody not present. When they had +gone their way to find marriage license and parson he went out on to his +piazza and looked up at the moonlit sky.</p> + +<p>"Grandma Baines," he said, after a moment, "if you kin see down from +where you be, I hope you hain't missin' that I done this f'r you. I was +pertendin' all the time that you was Grandmother Penny...."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines sat on the piazza of his hardware store and twiddled +his bare toes reflectively. He was not thinking of to-day nor of +to-morrow, but of days a score of years distant and of plans not to come +to maturity for twenty years. That was Scattergood's way. From his +history, as it is to be gathered from the ancient gossips of Coldriver, +one is forced to the conclusion that few of his acts were performed with +reference to the immediate time. If he set on foot some scheme, one +learns to study it and to endeavor to see to what outcome it may lead +ten years after its inception. He looked always to the future, and more +than once one may see where he has forgone immediate profit in order to +derive that profit a hundredfold a generation later.</p> + +<p>So, as Scattergood twiddled his reflective toes, he looked far ahead +into the future of Coldriver Valley; he saw that valley as his own, +developed as few mountain valleys are ever developed. Its stage line, +already his property, was replaced by a railroad. The waters of its +river and tributaries were dammed to give a cheap and constant power +which should be connected in some way to this electricity of which he +heard so much and about which he always desired to hear more. He saw +factories springing up. In short, he saw his valley as the center of the +state's commercial life, and himself as the center of the valley.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was well aware that there always will exist those who will +clog the road of progress and attempt to stem any tide arising for the +public good—unless they can see for themselves an individual benefit. +He knew that it is not uncommon for those whose business is the common +good—such individuals as legislators and governors and judges—to +assume some such attitude, and he knew that it was regarded as expensive +to win their favor. He did not grow especially angry at this condition, +but accepted it as a condition and studied to see what he could do about +it—for he knew he must do something about it.</p> + +<p>He must take it into consideration, because one does not build railroads +without legislative sanction, nor does one dam streams nor carry out +wide commercial programs. The consent of the <i>people</i> must be had, and +the people had handed over their consent in trust to their elected +representatives. Scattergood saw at once that it was preferable to be +one from whom governors and legislators and judges asked favors and +looked to for guidance, than to be one to come a suppliant before those +personages, and as soon as he saw that clearly he reached his +determination.</p> + +<p>"Calculate," said he, to the shoes which he held in his hand, "that I +got to git up and stir around in politics some."</p> + +<p>From that moment Scattergood scrutinized the bowl of politics to +discover when and where he could dip in his spoon.</p> + +<p>The opportunity to dip, it soon became apparent, would be at the time of +the fall town meetings, for there was a fight on in the state and its +preliminary rumblings were already making themselves audible. Hitherto +the state had been held securely by certain political gentlemen, who in +turn had been held securely by a certain other and greater political +gentleman—Lafe Siggins. Other non-political gentlemen who represented +<i>money</i> and <i>business</i> had seen, as Scattergood did, the necessity for +becoming political, and had chosen their moment to endeavor to take the +state away from Messrs. Siggins & Co. and to hold it thereafter for +their own benefit and behoof. They were, therefore, laying their plans +to win the legislature by winning the town meetings of the fall, and to +win they had decided to make their fight upon the total prohibition of +liquor in the state. It was not that they cared ethically whether drinks +of a spirituous nature were dispensed or not, but it was the best +available issue. If it did not work out to their satisfaction they could +reverse themselves when they came into power.</p> + +<p>So they made an issue of prohibition, and planned astutely to go to the +town meetings on that platform, for a majority of the towns voted local +option with regularity. The new powers would first sweep the town +meetings for local option, and in the wave of enthusiasm put into office +at the same time legislators chosen by themselves.</p> + +<p>Scattergood saw the trend of affairs early and gave them his earnest +consideration. That his ancient ill wishers, Messrs. Crane & Keith, were +identified with the new and rising power may not have been the least of +the considerations which determined him to dip in his spoon on the side +of Siggins and the old order. But there was one obstacle. Scattergood +desired local option, for he was now the employer of many men, both in +the woods and in other enterprises, and he knew well that labor and hard +liquor are disturbing bedfellows.... He considered and reached the +conclusion that for this one time, perhaps, he could both have his cake +and eat it.</p> + +<p>He could have his cake and still eat it only by the results of an +election which should not be a victory for the new powers nor for the +old, but for another minor power differing from each. In other words, +Scattergood saw the wisdom of defeating both the contenders locally, and +then of throwing in with Siggins as to the fight for state control.... +But of this determination he notified not a soul. Judging from his +actions, it may be safely said that he was at some pains to conceal the +fact that he was interested in politics in any manner or degree +whatever.</p> + +<p>But Scattergood was a chatty body, and Coldriver would have been +surprised if he did not talk politics, as did all its other male +inhabitants. It came about that more politics than hardware was +discussed on Scattergood's piazza, but to the casual listener it seemed +only purposeless discussion. But Scattergood was a master of purposeless +discussion. His methods were his own and worthy of notice.</p> + +<p>Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle sauntered past and paused to mention the +weather.</p> + +<p>"Goin' to be lots of politics this year," said Scattergood. "Jest got in +a line of gardenin' tools, Bogle."</p> + +<p>"Town's goin' to be het up for certain," said Mr. Bogle, waggling his +ancient head. "Calc'late to have all the tools I need."</p> + +<p>"Who's figgerin' on runnin' for legislature, Marvin?"</p> + +<p>"Guess Will Pratt's puttin' up Pazzy Cox ag'in." Pratt was postmaster +and local party leader.</p> + +<p>"Anybody calc'latin' to run ag'in' him, Marvin? Any opposition +appearin'?"</p> + +<p>"Goin' to be a fight, Scattergood. Big doin's in the state. Tryin' to +upset Lafe Siggins. Uh-huh! Wuth watchin', says I."</p> + +<p>"I hear tell the lawless elements is puttin' up Jim Allen on a whisky +platform," said Old Man Bogle, acidly.</p> + +<p>"Them all the candidates, Bogle? Hain't no others?"</p> + +<p>"Nary."</p> + +<p>"Coldriver's got to take whatever candidates them outsiders chooses, eh? +Coldriver hain't got no say who'll represent her in the legislature?"</p> + +<p>"Don't 'pear so. All done by party machinery, Scattergood. We got +nothin' to do but pick between parties."</p> + +<p>"Looks so.... Looks that way," said Scattergood. "Too bad there hain't +one more party that hain't controlled so folks could git a chance.... +What's this here Prohibition party I been hearin' some of in other +parts?"</p> + +<p>"'S fur's I know it's all right, only it hain't got no votes, and votes +is necessary in politics."</p> + +<p>"Licker enters into this here campaign, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Backbone of it."</p> + +<p>"Seems like these Prohibition fellers ought to take a hand. Any of 'em +in Coldriver?"</p> + +<p>"Don't seem like I ever heard speak of one."</p> + +<p>"Could be, couldn't there? 'Tain't impossible?"</p> + +<p>"S'pose one could be got up—if anybody was int'rested."</p> + +<p>"Need a strong candidate, wouldn't they? Have to have a man to head it +up that would command respect?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't git fur with it. Parties too well organized."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Lemme show you a new hand seeder I jest got in. Labor savin'. +Calc'late it's a bargain."</p> + +<p>"Don't hold with them newfangled notions, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"S'prised at you, Marvin. Folks expects progress of you. Look up to you, +kind of. Take their idees from you."</p> + +<p>"I dunno," said Marvin, visibly pleased, but deprecatory.</p> + +<p>"Careful, cautious—but most gen'ally right, that's what I hear folks +say. Quite a bit of talk goin' around about you. Politics. Uh-huh! Heard +several say it was a pity Marvin Towne couldn't be got to go to the +legislature. Heard that, hain't you, Bogle?"</p> + +<p>"Don't call it to mind, but maybe I have. Maybe I have. Anyhow, I +calc'late it's true."</p> + +<p>"There you be, Marvin. Now it behooves a man that's looked up to for to +keep in the lead. Ought to look into that seeder, Marvin. Folks'll say: +'Marvin Towne's got him one of them seeders. Darn progressive farmer. +Gits him all the modern improvements.'"</p> + +<p>"Suthin' in what you say, Scattergood. Calculate I might examine into +that tool one of these days."</p> + +<p>"Hain't much choice between Pazzy Cox and Jim Allen, eh? Hain't neither +of 'em desirable lawmakers, eh? That what you was sayin'?"</p> + +<p>"Them's my idees," said Marvin.</p> + +<p>"Too bad we're forced to take one or t'other. Now if they was some way +for you to step in and run."</p> + +<p>"Hain't."</p> + +<p>"Sh'u'd think you'd look over them Prohibitionists. Draw all the best +citizens after you. Set a example to the state.... Step back and look at +that there seeder, Marvin."</p> + +<p>Marvin looked at the seeder judicially. "Calc'late to guarantee it, +Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"Put it in writin'," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I'll have to have it. Considerin' everything, guess I'll take +it along."</p> + +<p>"Knowed you would, Marvin. Sich men as you is to be depended on. Folks +realizes it."</p> + +<p>"If I thought they was a call for me to go to the legislature—"</p> + +<p>"Call?" said Scattergood. "Marvin, I'm tellin' you it's dum near a +shout."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Where could I git to find out about this here Prohibitionist +party?"</p> + +<p>Presently Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle went along. Scattergood gazed +after them speculatively, and as he gazed his hands went automatically +to his shoes, which he removed to give play to his reflective toes. +"Um!..." he grunted. "If nothin' more comes of it I made a profit of +three dollar forty on that seeder."</p> + +<p>Pliny Pickett, stage driver, was a frequent caller at Scattergood's +store, first as an employee, but more importantly as a dependable +representative who could carry out an order without asking questions, +especially when no definite order had been given.</p> + +<p>"Pliny," said Scattergood, "know Marvin Towne, don't you? Brought up +with him, wasn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Know him like the palm of my hand."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Strange he hain't never been talked up for the legislature, +Pliny. Strange there hain't talk about him on the stagecoach. Ever hear +any?"</p> + +<p>"Some, lately."</p> + +<p>"Could hear more, couldn't you? If you listened.... Set around the post +office, evenin's, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Some."</p> + +<p>"Discussin' topics? Ever discuss this Prohibition party?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>could</i>," said Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Seems like a shame folks here can't run the man they want for office. +Strike you that way?"</p> + +<p>"Certain sure. Calc'late they want Marvin bad?"</p> + +<p>"They <i>could</i>," said Scattergood. "G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>Ten days later a third party made its appearance in the politics of +Coldriver, and Marvin Towne was announced as its candidate for the +legislature. It seemed a spontaneous excrescence, but, nevertheless, it +caused a visit from that great man and citizen, Lafe Siggins, as well as +a call from Mr. Crane, of Crane & Keith. Both astute gentlemen viewed +the situation, and their alarm subsided. Indeed, both perceived where it +could be turned to advantage. A canvass of the situation showed them +that the new Prohibitionists, though they talked loud and long, were +made up mainly of the discontented and of a few men always ready to +join any novel movement, and promised at best to poll not to exceed +forty votes of Coldriver's registered three hundred and eighty. It +really simplified the situation to Lafe and to Crane, for it removed +from circulation forty doubtful votes and left the real battle to be +fought between the regulars. Wherefore Messrs. Siggins and Crane +departed from the village in satisfied mood.</p> + +<p>Scattergood sat on his piazza as usual, the morning after the portentous +visit, and called a greeting to Wade Lumley, dry-goods merchant, as that +prominent citizen passed to his place of business.</p> + +<p>"How's the geldin' this mornin', Wade?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Feelin' his oats. Got to take him out on the road this evenin'. Time to +begin shapin' him up for the county fair."</p> + +<p>"Three-year-old, hain't he?"</p> + +<p>"Best in the state."</p> + +<p>"Always figgered that till I heard Ren Green talkin'. Ren calculates +he's got a three-year-old that'll make any other hoss in these parts +look like it was built of pine."</p> + +<p>Wade was eager in a moment. "Willin' to back them statements with money, +is he?"</p> + +<p>"Said somethin' about havin' a hunderd dollars that wasn't workin' +otherwise, seems as though," said Scattergood. "Jest half a mile from +Pettybone's house to the dam," he continued, with apparent irrelevance. +"Level road."</p> + +<p>"And my geldin' kin travel that same road spryer 'n Green's hoss—for a +hunderd dollars," said Wade, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Dunno," said Scattergood. "Hoss races is uncertain. G'-by, Wade. See +you later."</p> + +<p>A similar conversation with Ren Green during the day resulted in a +meeting between the horsemen, an argument, loud words, and a heated +offer to wager money, which was accepted with like heat.</p> + +<p>"From Pettybone's to the dam—half a mile," shouted Wade.</p> + +<p>"Suits me to a T," bellowed Ren; "and now you kin step across with me +and deposit that there hunderd dollars ag'in' mine with Briggs of the +hotel."</p> + +<p>So, terms and conditions having been arranged, the bets were made, and +the money locked in the hotel safe. News of the matter swept through +Coldriver, and for the evening politics were forgotten and excitement +ran high. Next day it arose to a higher pitch, for Town-marshal Pease +had forbidden the race to be run through the public streets of +Coldriver, viewing it as a menace to life, limb, and the public peace. +Scattergood had conversed sagely with Pease on the duties of a town +marshal.</p> + +<p>Marvin Towne had formed the habit of stopping to chat with Scattergood +daily, totally unconscious that to all intents and purposes he had been +ordered by Scattergood to make daily reports to him. He seemed depressed +as he leaned against a post of the piazza.</p> + +<p>"Lookin' peaked, Marvin. Hain't all goin' well? Gittin' uneasy?"</p> + +<p>"It's this dum hoss race," said Marvin. "Everybody's het up over it so's +nobody'll talk politics. How's a feller goin' to win votes if he can't +git nobody to talk to him, that's what I want to know? Seems like there +hain't nothin' in the world but Wade Lumley's geldin' and that hoss of +Green's."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Sort of distressing hain't it? Know Kent Pilkinton perty well, +Marvin?"</p> + +<p>"Brother-in-law."</p> + +<p>"Holds public office, don't he?"</p> + +<p>"Chairman of the Board of Selectmen's what he is."</p> + +<p>"Good man fur't," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "Calculate to be +on good terms with him, Marvin? Perty good terms?"</p> + +<p>"Good enough so's he kin ask me to loan him two thousand dollars he's +needin' a'mighty bad."</p> + +<p>"Give it to him, Marvin?"</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Marvin, eloquently.</p> + +<p>"If I was to indorse his note, think you could see your way clear?"</p> + +<p>"Certain sure."</p> + +<p>"See him ag'in, won't you? Perty soon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What d'you calc'late to tell him?"</p> + +<p>"What you said?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't say nothin', did I? Jest asked a question. It was you <i>said</i> +something Marvin, wa'n't it? Said you'd lend on my indorsement."</p> + +<p>"That what you want me to tell him?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't say so, did I? Jest asked a question. G'-by, Marvin. Lemme know +what he says."</p> + +<p>It was unnecessary for Marvin to report, for early next morning Kent +Pilkinton, owner of a hill farm on the out-skirts of a village—a farm +on which he succeeded in raising the most ample crop of whiskers in +Coldriver, and little else, came diffidently up to Scattergood as he sat +in front of his hardware store.</p> + +<p>"Morning Kent," said Scattergood. "Come to look at mowin' machines, I +calc'late."</p> + +<p>"Might <i>look</i> at one," said Kent.</p> + +<p>"Need one, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Bad."</p> + +<p>"Need quite a mess of implements, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Could do with 'em if I had 'em.... 'Tain't what I come fur, though, +Scattergood. Been tryin' to borrow money off of my brother-in-law, but +he don't calclate to lend without I git an indorser, and seems like he +sets store by your name on a note."</p> + +<p>"Does, eh? Any reason I should indorse for you? Know any reason?"</p> + +<p>"Nary," said Kent, and started to move off.</p> + +<p>"Hold your bosses. What you need the money for?"</p> + +<p>"Pay off a thousand-dollar mortgage and another thousand to git the farm +in shape to run."</p> + +<p>"Calculate you kin run it, then?"</p> + +<p>"If I git the tools."</p> + +<p>"I figger maybe you kin. Like to see you git ahead. Where d'you +calculate to buy them implements?"</p> + +<p>"Off of you."</p> + +<p>"I got 'em to sell. When you got to have the money?"</p> + +<p>"Two weeks to-morrow."</p> + +<p>This was the day after the town meeting.</p> + +<p>"Come in and pick out your implements," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Meanin' you'll indorse?"</p> + +<p>"Meanin' that—pervidin' nothin' unforeseen comes up between now and +then."</p> + +<p>Half a day was spent selecting tools and implements for the farm, and +though Pilkinton did not know it, it was Scattergood's selection that +was purchased. Scattergood knew what was necessary and what would be +economical, and that was what Pilkinton got, and nothing more. It netted +Scattergood a pleasant profit, and Kent got the full equivalent of his +money.</p> + +<p>"Preside at town meetin', don't you?"</p> + +<p>"My duty," said Kent.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to <i>do</i> your duty?"</p> + +<p>"Always done so."</p> + +<p>"Comin' to see you do it," said Scattergood. He paused. "Next mornin' +we'll fix up the note. G'-by, Kent." During the fourteen days that +followed Coldriver was happy; between politics and the forbidden horse +race, it had such food for conversation that even cribbage under the +barber shop languished, and one had to walk into the road to pass the +crowd at the post office of evenings. As to the horse race, it resembled +a boil. Daily it grew more painful. Like a boil, such a horse race as +this must burst some day, and it was reaching the acute stage. But +Town-marshal Pease was vigilant and spoke sternly of the majesty of the +law.</p> + +<p>As to the election, it grew even more dubious. Scattergood privately +took stock of the situation. Marvin Towne and the Prohibitionists might +count now on a vote or two more than fifty. Postmaster Pratt appeared +certain of better than a hundred, and so did the opposing party. One or +the other of them was certain to win as matters lay, and Marvin's case +seemed hopeless. Marvin conceived it so and was for withdrawing, but +Scattergood saw to it that he did not withdraw.</p> + +<p>"Keep your votes together," he said. "Stiffen 'em." It was his first +direct order. "Fetch 'em to the meetin' and be sure of every one."</p> + +<p>On town-meeting day Coldriver filled with rigs from the surrounding +township. Every rail and post was utilized for hitching, and +Town-marshal Pease, his star displayed, patrolled the town to avert +disorder. He patrolled until the meeting went into session, and then he +took his chair just under the platform, and, as was his duty, guarded +the sacredness of the ballot.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was present, sitting in a corner under the overhang of the +balcony, watching, but discouraging conversation. If one had studied his +face during the early proceedings he would have read nothing except a +genial interest, which was the thing Coldriver expected to see on +Scattergood's face. Town questions were decided, matters of sidewalks, +of road building, of schools, and every instance Marvin Towne's +fifty-two voted as a unit, swinging from one side to the other as their +peculiar interest dictated. On all minor questions it was Marvin Towne's +Prohibitionists who decided, because they carried the volume of votes +necessary to control. But when it came to major affairs, such as the +election of officers, there would be a different story. Then they could +join with neither party, but must stand alone as a unit, far outvoted.</p> + +<p>So the regulars disregarded them, or if they gave them any attention it +was jocular. Even Marvin viewed the day as lost, but Scattergood held +him to the mark with a word passed now and then. It came three o'clock +of the afternoon before nominations for the high office of legislator +were the order of proceeding. Jim Allen and Pazzy Cox were placed before +the meeting as candidates amid the stimulated applause of their +adherents. Marvin Towne's name was received with laughter and such jeers +as the New England breed of farmer and townsman has rendered his own, +and at which he is a genius surpassed by none.</p> + +<p>Chairman Pilkinton arose, as befitted the moment.</p> + +<p>"Feller townsmen, we will now proceed to cast our ballots for the office +of representative in the legislature. The polls is open, and overlooked +by Town-marshal Pease. The ballotin' will begin."</p> + +<p>And then....</p> + +<p>At that instant there was an uproar on the stairs. Pliny Pickett burst +into the room, his hat missing, his eyes gleaming with excitement.</p> + +<p>"It's a-comin' off. They've stole a march. Hoss race!... Hoss race!... +Ren Green and Wade Lumley's got their hosses up to Deacon Pettybone's +and they're goin' to race to the dam. Everybody out. Hoss race!... Hoss +race!..." He turned and ran frantically down the stairs, and on his +heels followed the voters of Coldriver. But one or two remained; men too +rheumatic to chance rapid movement, or those whose positions compelled +them to consider as non-existent such a matter as a race between +quadrupeds.</p> + +<p>But no sooner had the hall cleared than men began to return, in couples, +in squads, and to take their seats. Scattergood was standing up now, +counting. Fifty-two he counted, and remained standing.</p> + +<p>"Polls is open, Mr. Chairman," says he.</p> + +<p>"They was declared so, but—er—the voters has gone. I hain't clear how +to perceed."</p> + +<p>"Do your duty, chairman, like you said. Town meetings don't calculate to +take account of hoss races, do they? Eh?... None of your affair, is it?"</p> + +<p>Pilkinton looked at Scattergood, who smiled genially and said: "Duty's +duty, Pilkinton. If you was to fail in your duty as a public officer, +folks might git to think you wasn't the sort of citizen that could be +trusted. Might even affect sich things as credit and promissory notes."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilkinton no longer hesitated.</p> + +<p>"The polls is open," he said.</p> + +<p>The fifty-two, ballots ready in their hands, started for the box, but +Town-marshal Pease, awakened from his astonishment, lifted his voice.</p> + +<p>"I got to stop that hoss race. Stop the votin' till I git back. That +hoss race has got to be stopped."</p> + +<p>"Seems to me like votes was more important than hoss races," said +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"The town marshal will stay right where he is, and guard the ballot +box," said the chairman.</p> + +<p>The voters moved to the front, and as they deposited their ballots, +sounds from without, indicating excitement and delight, were carried +through the windows to their ears. The fifty-two voted and returned to +their seats.</p> + +<p>"If everybody present and desirin' to vote has done so," said +Scattergood, "I move you them polls be closed."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilkinton put the motion, and it was carried with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Tellers," suggested Scattergood.</p> + +<p>As was the custom, the votes were counted immediately. The result stood, +Marvin Towne: fifty-three votes; Jim Allen, two votes; Pazzy Cox, four +votes.</p> + +<p>"I declare Marvin Towne elected our representative to the legislature," +said Chairman Pilkinton, weakly, and sat down, mopping his brow.</p> + +<p>"That bein' the final business of this meetin'," said Scattergood, "I +move we adjourn."</p> + +<p>The story swept the state. Twenty-four hours later Lafe Siggins visited +Coldriver and was driven to Scattergood Baines's hardware store. +Scattergood sat on the piazza, and as soon as the visitor was identified +the male inhabitants of the village began to gather.</p> + +<p>"Kin we talk in private?" said Mr. Siggins.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no need for privacy. Folks is welcome to listen to all I got +to say."</p> + +<p>Mr. Siggins frowned, but, being a politician and partially estimating +the quality of his man, he did not protest.</p> + +<p>"You beat us clever," said he.</p> + +<p>"Calculated to," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"In politics for good?"</p> + +<p>"Calculate to be."</p> + +<p>"What you aim to do?"</p> + +<p>"Kind of look after the politics in Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"Be you fur me or ag'in' me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm fur you till my mind changes."</p> + +<p>"How about this here Prohibition party?"</p> + +<p>"Don't figger it's necessary after this."</p> + +<p>"Guess we kin agree," said Siggins. "You can figger the party +machinery's behind you. So fur's <i>we're</i> concerned, <i>you're</i> Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated to be," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Some day," said Siggins, in not willing admiration, "you're goin' to +run the state."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to," said Scattergood, and thereby rather took Mr. Siggins's +breath. "Figger on makin' politics kind of a side issue to the hardware +business. Find it mighty stimilatin'. Politics took in moderation, +follerin' a meal of business, makes an all-fired tasty dessert.... +G'-by, Siggins, g'-by."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a><h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"Calc'late both them young folks was guilty of an error of jedgment when +they up and married each other," said Will Pratt, postmaster of +Coldriver, in the judicial tone which he had affected since his +elevation to office.</p> + +<p>"Mean Marthy Norton and Jed Lewis, Will? Referrin' to them especial?" +Scattergood peered after the young couple who had the moment before +passed his hardware store, not walking jovially in the enjoyment of each +other's presence as young married folks should walk, but sullenly and in +silence.</p> + +<p>"They be the <i>i</i>-dentical ones," Will declared. "Naggin' and quarrelin' +and bickerin' from sunup to milkin' time. Used to do it private like, +but it's been gittin' so lately you can't pass the house without hearin' +'em referrin' to each other mighty sharp and searchin'."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Difficulty appears to be what, Will? Got any idee where lies the +seat of the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"They jest hain't habitually suited to one another," said Will. +"Whatever one of 'em is fur the tother's ag'in'. Looks like they go to +bed spiteful and wake up acr'monious. 'Tain't like as if Jed was the +breed of feller that beats his wife, or that Marthy was the kind that +looks out of the corner of her eye at drummers stoppin' to the hotel."</p> + +<p>"Jest kind of irritate one another, eh?" said Scattergood, thoughtfully. +"Kind of git on each other's nerves, you might say. Um!... I call to +mind when they was married, five year ago. 'Twan't indicated them days. +Jed he couldn't set easy if Marthy wasn't nigh, and Marthy went around +lookin' as if she'd swallered a pin and it hurt if Jed was more 'n forty +rod off. If ever two young folks was all het up over each other, Jed and +Marthy was them young folks.... And 'twan't but five year ago...."</p> + +<p>"End by separating" said the postmaster.</p> + +<p>"There's the stage a-rattlin' in," Scattergood said, suddenly. "Better +git ready f'r distributin' the mail, Will. G'-by, Will; and, Will, if +'twas me I dunno but what I'd kind of keep my mouth shet about Marthy +and Jed. Outside gabblin' hain't calc'lated to help matters none. G'-by, +Will."</p> + +<p>The postmaster recognized his dismissal; he knew that the manner which +had fallen upon Scattergood portended that something was on his mind and +that he wanted to be alone and think, so he withdrew hastily and plodded +across the dusty road to the office of which he was the executive head.</p> + +<p>As for Scattergood, he pressed his double chin down upon his bulging +chest, closed his eyes, and gave himself up enthusiastically to looking +like a gigantic figure of discouragement. He waggled his head dubiously.</p> + +<p>"Wonder if it kin be laid to my door," he said to himself. "I figgered +they was about made f'r each other, and I brung 'em together.... +Somethin's got crossways. Um!... Take them young folks separate, and +you couldn't ask for nothin' better.... Don't understand it a mite.... +Anyhow, things has turned out as they be, and what kin I do about it?"</p> + +<p>His reinforced chair creaked under the shifting of his great weight as +he bent mechanically to remove his shoes. With his toes imprisoned in +leather, Scattergood's brain refused to function, a characteristic +which greatly chagrined his wife, Mandy—so much so that she had +considered sewing him up in his footwear, as certain mothers in the +community sewed their children in their underwear for the winter.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had amassed a fortune that might be called handsome, but it +had not made him effete. His income had never warranted him in +purchasing a pair of socks, so now, upon the removal of his shoepacs, +his toes were fully at liberty to squirm and wriggle in the most +soul-satisfying manner. He sat thus, battling with his problem, until +Pliny Pickett, driver of the stage, and Scattergood's man, rattled up to +the store in his dust-whitened conveyance.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, Scattergood," he said, in a manner which he endeavored to +make as like his employer's as possible.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, Pliny. Successful trip, Pliny? Plenty of passengers? Eh? Any +news down the valley?"</p> + +<p>"Done middlin' well. Hain't much news, 'ceptin' that young Widder Conroy +down to Tupper Falls died of somethin' the matter with her stummick and +folks is wonderin' what'll become of her baby."</p> + +<p>"Baby? What kind of a baby did she calc'late to have?"</p> + +<p>"A he one—nigh onto two year old. Neighbors is lookin' after him."</p> + +<p>"Got relatives?"</p> + +<p>"Not that anybody knows of."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's house, was you?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't figger to."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's, was you?" Scattergood repeated, +insistently.</p> + +<p>"I could."</p> + +<p>"Um!... If you was to, and if you seen Jed, what was you figgerin' on +sayin' to him?"</p> + +<p>Pliny scratched his head and pondered.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I'd mention the heat some, and maybe I might say suthin' +about national politics."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't mention me, would you, Pliny? Don't figger my name might come +up?"</p> + +<p>"It might."</p> + +<p>"If it did, what 'u'd you say, eh? Hain't no reason for mentionin' that +I might want to talk to him, is there? Hain't said so, have I?"</p> + +<p>"You hain't," said Pliny, at last enlightened as to Scattergood's desire +in the matter.</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>An hour later Jed Lewis sauntered past the store and stopped. "Pliny +Pickett says you want to see me, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Said that, did he? Told you I said I wanted to see you?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, maybe not exactly. Not in so many words. But he kind of hinted +around and pecked around till I figgered that was what the ol' coot was +gittin' at."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Didn't tell him nothin' of the kind, but as long's you're here +you might as well set. Hain't seen much of you lately. How's the +hayin'?"</p> + +<p>"Too much rain. Got her cocked twice and had to spread her ag'in to +dry."</p> + +<p>"Hear any politics talked around, Jed?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin' special."</p> + +<p>Jed was brief in his answers. He seemed depressed, and conducted himself +like a man who had something on his mind.</p> + +<p>"Any fresh news from anywheres?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't heard none."</p> + +<p>"Hear about the Packinses down to Bailey?"</p> + +<p>"Never heard tell of 'em." There was excellent reason for this, because +no such family as the Packinses existed in Bailey or anywhere else, to +Scattergood's knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Goin' to separate," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Jed looked up quickly, bit his lip, and looked down again.</p> + +<p>"What fur?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nobody kin figger out. Jest agreein' to disagree. Can't git along, +nohow. Always naggin' at each other and squabblin' and hectorin'.... +Nice young folks, too. Used to set a heap of store by one another. Can't +figger how they come to disagree like they do!"</p> + +<p>"Nobody kin figger it out," said Jed, with sudden vehemence. "All to +once you wake up and things is that way, and you dunno how they come to +be. It jest drifts along. Fust you know things has went all to smash."</p> + +<p>"Um!... You talk like you knowed somethin' about it."</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows more," said the young man, bitterly. He was suddenly +conscious that he wanted to talk about his domestic affairs; that he +wanted to loose the story of his troubles and dwell upon them in all +their ramifications.</p> + +<p>"Do tell," said Scattergood, with an inflection of astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Marthy and me has about come to the partin' of our roads," said Jed. +"It's come gradual, without our noticin' it, but it's here at last. +Seems like we can't bear the sight of each other—when we git together. +And yit—sounds mighty funny, too—I calc'late to be as fond of Marthy +as ever I was. But the minute we git together we bicker and quarrel till +there hain't no pleasure into life at all."</p> + +<p>"All Marthy's fault, hain't it? Kind of a mean disposition, hain't she?"</p> + +<p>"No sich thing, Scattergood, and you know it dum well. There didn't use +to be a sweeter-dispositioned girl in the state than Marthy.... +Somethin's jest went wrong. They's times when I git mad and it all +looks to be her fault, and then I ketch my own self startin' some +hectorin' meanness. 'Tain't all her fault, and 'tain't all my fault. The +whole sum and substance of it is that we can't git along with each other +no more."</p> + +<p>"So you calc'late to separate?"</p> + +<p>"Been talkin' it up some."</p> + +<p>"Marthy willin'?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't neither of us willin'. We fix it up and agree to try over ag'in, +and then, fust thing we know, we're right into the middle of another +squabble. I want Marthy, and I guess Marthy wants me, but we want each +other like we was five year back and not like we be now."</p> + +<p>"Been married five year, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Five year last April."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wa-al, I hope nothin' comes of it, Jed. But if it has to it +will. Better live happy separate than unhappy together.... G'-by, Jed."</p> + +<p>Scattergood did not discuss this problem with Mandy, his wife, as it was +his custom to discuss business problems. He did not mention the young +Lewises because the first rule of Mandy's life was "Mind your own +business," and it irritated her beyond measure to see Scattergood poking +his finger into every dish that offered. He did talk the matter over +with Deacon Pettybone, but got little enlightenment for his pains.</p> + +<p>"Don't seem natteral," Scattergood said, "f'r young folks to git to +quarrelin' and bickerin' ontil life hain't endurable no longer. 'Tain't +natteral a-tall. Somethin' must be all-fired wrong somewheres."</p> + +<p>"It's human nature to quarrel," said the deacon, gloomily. "Nothin' +onusual about it."</p> + +<p>"Human nature," said Scattergood, "gits blamed f'r a heap of things that +ought to be laid at the door of human cussedness."</p> + +<p>"Same thing," said the deacon. "If you're human you're cussed. Used to +be so in the Garden of Eden, and it'll keep on bein' so till Gabriel +blows his final trump."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't no more natteral to bicker than 'tis to have dispepsy. +Quarrelin' and hectorin' hain't nothin' but a kind of dispepsy that +attacks families instid of stummicks. In both cases it means somethin' +is wrong."</p> + +<p>"Can't cure a unhappy family with a dose of calomel," said the deacon, +acidly.</p> + +<p>"Hain't so sure. Bet that identical remedy' u'd fix up three out of ten. +But somethin' else is wrong with them young Lewises. A dose of somethin' +'u'd cure 'em, if only a feller could figger out what 'twas."</p> + +<p>"Might try soothin' syrup," said the deacon, with an ironic grin. +"Sounds like it ought to git results.... Soothin' syrup—eh? Have to +tell the boys that one. Soothin' syrup. Perty good f'r an old man. Don't +call to mind makin' no joke like that f'r twenty year."</p> + +<p>"Do it often, Deacon," said Scattergood, gravely. "You won't have to +take so much sody followin' meals to sweeten you up.... G'-by, +Deacon.... Soothin' syrup. Um!... I swanny...."</p> + +<p>He looked across the square and saw that Pliny Pickett was delighting an +audience with apochryphal reminiscences, doubtless of a gallant and +spicy character. It is characteristic of Scattergood that he waited +until Pliny had reached his climax, shot it off, and was doubled up with +laughter at his own narration, before he lifted up his voice and +summoned the stage driver.</p> + +<p>"Hey, Pliny! Step over here a minute."</p> + +<p>"Comin'," said Pliny, with alacrity. Then in an aside to his audience: +"See that? Can't let an evenin' pass without a conference with me. Sets +a heap of store by my judgment."</p> + +<p>"Sets more store by your laigs," said Old Man Bogle. "They kin run +errants, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Pliny hastened across the square, and in careful imitation of +Scattergood said, "Evening Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Evening Pliny. Flow of language good as usual to-night? Didn't meet +with no trouble sayin' what you had to say?"</p> + +<p>"Not a mite, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Come through Bailey to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Calculated to."</p> + +<p>"Any news?"</p> + +<p>"Nary."</p> + +<p>"What's become of that What's-his-name baby you was a-tellin' about? The +one that lost his ma and was bein' cared for by neighbors?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin' hain't become of him. Calc'late he'll be took to a +institution."</p> + +<p>"Um! Likely-lookin' two-year-old, was he? Take note of any blemishes?"</p> + +<p>"I hear tell by them that knows as how he was sound in wind and limb."</p> + +<p>"Who's keepin' him, Pliny?"</p> + +<p>"Mis' Patterson's sort of shuffled him in with her seven. Says she don't +notice no difference to speak of. Claims 'tain't possible f'r eight +childern to be no noisier 'n what seven be."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Pliny. Ever deal in facts over there to the post office? +Ever have occasion to mention facts?"</p> + +<p>"Er—not <i>reg'lar</i> facts, Scattergood. You needn't to worry about my +talkin' too free."</p> + +<p>"Seems like a feller that talks as much as you do would <i>have</i> to +mention a fact once in a while. G'-by, Pliny."</p> + +<p>It was two or three days later that Postmaster Pratt alluded again to +Martha and Jed Lewis.</p> + +<p>"They're gittin' wuss and wuss," he said, with some gratification. +"Last night they was a rumpus you could 'a' heard forty mile. Ended up +by him threatenin' to leave her, and by her tellin' him that if he +didn't she'd lock him out of the house. Looks to me like that family +fracas was about ripe to bust."</p> + +<p>"Signs all p'int that way, Will. Too bad, hain't it? There's a reason +f'r it, I calculate. Ever look f'r the reason, Will? Ever think about it +at all?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't had no time. Post office keeps me thinkin' night and day."</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>have</i>. Figgered a heap."</p> + +<p>"Any results, Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"Some—<i>some</i>."</p> + +<p>"What be they?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood's eyes twinkled in the darkness. "I got it all figgered +out," he said, "that them young folks needs a dose of soothin' syrup."</p> + +<p>"I want to know," said the postmaster, breathlessly and with +bewilderment. "Soothin' syrup! I swan to man!... Hain't been out in the +heat, have you, Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood made no reply to this question. He merely waggled his head +and said: "G'-by, Will. G'-by."</p> + +<p>Next morning Scattergood walked past the Lewis place. He passed it three +times before he made up his mind whether to go in or not, but finally he +turned through the gate and walked around to the kitchen door. Inside he +saw Martha ridding up the kitchen, not with a morning song on her lips, +but wearing a sullen expression which sat ill on her fine New England +face.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Marthy," he called.</p> + +<p>She looked up and smiled suddenly. The change in her face was +astonishing.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Mr. Baines. Set right down on the porch. ... Let me fetch you +a hot cup of coffee. 'Twon't take but a minute to make."</p> + +<p>"Can't stop," said Scattergood. "I was lookin' for Jed."</p> + +<p>"Jed's gone," she replied, shortly, the sullen expression returning to +her face. "'He won't be back 'fore noon."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I calc'late I kin keep on drawin' my breath till +then—if you kin. I call to mind the time when you was all-fired oneasy +if Jed got away from you for six hours in a stretch."</p> + +<p>"Them times is gone," she said, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"They be," she said, fiercely. "Hain't no use tryin' to hide it. Jed and +me is about through. Nothin' but fussin' and backbitin' and +maneuvering'. He don't care f'r me no more like he used to, and—"</p> + +<p>"You don't set sich a heap of store by him," Scattergood interrupted.</p> + +<p>Martha hesitated. "I do," she said, slowly. "But I can't put up with it +no more."</p> + +<p>"Jed's fault—mostly," said Scattergood, as one speaks who utters an +accepted fact.</p> + +<p>"No more 'n mine," she said, with a sudden flash. "I dunno what's got +into us, Mr. Baines, but we no sooner git into the same room than it +commences. 'Tain't no-body's fault—it jest <i>is</i>."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Kinder like to have things the way they used to be?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baines!" Her eyes filled. "Them first two-three years! Jed was +the best man a woman ever had."</p> + +<p>"Hain't drinkin', is he?"</p> + +<p>"Never touches a drop."</p> + +<p>"Jest his nasty temper," said Scattergood, casually.</p> + +<p>"No sich thing.... It's jest happened so. We can't git on, and I'm +through tryin'. One of us is gain' to git out of this house. I've made +up my mind." She started untying her apron. "I'm a-goin' right now. +It'll be off'n my mind then, and I kin sort of git a fresh start. I'm +goin' right now and pack."</p> + +<p>"Kind of hasty, hain't you?... Now, Marthy, as a special favor to me I +wish you'd stay, maybe two days more. I got a special reason. If you was +to go this mornin' it 'u'd upset my plans. After Sattidy you kin do as +you like, and maybe it's best you should part. But I do wisht you could +see your way to stayin' till Sattidy."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why, Mr. Baines, but if it'll be any good to <i>you</i>, I'll +do it. But not a minute after Sattidy—now mind that!"</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged, Marthy. G'-by, Marthy. G'-by."</p> + +<p>On Friday Scattergood was invisible in Coldriver village, for he had +started away before dawn, driving his sway-backed horse over the +mountain roads to the southward. He notified nobody of his going, unless +it was Mandy, his wife, and even to her he did not make apparent his +errand.</p> + +<p>Before noon he was in Bailey and stopping before the small white house +in which Mrs. Patterson managed by ingenuity to fit in a husband, a +mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy +orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done +it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes +containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once +removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some one +who knows the secret.</p> + +<p>Scattergood entered the house, remained upward of an hour, and then +reappeared, followed by Mrs. Patterson, seven children, an old man, and +an old woman—and in his arms was a baby whose lungs gave promise of a +healthy manhood.</p> + +<p>"Do this much, does he?" Scattergood asked, uneasily.</p> + +<p>"Not more 'n most," said Mrs. Patterson.</p> + +<p>"Um!... If he lets on to be hungry, what's the best thing to feed him +up on? I got a bag of doughnuts and five-six sandriches and nigh on to +half a apple pie in the buggy."</p> + +<p>"Feed him them," said Mrs. Patterson, "and you'll be like to hear some +real yellin'. What he's doin' now hain't nothin' but his objectin' to +you a-carryin' him like he was a horse blanket.... You wait right there +till I git a bottle of milk. And I'll fix you some sugar in a rag that +you kin put into his mouth if he acts uneasy. It'll quiet him right +off."</p> + +<p>"Much 'bleeged. Hain't had much experience with young uns. Might's well +start now. Bet me 'n this here one gits well acquainted 'fore we reach +Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"'Twouldn't s'prise me a mite," replied Mrs. Patterson, with something +that might have been a twinkle in her tired eyes. "I almost feel I +should go along with you."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mrs. Patterson," said Scattergood, hastily, and he climbed into +his buggy clumsily, placing the baby on the seat beside him, and holding +it in place with his left arm. "G'-by."</p> + +<p>The buggy rattled off. The baby hushed suddenly and began to look at the +horse.</p> + +<p>"Kind of come to your senses, eh?" said Scattergood. "Now you and me's +goin' to git on fine if you jest keep your mouth shet. If you behave +yourself proper I dunno but what I kin find a stick of candy f'r you +when we git there."</p> + +<p>Presently Scattergood looked down to find the baby asleep. He drove +slowly and cautiously, whispering what commands he felt were +indispensable to his horse. This delightful situation continued for +upward of two hours, and Scattergood said to himself that folks who +bothered about traveling with infants must be very easily worried.</p> + +<p>"Jest as soon ride with this one clean to the Pacific coast," he said.</p> + +<p>And then the baby awoke. It blinked and looked about it; it rubbed its +eyes; it stared severely up at Scattergood; it opened its mouth +tentatively, closed it again, and then—and then it uttered such an +ear-piercing, long-drawn shriek that the old horse jumped with fright.</p> + +<p>"Hey, there!" said the startled Scattergood. "Hey! what's ailin' you +now?"</p> + +<p>The baby closed his eyes, clenched his fists, kicked out with his legs, +and gave himself up whole-heartedly to the exercise of his voice.</p> + +<p>"Quit that," said Scattergood. "Now listen here; that hain't no way to +behave. You won't git that candy—"</p> + +<p>Louder and more piercing arose the baby's cries. Scattergood dropped the +reins, lifted the baby to his knee, and jounced it up and down +furiously, performing an act which he imagined to be singing, a thing he +had heard was interesting and soothing to babies. It did not even +attract this one's attention.</p> + +<p>"Sufferin' heathen!" Scattergood said. "What in tunket was it that woman +said I sh'u'd do? Hain't they no way of shuttin' him off? Look-ee here, +young feller, you jest quit it.... B'jing! here's my watch. You kin +listen to it tick."</p> + +<p>The baby tried the watch on his toothless gums, found it not to his +taste, and flung it from him with such vehemence that it would have +suffered permanent injury but for the size and strength of the silver +chain which attached it to Scattergood. The cries became more maddening. +Scattergood was not hungry, so it did not occur to him that the infant +might be thinking of food. He dandled it, he whistled, he sang, he +pointed out the interesting attributes of his horse, and promised to +direct attention to a rabbit or even a deer in a moment, but nothing +availed. Perspiration was pouring down Scattergood's face, and his +expression was that of a man who devoutly wishes he were far otherwise +than he is.</p> + +<p>Half an hour of this seemed to Scattergood like the length of a sizable +day—and then he remembered the milk. Frantically he fished it out of +the basket and thrust it toward the young person, who did with it what +seemed right to him, and, with a gurgle of satisfaction, settled down to +business. Scattergood sighed, wiped his forehead, and revised his +opinion of folks who were worried at the prospect of travel with an +infant.</p> + +<p>The rest of that drive was a nightmare to Scattergood. When the baby +yelled he was in torment. When the baby slept he was in torment lest he +wake it, so that it would commence again to cry. He sweat cold and he +sweat hot, and he wished wishes in his secret heart and blamed himself +for many things—chief of which was that he had not brought Mandy along +to bear the brunt of the adventure.</p> + +<p>But at last, long after nightfall, with baby fast asleep, Scattergood +drove into Coldriver by deserted and circuitous roads. He stopped his +horse in a dark spot on the edge of the village, and, with the baby +cautiously held in his arms, he slunk through back ways and short cuts +to the house where Jed and Martha Lewis made their home. With meticulous +stealth he passed through the gate, laid the baby on the doorstep, rang +the bell long and determinedly, and then, with astonishing quiet and +agility, hid himself in the midst of a clump of lilacs.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and a light shone through upon the squirming bundle +that lay upon the step. A tentative cry issued from the baby; a bass +exclamation issued from Jed Lewis. "My Gawd! Marthy, somebody's left a +baby here!"</p> + +<p>Martha pushed past her husband and lifted the baby in her arms. She said +no word, but Scattergood could see her press it close, and, in the +light that came through the door, could see the expression of her face. +It satisfied him.</p> + +<p>"What we goin' to do with the doggone thing?" Jed demanded.</p> + +<p>Martha pushed past him into the house, and he followed, wordless, +closing the door after them.... Scattergood remained for some time, and +then slunk away....</p> + +<p>Postmaster Pratt gave the news to Scattergood in the morning.</p> + +<p>"Somebody went and left a baby on to Jed Lewis's stoop last night," he +declared. "Hain't nobody been able to identify it. Nary a mark nor a +sign on to it no place. ... Whatever possessed anybody to leave a baby +<i>there</i> of all places?"</p> + +<p>"I want to know!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Girl er boy?"</p> + +<p>"Boy, I'm told."</p> + +<p>"What's Jed say?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't sayin' much. Jest sets and kind of hangs on to his head, and +every once in a while he gits up and looks at the baby and then goes +back to holdin' his head."</p> + +<p>"How about Marthy?"</p> + +<p>"Marthy," said Postmaster Pratt. "I can't make out about Marthy, but I +heard her a-singin' this mornin' 'fore breakfast. Fust time I heard her +sing for more 'n a year."</p> + +<p>"Might 'a' been singin' to the baby," Scattergood suggested.</p> + +<p>"Naw, it was while she was gittin' breakfast. Jest the time she and Jed +quarrels most powerful."</p> + +<p>During the day all of Coldriver called to see the mysterious infant. +Nobody could give a clue to its identity, and it was decided unanimously +that it had been brought from a distance. As to the intentions of the +Lewises regarding its disposition, they were noncommittal. It was +universally accepted as fact, however, that the baby would be sent to +an institution.</p> + +<p>Thereupon Scattergood called upon the First Selectman.</p> + +<p>"What's the town goin' to do about that baby?" he demanded. +"Taxpayers'll be wantin' to know. Seems like the town's liable f'r its +support."</p> + +<p>"Calculate we be.... Calculate we be. I been figgerin' on what steps to +take."</p> + +<p>"Better go across to Jed's and notify 'em," said Scattergood. "They'll +be expectin' you to take action prompt. I'll go 'long with you."</p> + +<p>They walked down the street and rapped at the Lewises' door.</p> + +<p>"Come on official business," said the First Selectman, pompously, to +Jed, "connected with that there foundlin'."</p> + +<p>Martha came hastily into the room. "What you want?" she demanded, in a +dangerous voice.</p> + +<p>"Come to tell you we would take that baby off'n your hands and send it +to a institution. Git it ready, and we'll take it to-morrer."</p> + +<p>"Take that baby!... Did you hear him, Jed Lewis? Did you hear that man +say as how he was goin' to take away my baby?" She stumbled across the +room to Jed and clutched the lapels of his coat. Scattergood noticed +with some pleasure that Jed's arm went automatically about her waist. +"Make 'em git out, Jed. Tell 'em they can't take this baby.... You want +we should keep it, don't you, Jed?... We wanted one. You know how we +wanted one.... You're goin' to let us keep it, hain't you, Jed?"</p> + +<p>Jed put Martha aside gently and walked over to a makeshift crib in the +corner, where the baby was asleep, where he stood for a moment looking +down at it with a curious expression. Then he turned suddenly, strode to +the door, opened it, and pointed. "Git!" he said to the First Selectman +and Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Jed ... Jed ... darlin'," Martha cried, and as Scattergood passed out +he saw from the corner of his eye that she was sobbing on her husband's +hickory shirt and that he was patting her back with awkward gentleness.</p> + +<p>"Looked a mite like Jed wanted we should go," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I'll have the law on to him. He'll be showed that he can't stand up to +the First Selectman of this here town, I'll—"</p> + +<p>"You'll go home and set down in the shade and cool off," said +Scattergood, merrily, "and while you're a-coolin' you might sort of +thank Gawd that there's sich things as human bein's with human feelin's, +and that there's sich things as babies ...that sometimes gits themselves +left on the right doorstep.... G'-by, Selectman. G'-by."</p> + +<p>A week later Scattergood was passing the Lewis home early in the +evening. In the side yard was a hammock under the trees which had been +unoccupied this year past, but to-night it was occupied again. Martha +was there with the baby against her breast, and Jed was there, his arm +tightly about his wife, and one of the baby's hands lying on his +calloused palm.... As Scattergood watched he saw Jed bend clumsily and +kiss the tiny fingers ... and Martha turned a trifle and smiled up into +her husband's eyes.</p> + +<p>Scattergood passed on, blinking, perhaps because dust had gotten in his +eyes. He stopped at the post office and spoke to Postmaster Pratt.</p> + +<p>"Call to mind my speakin' of soothin' syrup and Jed Lewis and his wife?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"Seems like I mind it, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Jest walk past their house, Postmaster. Calc'late you'll see I figgered +clost to right.... Marthy's a-sittin' there with Jed in the hammick, +and they're a-holdin' on their lap the doggondest best soothin' syrup +f'r man and wife that any doctor c'u'd perscribe.... Calculate it's one +of them nature's remedies.... Go take a look, Postmaster.... G'-by."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a><h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines, as he sat with shirt open at the throat, his huge +body sagged down in the chair that had been especially reinforced to +sustain his weight, seemed to passing Coldriver village to be drowsing. +Many people suspected Scattergood of drowsing when he was exceedingly +wide awake and observant of events. It was part of his stock in trade.</p> + +<p>At this moment he was looking across the square toward the post office. +A large, broad-shouldered young man, with hair sun-bleached to a ruddy +yellow, had alighted from a buggy and entered the office. He was a fine, +bulky, upstanding farmer, built for enduring much hard labor in times of +peace and for performing feats of arms in time of war. He looked like a +fighter; he was a fighter—a willing fighter, and folks up and down the +valley stepped aside if it was noised about that Abner Levens had broken +loose. It was not that Abner delighted in the fruit of the vine nor the +essence of the maize; he was a teetotaler. But it did seem as if nature +had overdone the matter of providing him with the machinery for creating +energy and had overlooked the safety valve. Wherefore Abner, once or +twice a year, lost his temper.</p> + +<p>Now, losing his temper was not for Abner a matter of uttering a couple +of oaths and of wrapping a hoe handle around a tree. He lost his temper +thoroughly and seemed unable to locate it again for days. He rampaged. +He roared up and down the valley, inviting one and all to step up and +be demolished, which the inhabitants were very reluctant to do, for +Abner worked upon his victims with thoroughness and enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>When Abner was in his normal humor he was a jovial, noisily jovial young +man, who would dance with the girls until the cock tired of crowing; who +would give a day's work to a friend; who performed his civic and +religious duties punctiliously, if gayly; who was honest to the fraction +of a penny; and who would have been the most popular and admired youth +in the valley among the maidens of the valley had it not been for their +constant, uneasy fear that he might suddenly turn Berserk.</p> + +<p>It was this young man whom Scattergood eyed thoughtfully, and, one might +say, apprehensively, for Scattergood liked the youth and feared the +germs of disaster that lay quiescent in his powerful body.</p> + +<p>Pliny Pickett lounged past, stopped, eyed Scattergood, and seated +himself on the step.</p> + +<p>"Abner Levens 's in town," he said.</p> + +<p>"Seen him," answered Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late Asa'll be in?"</p> + +<p>"Bein' 's it's Sattidy night, 'most likely he'll come."</p> + +<p>"Hope Abner's feelin' friendly, then," said Pliny with an anticipatory +twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction +to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be +wrastlin' all over town and pushin' down houses."</p> + +<p>"They hain't never fit yet," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Nor won't if Asa has the say of it.... He's full as big as Abner, too. +Otherwise they don't resemble twins none."</p> + +<p>"Hain't much brotherly feelin' betwixt 'em."</p> + +<p>"I hain't clear as to the rights of the matter," said Pliny, "but they +hain't nothin' like a will dispute to make bad blood betwixt +relatives.... Asa got the best of <i>that</i> argument, anyhow. Don't seem +fair, exactly, is my opinion, that Old Man Levens should up and +discriminate betwixt them boys like he did—givin' Asa a hog's share."</p> + +<p>"Dunno's I'd worry sich a heap about that," said Scattergood, "if they +hadn't both got het up about the same gal. Looks to me like one or +tother of 'em took up with that gal jest to make mischief.... Seems like +Abner was settin' out with her fust."</p> + +<p>"Some says both ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner +he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to +the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate betwixt them boys."</p> + +<p>"And trouble'll come of it.... Wonder which of 'em Mary Ware favors? If +she favors either of 'em, and trouble comes, it'll mix her in."</p> + +<p>"Hope Abner gits him. Better for her, says I, to take up with a man like +Ab, that's a good feller fifty weeks out of the year, and goes on a tear +two weeks, than to be married to a cuss like Asa that jest goes along +sort of gloomy and <i>still</i> and seekin'. I hain't never heard Asa laugh +with no real enjoyment into it yet. He grins and shows his teeth. He's +too dum quiet, and always acts like a feller that's afraid you'll find +out what he's got in mind."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Mary's about the pertiest girl in Coldriver," said Pliny. "Dunno but +what she could handle Abner all right, too. Call to mind the firemen's +picnic last year when she went with Abner, and he busted loose on that +feller with the three shells and the leetle ball?"</p> + +<p>"When the feller had robbed Half-wit Stenens of nigh on to twenty +dollars? I call to mind."</p> + +<p>"Abner was jest on the p'int of separatin' that feller into chunks and +dispersin' the chunks over the county when Mary she steps up and puts +her hand en his arm, and says, 'Abner!' ... Jest like that she said it, +quiet and gentle, but firm. Abner he let loose of the feller and turned +to look at her, and in a minute all the fight went out of his face and +his eyes like somebody had drained it off. He kind of blushed and hung +his head, and walked away with her.... She didn't tongue-lash him, +neither, jest kept a-touchin' his arm so's he wouldn't forgit she was +there."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Here comes Asa." He lifted himself from his +creaking chair and started across the bridge. "If it's a-comin' off," he +said to Pliny, "I want to git where I kin git a good view."</p> + +<p>In the post office the twin brothers came face to face. Scattergood saw +Abner's thin lips twist in a provocative sneer. Abner halted suddenly, +at arm's length from his brother, and eyed him from head to foot, and +Asa returned an insolent stare.</p> + +<p>"You sneakin' hound," said Abner, without heat, as was his way in the +beginning, always. "You're lower'n I thought, and I thought you was +low." Scattergood took in these words and pondered them. Did they mean +some new cause for enmity between the brothers? Suddenly Abner's eyes +began to kindle and to blaze. Asa crouched and his teeth showed in a +saturnine, crooked smile. No man could look upon him and accuse him of +being afraid of Abner or of avoiding the issue.</p> + +<p>"I know what you've been up to, you slinkin' varmint ... I know where +you was Tuesday." Scattergood took possession of this sentence and +placed it in the safety-deposit box of his memory. Where had Asa been +Tuesday, he wondered, and what had Asa been doing there?</p> + +<p>"I've put up with a heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I +hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But +now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's nobody kin put you +together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake." +With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm struck Asa +across the mouth.</p> + +<p>Asa licked his lips and continued to smile his crooked, saturnine smile.</p> + +<p>"Hain't scarcely room in here," he said, softly.</p> + +<p>"Git outside and take off your coat," said Abner, "for I'm goin' to fix +you so's nobody kin ever accuse flesh and blood of mine of doin' agin +what I've ketched you doin'."</p> + +<p>"What's gnawin' you," said Asa, softly, "is that I got the best farm and +that I'm a-goin' to git your girl."</p> + +<p>There was a stark pause. Abner stiffened, grew tense, as one becomes at +the moment of bursting into dynamic action, but he did not stir. +Scattergood was surprised, but he was more surprised by Abner's next +words. "I hain't goin' to half kill you on account of your lyin' to +father, nor on account of her—it's on account of <i>her</i>." The sentence +seemed without sense or meaning, but Scattergood placed it with his +other collected sentences; he did not perceive its meaning, but he did +perceive that the first 'her' and the second 'her' were pronounced so +that they became different words, like names, indicating, identifying, +different persons. That was Scattergood's notion.</p> + +<p>Asa turned on his heel and walked into the square, removing his coat as +he went; Abner followed. They faced each other, crouching. Abner's face +depicting wrath, Asa's depicting hatred.... Before a blow was struck, a +girl, tall, slender, deep-bosomed, fit mate for a man of might, pushed +through the circle of spectators. Her face was pale and distressed, but +very lovely. Her brown eyes were dark with the emotion of the moment, +and a wisp of wavy brown hair lay unnoticed upon her broad forehead.... +She walked to Abner's side and touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"Abner!" she said, gently.</p> + +<p>He turned his blazing eyes upon her. "Not this time" he said. "Go away, +Mary." Even in his rage he spoke to her in a voice of reverence.</p> + +<p>"Abner!" she repeated.</p> + +<p>He turned to his brother. "You get off this time," he said, evenly, "but +there will be another time.... Asa, I think I am going to kill you...."</p> + +<p>Asa laughed mockingly, and Abner took a threatening step toward him, but +Mary touched his arm again. "Abner!" she said once more; and obediently +as some well-trained mastiff he followed her through the gaping ring, +she still touching his arm, and together they walked slowly up the road.</p> + +<p>Two days later, about eight o'clock in the morning, Sheriff Ulysses +Watts bustled down the street wearing his official, rather than his +common, or meat-wagon, air. He paused, to speak excitedly to +Scattergood, who sat as usual on the piazza of his hardware store.</p> + +<p>"They've jest found Asa Levens's body," he ejaculated. "A-layin' clost +to the road it was, with a bullet through the head. Clear case of +murder.... I'm gatherin' a posse to fetch in the murderer."</p> + +<p>"Murderer's known, is he?" said Scattergood, leaning forward, and eying +the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Abner, of course. Who else would 'a' done it? Hain't he been +a-threatenin' right along?"</p> + +<p>"Anybody see him fire the shot, Sheriff? Any witnesses?"</p> + +<p>"Nary witness. Nothin' but the body a-layin' where it fell."</p> + +<p>"What was the manner of this shootin', Sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"All I know's what I've told you."</p> + +<p>"Gatherin' a posse, Ulysses? Who be you selectin'?"</p> + +<p>"Various and sundry," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Any objection to deputizin' me?" said Scattergood. "Any notion I might +help some?"</p> + +<p>"Glad to have you, Scattergood.... Got to hustle. Most likely the +murderer's escapin' this minute."</p> + +<p>"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Need any catridges or anythin' in the +hardware line, Sheriff? Figgerin' on goin' armed, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Dunno but what the boys'll need somethin'. You keep open till I gather +'em here."</p> + +<p>"I carry the most reliable line of catridges in the state," said +Scattergood. "Prices low.... I'll be waitin', Sheriff."</p> + +<p>In twenty minutes a dozen citizens of the vicinage gathered at +Scattergood's store, each armed with his favorite weapon, rifle or +double-barreled shotgun, and each wearing what he fancied to be the air +of a dangerous and resolute citizen.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late he'll be desprit," said Jed Lewis. "He won't be took without +a fight."</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of Scattergood that he delayed the setting out of +the posse until, by his peculiar methods of salesmanship, he had pressed +upon various members lethal merchandise to a value of upward of twenty +dollars. This being done, they entered a big picnic wagon with parallel +seats and set out for the scene of the crime. Coroner Bogle demanded +that the body should be viewed officially before the man-hunt should +begin. Scattergood threw the weight of his opinion with the coroner.</p> + +<p>The body was found lying beside a narrow path leading from the road +through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with +arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun +shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and +insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields +themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready +for the harvest. Scattergood looked about him at the trappings of the +day, and the thought came unbidden that it was a pleasant spot in which +to die ... perhaps more pleasant than the dead man deserved.</p> + +<p>"Shot from behind." said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"By somebody a-layin' in wait," said Jed Lewis.</p> + +<p>"It was murder—cold-blooded murder," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>Scattergood stepped forward as the coroner turned the face up to the +light of the sun.</p> + +<p>"It was a death by violence," said Scattergood. "It may be murder.... +Asa Levens wears, as he lies, the face of a man who troubled God...."</p> + +<p>There was none in that little group to comprehend his meaning.</p> + +<p>"There was no struggle," said the coroner.</p> + +<p>"He never knowed he was shot," said Jed Lewis.</p> + +<p>"Be you still a-goin' to arrest Abner Levens?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"To be sure. He done it, didn't he? Who else would 'a' killed Asa?"</p> + +<p>"Who else?" said Scattergood, solemnly.</p> + +<p>They raised Asa Levens and carried him to his house. Having left him in +proper custody, the posse re-entered its picnic van and drove with no +small trepidation toward Abner Levens's farm, a mile away. Abner Levens +was perceived from a distance, hoeing in a field.</p> + +<p>"He's goin' to face it out," said the sheriff; "or maybe he wasn't +expectin' Asa to be found yet."</p> + +<p>The picnic van stopped beside the field and the armed posse scrambled +out, holding its weapons threateningly; but as Abner was armed with +nothing more lethal than a hoe there was some appearance of +embarrassment among them, and more than one man endeavored to make his +shooting iron invisible by dropping it in the long grass.</p> + +<p>"Come on," said the sheriff, and in a body the posse advanced across the +field toward Abner, who leaned upon his hoe and waited for them. "Abner +Levens," said the sheriff, in a voice which was not of the steadiest, "I +arrest you for murder."</p> + +<p>Abner looked at the sheriff; Abner looked from one to another of the +posse in silence. It seemed as if he were not going to speak, but at +last he did speak.</p> + +<p>"Then Asa Levens is dead," he said.</p> + +<p>It was not a question; it was a statement, made with conviction. +Scattergood Baines noted that Abner called his brother by name as if +desiring to avoid the matter of blood kindred; that he made no denial.</p> + +<p>"You know it better than anybody," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>Abner looked past the sheriff, over the uneven fields, with their rock +fences, and beyond to the green slopes of the mountains as they upreared +distinct, majestic, imposing in their serene permanence against the +undimmed summer sky.</p> + +<p>"Asa Levens is dead," said Abner, presently. "Now I know that God is not +infinite in everything.... His patience is not infinite."</p> + +<p>"It's my duty to warn you that anythin' you say kin be used ag'in' you," +said the sheriff. "Be you comin' along peaceable?"</p> + +<p>"I'm comin' peaceable," said Abner. "If God's satisfied—I be."</p> + +<p>Abner Levens was locked in the unreliable jail of Coldriver village, and +a watch placed over him. Those who saw him marveled at his demeanor; +Scattergood Baines marveled at it, for it was not the demeanor of a +man—even of an innocent man—accused of a crime for which the penalty +was death. Abner sat upon the hard bench and looked quietly, even +placidly, out at the brightness of day, as it was apparent beyond flimsy +iron bars, and his expression was the expression of <i>contentment</i>.</p> + +<p>He had not demanded the benefit of legal guidance; he had neither +affirmed nor denied his guilt; indeed, he had uttered no word since the +door of the jail had closed behind him.</p> + +<p>Mary Ware spoke to the young man through the window of the jail in full +view of all Coldriver.</p> + +<p>"You didn't do it, Abner. I know you didn't do it," she said, so that +all might hear, "and if you still want me, Abner, like you said, I'll +stick by you through thick and thin."</p> + +<p>"Thank ye, Mary," Abner replied. "Now I guess you better go away."</p> + +<p>"What shall I do, Abner—to help you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing Mary. Looks like God's took aholt of matters. Better let him +finish 'em in his own way."</p> + +<p>That was all; neither Mary Ware nor any other could get more out of him, +and it was said by many to be a confession of guilt.</p> + +<p>"Realizes there hain't no use makin' a defense. Calc'lates on takin' his +medicine like a man," said Postmaster Pratt.... There were those in town +who voiced the wish that it had been some other than Abner who had +killed Asa Levens. "His gun's been shot recent," said the sheriff. It +was the final gram of evidence necessary to complete assurance of +Abner's guilt.</p> + +<p>Mary Ware was observed by many to walk directly from the jail window to +Scattergood Baines's hardware store, and there to stop and address +Scattergood, who sat barefooted, and therefore in deep thought, before +the door of his place of business.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Mary, "you've helped other folks. Will you help me?"</p> + +<p>"Help you how, Mary? What kin I do for you?"</p> + +<p>"Abner isn't guilty, Mr. Baines"</p> + +<p>"Tell you so?... Abner tell you so?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... 'F he was innocent, wouldn't he deny it, Mary?" He did not +permit her to reply, but asked another question. "What makes you say he +hain't guilty, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Because I know it," she replied, simply.</p> + +<p>"How do you know it, Mary? It's mighty hard to <i>know</i> anythin' on earth. +How d'you <i>know</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Because I know," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"'Twon't convince no jury."</p> + +<p>Mary stood in silence for a moment, and then turned away, not tearful, +not despairing.</p> + +<p>"Hold your hosses," said Scattergood. "Kin you think of anythin' that +might convince a <i>stranger</i> that Abner is innocent?"</p> + +<p>Mary considered. "Asa was shot," she said.</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded.</p> + +<p>"From behind," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded again.</p> + +<p>"Asa never knew who shot him," said Mary, and again Scattergood moved +his head. "If Abner had killed Asa," she went on, "he would have done it +with his hands. He would have wanted Asa to know who was killing him."</p> + +<p>"Might convince them that knows Abner," said Scattergood, "but the +jury'll be strangers." He paused, and asked, suddenly, "Why did you let +Asa Levens come to court you?"</p> + +<p>"Because I hated him," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Abner say anythin' to you?"</p> + +<p>"He said God had taken hold of matters and we'd better let him finish +them."</p> + +<p>"When God takes holt of human affairs he mostly uses human bein's to do +the rough work," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Abner's innocent," said Mary, stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"Mebby so.... Mebby so."</p> + +<p>"Will you help me clear him, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"I'll help you find out the truth, Mary, if that'll keep you +satisfied. Calculate I'd like to know the truth myself. Had a look at +Asa's face a-layin' there by the road, and it interested me."</p> + +<p>"Did you see that?" Mary asked, with sudden excitement.</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Scattergood, curiously.</p> + +<p>"The mark.... Sometimes it showed plain. It was a mark put on Asa +Levens's face as a warning to folks that God mistrusted him."</p> + +<p>"When he was dead it was different," said Scattergood, with solemnity. +"It said he had r'iled God past endurance."</p> + +<p>Mary nodded. She comprehended. "The truth will do," she said, +confidently.</p> + +<p>"Did Abner mention last Tuesday to you?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Where was Asa Levens last Tuesday? Do you know, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why did Abner say to Asa yesterday, 'It's not on account of her, it's +on account of <i>her</i>'?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mary. G'-by." It was so Scattergood always ended a conversation, +abruptly, but as one became accustomed to it it was neither abrupt nor +discourteous.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Mary, and she went away obediently.</p> + +<p>As the afternoon was stretching toward evening, Scattergood sauntered +into Sheriff Ulysses Watts's barn.</p> + +<p>"Who's feedin' and waterin' Asa Levens's stock?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Dummed if I didn't clean forgit 'em," confessed the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Any objection if I look after 'em, Sheriff? Any logical objection? Hoss +might need exercisin'. Can't never tell. Want I should drive up and do +what's needed to be done?"</p> + +<p>"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts.</p> + +<p>Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the +stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare. +He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap," +he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out +of the gate and turned toward town. Scattergood let the reins lie, +attempting no guidance. At the next four corners the mare hesitated, +slowed, and, feeling no direction from her driver, turned to the left. +Scattergood nodded his head.</p> + +<p>The mare trotted on, following the slowly lifting mountain road for a +matter of two miles, and then turned again down a highway that was +little more than a tote road. Half a mile later she stopped with her +nose against the fence of a shabby farmhouse, and sagged down, as is the +custom of horses when they realize they are at their destination and +have a rest of duration before them. Scattergood alighted and fastened +her to the fence.</p> + +<p>As he swung open the gate a middle-aged man appeared in the door of the +house, and over his shoulder Scattergood could see the white face of a +woman—staring.</p> + +<p>"Evening Jed," said Scattergood. "Evening Mis' Briggs."</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mr. Baines? Wa'n't expectin' to see <i>you</i>. What fetches you this +fur off'n the road?"</p> + +<p>"Sort of got here by accident, you might say. Didn't come of my own free +will, seems as though. Kind of tired, Jed. Mind if I set a spell?... +How's the cannin', Mis' Briggs?"</p> + +<p>"Done up thutty quarts to-day, Mr. Baines," said the young woman, who +was Jed Briggs's wife, a woman fifteen years his junior, comely, +desirable, vivid.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Got a hoss out here. Want you should both come and look her +over." He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and +his wife to the fence.</p> + +<p>"Likely mare," said Scattergood, blandly.</p> + +<p>Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman +laughs in great fear.</p> + +<p>"Gawd!" said Jed Briggs, "it's—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scattergood, gently. "It's Asa Levens's mare. Was she here +last Tuesday?"</p> + +<p>"She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines," said Jed Briggs. "What's the +meanin' of this?"</p> + +<p>"I knowed she was somewheres Tuesday," Scattergood said, impersonally. +"Didn't know where, but I mistrusted she'd been to that place frequent. +Jest got in and give her her head. She brought me.... Asa Levens is +dead."</p> + +<p>"Dead!" said Jed Briggs in a hushed voice.</p> + +<p>"He deserved to die.... He deserved to die.... He deserved to die ..." +the young woman repeated shrilly, hysterically.</p> + +<p>"Was you in town to lodge Tuesday night, Jed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Asa come every lodge night, Mis' Briggs?"</p> + +<p>"He always came—when Jed was here and when Jed was away.... When Jed +was here he'd jest set eyin' me and eyin' me ... and when Jed was gone +he—he talked...."</p> + +<p>"Asa owned the mortgage on the place," said Jed, as if that explained +something. Scattergood nodded comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Keep up your int'rest, Jed?"</p> + +<p>"Year behind. Asa was threatenin' foreclosure."</p> + +<p>"Threatened to throw us offn the place ... ag'in and ag'in he +threatened—and we'd 'a' starved, 'cause Jed hain't strong. It's me does +most of the work.... What we got into this place is all we got on +earth ... and he threatened to take it."</p> + +<p>"He come Tuesday night," said Scattergood, as a prompter speaks.</p> + +<p>"Hush, Lindy," said Jed.</p> + +<p>"I calculate you'd best both of you talk," said Scattergood. "You'd +better tell me, Jed, jest why you shot Asa Levens."</p> + +<p>Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs +stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes.</p> + +<p>"It'll be best for you to tell. I'm standin' your friend, Jed +Briggs.... Better tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here +Tuesday night...."</p> + +<p>"He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too, +laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come +home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly, +pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home, +and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I +coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me—and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause +he wa'n't fit to live."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But +what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What +about Abner?"</p> + +<p>"Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday +when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his +hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and +then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he +was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one +of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed. +That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix +up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and +there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin' +God's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you +punished f'r it...."</p> + +<p>Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest +over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy, +his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of +their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken. +The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words:</p> + +<p>"We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of God, and that there +are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter."</p> + +<p>And so it stands in the imperishable records of the township; legal +authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his +rougher sort of work.</p> + +<p>"I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and +unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself."</p> + +<p>Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by +accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated God meant to destroy +us Levenses, root and branch.... It was his business, not mine."</p> + +<p>"I've took note," said Scattergood, "that them that was most strict +about mindin' their own business was gen'ally most diligent about doin' +God's—all unbeknownst to themselves."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a><h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>HE INVESTS IN SALVATION</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From Scattergood Baines's seat on the piazza of his hardware store he +could look across the river and through a side window of the bank. +Scattergood was availing himself of this privilege. As a member of the +finance committee of the bank Scattergood was naturally interested in +that enterprise, so important to the thrifty community, but his interest +at the moment was not exactly official. He was regarding, speculatively, +the back of young Ovid Nixon, the assistant cashier.</p> + +<p>His concern for young Ovid was sartorial. It is true that a shiny alpaca +office coat covered the excellent shoulders of the boy, but below that +alpaca and under Scattergood's line of vision were trousers—and +carefully stretched over a hanger on a closet hook was a coat! There was +also a waistcoat, recognized only by the name of <i>vest</i> in Coldriver, +and that very morning Scattergood had seen the three, to say nothing of +a certain shirt and a necktie of sorts, making brave young Ovid's +figure.</p> + +<p>Ovid passed Scattergood's store on the way to his work. Baines had +regarded him with interest.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Ovid" he said.</p> + +<p>"Morning, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?"</p> + +<p>Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head.</p> + +<p>"Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said +Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Got 'em in the city," said Ovid.</p> + +<p>"I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured +special fer you?"</p> + +<p>"Best tailor there was," said Ovid.</p> + +<p>"Must 'a' come to quite a figger, includin' the shirt and necktie."</p> + +<p>"Forty dollars for the suit," Ovid said, proudly, "and it busted a +five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie."</p> + +<p>Scattergood waggled his head admiringly. "Must be a satisfaction," he +said, "to be able to afford sich clothes."</p> + +<p>Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood's voice was so interested, +so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed.</p> + +<p>"How's your ma?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"Pert," answered Ovid. "Ma's spry. Barrin' a siege of neuralgy in the +face off and on, ma hain't complainin' of nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Has she took to patronizin' a city tailor, too?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"Mostly," said Ovid, "ma makes her own."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded.</p> + +<p>"Still does sewin' for other folks?"</p> + +<p>"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it passes the time."</p> + +<p>"Passes consid'able of it, don't it? Passes the time right up till she +gits into bed?"</p> + +<p>"Ma's industrious."</p> + +<p>"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to +Coldriver; credit to the bank."</p> + +<p>Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them.</p> + +<p>"Been spendin' Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, +hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around."</p> + +<p>"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently.</p> + +<p>"Girl?" said Scattergood—one might have noticed that it was hopefully.</p> + +<p>"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse +ourselves Sundays."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Ovid."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and +visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one +personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had +been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to +be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be +devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor +organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This dénouement +had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those +who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you +could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and +hear all the organ music a body needed to hear.</p> + +<p>So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, +setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars +a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly +trips down the line on the "three-o'clock."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver. +Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial +concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the +bank after Ovid's graduation from high school—and had watched him, with +some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position +which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a +young man to hold. To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings +Bank was to have achieved both social and business success.</p> + +<p>Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated +on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had +attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer. But latterly he had done a +deal of thinking. In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon +to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in +the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more +engrossed by himself and by interests "down the line."</p> + +<p>It was Scattergood's opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was +suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its +run ... if no serious complication set in. Scattergood was watching for +symptoms of the complication.</p> + +<p>Three weeks later Ovid took the "three-o'clock" down the line of a +Saturday afternoon and failed to return Sunday night. Indeed, he did not +appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him. Mrs. Nixon +could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of +a spell of neuralgia, was distracted.</p> + +<p>Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, +recalling in time that he was seated in a lady's parlor, restrained his +impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his +thoughts by wriggling his toes.</p> + +<p>"Likely," he said, "it's nothin' serious. Then, ag'in, you can't +tell.... You do two things, Mis' Nixon: go out to the farm and stay with +my wife—Mandy'll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet."</p> + +<p>"You'll find him, Mr. Baines?... You'll fetch him back to me?"</p> + +<p>"If I figger he's wuth it," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>He went from Mrs. Nixon's to the bank, where the finance committee were +gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid's +disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable assets of +the institution. There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, +Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne—Scattergood made up the full committee.</p> + +<p>"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its +protest at the burden.</p> + +<p>"What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin' +suspicious?"</p> + +<p>"Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some +acidity.</p> + +<p>"You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it—not yit. +Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the +cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault +an overhaulin'."</p> + +<p>Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of +the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be +discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by +an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a +caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his +progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination +that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he +had looted clumsily—and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose +the vault for his peculiar task.</p> + +<p>It is a comparatively easy task to count the cash reserve in the vault +of so small a bank. Even a matter of thirty-odd thousand dollars can be +checked by one man alone in half an hour, for the small silver is packed +away in rolls, each roll containing a stated sum; the larger silver is +bagged, each bag bearing a label stating the amount of its contents, and +the currency is wrapped in packages containing even sums.... +Scattergood went to work. He went over the cash carefully, and totaled +the sums he set down on a bit of paper.... He found the amount to be +inadequate by exactly three thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Scattergood to himself. "Ovid hain't no hawg."</p> + +<p>One might have thought the young man had dropped in Scattergood's +estimation. It would have been as easy to make away with twenty thousand +dollars as with three thousand, and the penalty would not have been +greater.</p> + +<p>"Kind of a childish sum," said Scattergood to himself. "'Tain't wuth +bustin' up a life over—not three thousand.... Calc'late Ovid hain't +<i>bad</i>—not at a figger of three thousand. Jest a dum fool—him and his +tailor-made clothes...."</p> + +<p>In the silence of the vault Scattergood removed his shoes and sat on a +pile of bagged silver. His pudgy toes worked busily while he reflected +upon the sum of three thousand dollars and what the theft of that amount +might indicate. "Looked big to Ovid," he said to himself. Then, "Jest a +dum young eediot...."</p> + +<p>He replaced the cash and, carrying his shoes in his hand, left the vault +and closed it behind him. His four fellow committeemen were sweating +over the books, but all looked up anxiously as Scattergood appeared. He +stood looking at them an instant, as if in doubt.</p> + +<p>"What d'you find?" asked Atwell.</p> + +<p>"She checks," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>The four drew a breath of relief. Scattergood wished that he might have +joined them in the breath, but there was no relief for him. He had +joined his fortunes to those of Ovid Nixon—and to those of Ovid's +mother; had become <i>particeps criminis</i>, and the requirements of the +situation rested heavily upon him.</p> + +<p>It was past midnight before the laborious four finished their review of +the books and joined with Scattergood in giving Ovid a clean bill of +health.</p> + +<p>"Didn't think Ovid had it in him to steal," said Kettleman.</p> + +<p>"Hain't got no business stirrin' us up like this for nothin'," said +Atwell, acrimoniously.</p> + +<p>"Maybe," suggested Scattergood, "Ovid's come down with a fit of +suthin'."</p> + +<p>"Hope it's painful," said Lafe, "I'm a-goin' home to bed."</p> + +<p>"What'll we do?" asked Deacon Pettybone.</p> + +<p>"Nothin'," said Scattergood, "till some doin' is called fur. Calc'late I +better slip on my shoes. Might meet my wife." Mandy Scattergood was +doing her able best to break Scattergood of his shoeless ways.</p> + +<p>"Guess we'll let Ovid git through when he comes back," said Deacon +Pettybone, harshly, making use of the mountain term to denote discharge. +There no one is ever discharged, no one ever resigns. The single phrase +covers both actions—the individual "gets through."</p> + +<p>"I always figgered," said Scattergood, urbanely, "that it was allus +premature to git ahead of time.... I'm calc'latin' on runnin' down to +see what kind of a fit of ailment Ovid's come down with."</p> + +<p>Next morning, having in the meantime industriously allowed the rumor to +go abroad that Ovid was suddenly ill, Scattergood took the seven-o'clock +for points south. He did not know where he was going, but expected to +pick up information on that question en route. His method of reaching +for it was to take a seat on a trunk in the baggage car.</p> + +<p>The railroad, Scattergood's individual property and his greatest step +forward in his dream for the development of the Coldriver Valley, was +but a year old now. It was twenty-four miles long, but he regarded it +with an affection only second to his love for his hardware store—and +he dealt with it as an indulgent parent.... Pliny Pickett once stage +driver, was now conductor, and wore with ostentation a uniform suitable +to the dignity, speaking of "my railroad" largely.</p> + +<p>"Hear Ovid Nixon's sick down to town" said Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Sich a rumor's come to me."</p> + +<p>"Likely at the Mountain House?" ventured Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't be s'prised."</p> + +<p>"That's where he mostly stopped," said Pliny.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Wonder what ailment Ovid was most open to git?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood and Pliny talked politics for the rest of the journey, and, +as usual, Pliny received directions to "talk up" certain matters to his +passengers. Pliny was one of Scattergood's main channels to public +opinion. At the junction Scattergood changed for the short ride to town, +and there he carried his ancient valise up to the Mountain House, where +he registered.</p> + +<p>"Young feller named Nixon—Ovid Nixon—stoppin' here?" he asked the +clerk.</p> + +<p>"Checked out Monday night."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Monday night, eh? Expect him back? I was calc'latin' on meetin' +him here to-day."</p> + +<p>"He usually gets in Saturday night.... You might ask Mr. Pillows, over +there by the cigar case. He and Nixon hang out together."</p> + +<p>Scattergood scrutinized Mr. Pillows and did not like the appearance of +that young man; not that he looked especially vicious, but there was a +sort of useless, lazy, sponging look to him. Baines set him down as the +sort of young man who would play Kelly pool with money his mother earned +by doing laundry, and, in addition, catalogued him as a "saphead." He +acted accordingly.</p> + +<p>Walking lightly across the lobby, he stopped just behind Pillows, and +then said, with startling sharpness, "Where's Ovid Nixon?"</p> + +<p>The agility with which Mr. Pillows leaped into the air and descended, +facing Scattergood, did some little to raise him in the estimation of +Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One +might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and +was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to +snatch at him. Scattergood grinned.</p> + +<p>"Figgered he'd be a mite skittish," he said to the girl behind the cigar +counter.</p> + +<p>"I <i>thought</i> something sneaking was going on," said the young woman, as +if to herself.</p> + +<p>Scattergood gave her his attention. She had red hair, and his respect +for red hair was a notable characteristic. There was a freckle or two on +her nose, her eyes were steady, and her mouth was firm—but she was +pretty. Scattergood continued to regard her in silence, and she, not +disconcerted, studied him.</p> + +<p>"You and me is goin' to eat dinner together this noon," he said, +presently.</p> + +<p>"Business or pleasure?" Her rejoinder was tart.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"If it's business, we eat. If it's pleasure, you've stopped at the wrong +cigar counter."</p> + +<p>"I knowed I was goin' to take to you," said Scattergood. "You got +capable hair.... This here was to be business."</p> + +<p>"Twelve o'clock sharp, then," she said.</p> + +<p>He looked at the clock. It lacked half an hour of noon.</p> + +<p>"G'-by," he said, and went to a distant corner, where he seated himself +and stared out of the window, trying to imagine what he would do if he +were Ovid Nixon, and what would make him appropriate three thousand +dollars.... At twelve o'clock he lumbered over to the cigar case. "C'm +on," he said. "Hain't got no time to waste."</p> + +<p>The girl put on her hat and they walked out together.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?" Scattergood asked.</p> + +<p>"Pansy O'Toole.... You're Scattergood Baines—that's why I'm here.... I +don't eat with every man that oozes out of the woods."</p> + +<p>Scattergood said nothing. It was a fixed principle of his to let other +folks do the talking if they would. If not he talked himself—deviously. +Seldom did he ask a direct question regarding any matter of importance, +and so strong was habit that it was rare for him to put any query +directly. If he wanted to know what time it was he would lead up to the +subject by mentioning sun dials, or calendars, or lunar eclipses, and so +approach circuitously and by degrees, until his victim was led to +exhibit his watch. Pansy did not talk.</p> + +<p>"See lots of folks, standin' back of that counter like you do?" he +began.</p> + +<p>"Lots."</p> + +<p>"Um!... From lots of towns?... From Boston?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"From Tupper Falls?"</p> + +<p>"Some."</p> + +<p>"From Coldriver?"</p> + +<p>"If you want to know if I know Ovid Nixon, why don't you ask right out?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood looked at her admiringly.</p> + +<p>"I know him," she said.</p> + +<p>"Like him?"</p> + +<p>"He's a nice boy." Scattergood liked the way she said "nice." It +conveyed a fine shade of meaning, and he thought more of Ovid in +consequence. "But he's awful young—and green."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late he is—calc'late he is."</p> + +<p>"He needs somebody to look after him," she said, sharply.</p> + +<p>"Thinkin' of undertakin' the work?... Favor undertakin' it?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him a moment speculatively. "I might do worse. He'd be +decent and kind—and I've got brains. I could make something of him...."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Ovid's up and made somethin' of himself."</p> + +<p>"What?" She spoke quickly, sharply.</p> + +<p>"A thief."</p> + +<p>Scattergood glanced sidewise to study the effect of this curt +announcement, but her face was expressionless, rather too +expressionless.</p> + +<p>"That's why you're looking for him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"To put him in jail?"</p> + +<p>"What would <i>you</i> calc'late on doin' if you was me?"</p> + +<p>"Before I did anything," she said, slowly, "I'd make up my mind if he +was a thief, or if he just happened to take whatever it was he has +taken.... I'd be sure he was <i>bad</i>. If I made up my mind he'd just been +green and a fool—well, I'd see to it he never was that kind of a fool +again.... But not by jailing him."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Three thousand's a lot of money."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar +counter—and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon <i>could</i> be is worth more than +that."</p> + +<p>"Mebby so.... Mebby so. But if I was investin' in Ovid, I'd want some +sort of a guarantee with him. Would you be willin' to furnish the +guarantee? And see it was kept good?"</p> + +<p>"If you mean what I think you do—yes," she said, steadily. "I'd marry +Ovid to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Him bein' a thief?"</p> + +<p>"Girls that sell cigars aren't so select," she said, a trifle bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that +was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and +married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've +kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein' +crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any +other woman you ever see. I call to mind a number.... Ovid some attached +to you, is he?"</p> + +<p>"He's never made love to me, if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>"Think you could land him—for his good and yourn?"</p> + +<p>"I—why, I think I could," she said.</p> + +<p>"Is it a bargain?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"For, and in consideration of one dollar to you in hand paid, and the +further consideration of you undertakin' to keep an eye on him till +death do you part, I agree to keep him out of jail—and without nobody +knowin' he was ever anythin' but honest—and a dum fool."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand and Scattergood took it.</p> + +<p>"What's got Ovid into this here mess?"</p> + +<p>"Bucket shop," she said.</p> + +<p>"Um!... They been lettin' him make a mite of money—up to now, eh? So he +calc'lated on gittin' rich at one wallop. Kind of led him along, I +calc'late, till they got him to swaller hook, line, and sinker ... and +then they up and jerked him floppin' on to the bank.... Who owns this +here bucket shop?"</p> + +<p>"Tim Peaney."</p> + +<p>"Perty slick, is he?"</p> + +<p>"Slick enough to take care of Ovid and sheep like him—but I can't help +thinking he's a sheep himself."</p> + +<p>"He got Ovid's three thousand, or Ovid 'u'd 'a' come back Sunday +night.... Got to find Ovid—and got to git that money back."</p> + +<p>"I've an idea Ovid's right in town. If you're suspicious, and keep your +eyes open, you can tell when something's going on. That Pillows man you +scared knows, and Peaney acts like the man of mystery in one of the kind +of plays we get around here. It's breaking out all over them.... I'll +bet they've fleeced Ovid, and now they're hiding him—to save themselves +more than him."</p> + +<p>"And Ovid's the kind that would let himself be hid," said Scattergood. +"Do you and me work together on this job?"</p> + +<p>"If I can help—"</p> + +<p>"You bet you kin.... We'll jest let Ovid lie hid while we kind of +maneuver around Peaney some—commencin' right soon. Peaney ever aspire +to take you to dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Git organized to go with him to-night...."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was in the neighborhood of five o'clock when Mr. Peaney came into the +Mountain House and stopped at the cigar counter for cigarettes.</p> + +<p>"Any more friendly to-day, sister?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Pansy smiled and leaned across the case. "The trouble with you," she +said, in a low tone, "is that you're a piker."</p> + +<p>"Piker—me?"</p> + +<p>"Always after small change."</p> + +<p>"Just show me some real money once," he said, flamboyantly.</p> + +<p>"It would scare you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Show me some—you'd see how it would scare me."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she said, musingly, "if you have the nerve?"</p> + +<p>"For what?" he said, with quickened interest.</p> + +<p>"To go after a wad that I know of?"</p> + +<p>"Say," he said, his eyes narrowing, his face assuming a look of cupidity +and cunning, "do you know something? If you do, come on out where we can +eat and talk. If there's anything in it I'll split with you."</p> + +<p>"I know you will," she said, promptly. "Fifty-fifty.... In an hour, at +Case's restaurant."</p> + +<p>At the hour set Pansy and Mr. Peaney found a corner table in the little +restaurant, and when they had ordered Peaney asked, "Well, what you got +on your mind?"</p> + +<p>"A big farmer from the backwoods—with a trunkful of money. Don't know +how he got it. Must have sold the family wood lot, but he's got it with +him ... and he came down to invest it."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Honest Injun."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"From what he said it's more than ten thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Lead me to him."</p> + +<p>"He'll need some playing with—thinks he's sharp.... But I've been +talking to him. Guess he took a liking to me. Wanted to take me to +dinner—and he did."</p> + +<p>"Say!" exclaimed Mr. Peaney, in admiration, "I had you sized all wrong."</p> + +<p>"It'll take nerve," Pansy said.</p> + +<p>"It's what I've got most of."</p> + +<p>"He's no Ovid Nixon."</p> + +<p>"Eh?... What d'you know about Ovid Nixon?"</p> + +<p>"I know he was too green to burn and that you and he were together a +lot.... Isn't that enough?"</p> + +<p>He smiled complacently, seeing a compliment. "He was easy—but he got to +be a nuisance."</p> + +<p>"Making trouble?"</p> + +<p>"No.... Scared."</p> + +<p>"I <i>see</i>," she nodded, wisely. "Lost more than he had, was that it? And +then helped himself to what he didn't have?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not supposed to know where it came from. None of my business."</p> + +<p>"Of course not"—her tone was rank flattery. "Wants you to take care of +him. Threatens to squeal. I know.... So you've got to hide him out."</p> + +<p>"You are a wise one. Where'd you get it?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't always sell cigars for a living.... He isn't apt to break +loose and spoil this thing, is he?"</p> + +<p>"Too scared to show his face.... If we can pull this across he can show +it whenever he wants to—I'll be gone."</p> + +<p>So Ovid Nixon was here—in town. It was as she had reasoned. If here, he +was somewhere in the building Mr. Peaney occupied as a bucket shop.</p> + +<p>"It's understood we divide—if I introduce my farmer to you—and show +you how to get it."</p> + +<p>"You bet, sister."</p> + +<p>"Have you any money? Nothing makes people so confident and trustful as +the sight of money?"</p> + +<p>"I've got it," he said, complacently.</p> + +<p>"Then you come to the hotel this evening.... Just do as I say. I'll +manage it. In a couple of days—if you have the nerve and do exactly +what I say—you can forget Ovid Nixon and take a long journey."</p> + +<p>Two hours later, when Peaney entered the lobby of the Mountain House, he +saw a very fat, uncouthly dressed backwoodsman talking to Pansy. She +signaled him and he walked over nonchalantly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Pansy, "here's the gentleman I was speaking about. He +can advise you. He's a broker, and everybody trusts him." She lowered +her voice. "He's very rich, himself. Made it in stocks. I guess he +knows what's going on right in Mr. Rockefeller's private office.... You +couldn't do better than to talk business with him.... Mr. Peaney, Mr. +Baines."</p> + +<p>"Very glad to meet you, sir," said Peaney, in his grandest manner.</p> + +<p>"Much obleeged, and the same to you," said Scattergood, beaming his +admiration. "Hear tell you're one of them stock brokers."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. That's my business."</p> + +<p>"Guess you and me had better talk some. I'm a-lookin' for somebody to +gimme advice about investin'. I got a sight of money to invest +some'eres—a sight of it. Railroad stocks, or suthin'. Calc'late on +makin' myself well off."</p> + +<p>"I'm not taking any new clients, Mr. Baines. I'm very busy indeed." He +glanced at Pansy. "But if you are a friend of Miss O'Toole's possibly I +can break my rule.... About how much do you wish to invest?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, say fifteen to twenty thousand. Figger on doublin' it up, or mebby +better 'n that. Folks does it. I've read about 'em."</p> + +<p>"To be sure they do—if they are properly advised. But one has to know +the stock market—like a book."</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Peaney knows it like a book," said Pansy.</p> + +<p>Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents—men in the offices of great +corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock +manipulation is coming off—and my clients profit by it."</p> + +<p>"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice. +"My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities +Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the +stock up five points."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?"</p> + +<p>"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock +went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand +dollars besides."</p> + +<p>"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no +fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I +don't know this here girl very well—though I kinder took to her at the +first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is +to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust.... +Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree. +Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, +then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger +I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars."</p> + +<p>"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney. +"Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, +to-morrow—say for a thousand dollars?... If you—come out right, then +you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real +information you can jump right in and make a fortune."</p> + +<p>"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand—charge it up +to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars +jest by settin' down and takin' it."</p> + +<p>"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney.</p> + +<p>"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt.</p> + +<p>"Why, you'd <i>see</i> it," said Pansy, with another grimace at Peaney. "You +put your thousand dollars on the counter, and Mr. Peaney puts five +thousand right beside it. You see it all the time. If you come out +right, you just pick up the money and walk off."</p> + +<p>"No!... <i>Say</i>! That's slick, hain't it? Wisht you'd come along when we +try, Miss O'Toole. Somehow I'd feel easier in my mind if you was +along.... See you early in the mornin'.... Got to git to bed, now. +Always aim to be in bed by nine.... G' night."</p> + +<p>"Say," expostulated Mr. Peaney, "do you expect me to hand over five +thousand to that hick? He might walk off with it."</p> + +<p>"He might walk off with the hotel.... I told you you hadn't any +nerve.... Why, give that fat man a taste of easy money and you couldn't +drive him away. Let him sleep all night with five thousand dollars that +came as easy as that, and you couldn't drive him away from your office +with a gun.... Besides, I'm here to take care of him ...or are you a +quitter?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty thousand dollars," Mr. Peaney said to himself. "Then I'll show +you how good my nerve is. Bring on your fat man...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was up at his accustomed early hour, and before breakfast +had examined Mr. Peaney's premises from front and rear. The bucket shop +was in a small wooden building. The ground floor consisted of a large +office where was visible the big blackboard upon which stock quotations +were posted, and of a back room whose interior was invisible from the +street. A corner of the main office had been partitioned off as a +private retreat for Mr. Peaney. What was upstairs Scattergood could not +tell with accuracy, but he judged it to be a single room or perhaps two +small rooms.... It was here, he felt certain, Ovid was secreting +himself, and, with a certain grimness, he hoped the young man was not +happy in his surroundings.</p> + +<p>"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that Ovid, bein' shet up with his +own figgerin's and imaginin's, hain't in no jubilant frame of mind.... +Meanest punishment you kin give a feller is to lock him in for a spell +with himself, callin' himself names...." When the office opened, +Scattergood and Pansy were at the door, where Mr. Peaney welcomed them, +not without a certain uneasiness at the prospect of intrusting his money +to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Let's git started right off," Scattergood said. "I'd like to tell it to +the folks how I gained five thousand dollars in one mornin'—jest doin' +nothin' but settin'."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Mr. Peaney. "You buy a thousand shares of +International Utilities on a one-point margin.... Sign this order slip."</p> + +<p>"And you set out five thousand dollars right where I kinn see it," said +Scattergood, with anxious fatuity.</p> + +<p>"Certainly.... Certainly."</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney deposited on his desk a bundle of currency which Scattergood +counted meticulously, and then laid his own thousand beside it.</p> + +<p>"It's as good as yours, right now," said Pansy.</p> + +<p>"We'll stay right here in my private room," said Peaney. "We can watch +the board from here, and nobody will disturb us."</p> + +<p>"I'd kinder like to have folks see me makin' all this money," complained +Scattergood, but he acquiesced, and presently quotations commenced to be +posted on the board. International Utilities opened at seventy-six. +Presently they advanced half a point, lingered, and returned to their +original position.</p> + +<p>"Kind of slow, hain't it?" Scattergood said, a worried look beginning to +appear on his face. "Maybe them folks hain't goin' to do what you said."</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney went out into the back room, and presently the ticker began +to click furiously. International Utilities leaped a whole point. In ten +minutes they ascended a half point, and at every advance Scattergood +figured his profit, and hesitated as to whether or not it would be best +to close the transaction then and there, but Pansy cajoled him +skillfully, making evident to Mr. Peaney the power of her influence over +the old fellow.</p> + +<p>Scattergood was the picture of the fatuous countryman. He was childlike +in his ignorance and in his delight. He exclaimed, he slapped his thigh, +he laughed aloud at each advance. "It's a-comin'. Next time she h'ists, +the money's mine.... And 'tain't been two hours. What'll the folks say +to that, eh? Me doin' nothin' but settin' here and makin' five thousand +dollars in two hours.... Nothin' short of a million's goin' to satisfy +me—and when I get that million, Mr. Peaney, I'm a-goin' to show you how +much obleeged I be. I'm a-goin' to git you a whole box of them cigars. +Pansy knows which ones. They come at a nickel apiece...."</p> + +<p>Then ...then International Utilities touched eighty-one. Scattergood +slapped Peaney on the back. He laughed. He acted like a boy with a new +jackknife.</p> + +<p>"It's all mine now, hain't it? Mine? Fair and square? It's my +money—every penny of it?"</p> + +<p>"It's yours, Mr. Baines. And I congratulate you. I myself have made a +matter of fifty thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Wisht I'd put up every cent I got.... But there'll be other chances, +won't they? I kin git in ag'in?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. To-morrow. Possibly this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"And I kin take this now?" Scattergood had his hands on the six thousand +dollars; was handling it greedily.</p> + +<p>"It's yours," said Mr. Peaney.</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated it was," said Scattergood. "Calc'lated it was.... Now +where's Ovid?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Peaney stared. Something had happened suddenly to this countryman. +He was no longer fatuous, futile. His face was no longer foolish and +good-natured; it was; granite—it was the face of a man with force, and +the skill to use that force.</p> + +<p>"Where's Ovid?" he demanded again.</p> + +<p>"Ovid ... Ovid who? I don't know any Ovid."</p> + +<p>He became suddenly alarmed and blocked the way to the door. +Scattergood's eyes twinkled. "If I was you I wouldn't git in the way to +any extent. Feelin' the way I do I sh'u'dn't be s'prised if I got a +certain amount of satisfaction out of tramplin' over you."</p> + +<p>"Hey, you put that money back ..."</p> + +<p>"Mine, hain't it? Gained it lawful, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>He walked slowly toward the door, and Mr. Peaney, still barring the way, +found himself sitting suddenly in an adjacent corner. Scattergood walked +calmly past and made for the back room.</p> + +<p>"Stop him!" shouted Mr. Peaney. "Don't let him go in there."</p> + +<p>But Scattergood proceeded methodically, leaving no less than three of +Mr. Peaney's employees in recumbent postures along his line of march.... +Pansy followed him closely, pale, but resolute. He ascended the stairs, +and, finding the door at the top fastened from within, he removed it +bodily by the application of a calk-studded boot.... Ovid Nixon was +disclosed cowering against the wall, pale, terrified.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Ovid?" said Scattergood, as if he had met the young man casually +on the street. "How d'you find yourself?"</p> + +<p>Ovid remained mute.</p> + +<p>"Fetched a friend to see you, Ovid," said Scattergood. "This is her." He +pushed Pansy forward. "Find her better comp'ny than you been havin' +recent," he said. "She's got suthin' fer you.... When she gits through +visitin' with you, I calculate to have a word to say.... Here, Pansy, +you kin give this here to Ovid." He counted off three thousand dollars +before the young man's staring eyes.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm glad I'm found," Ovid said, tremulously. "I was making up my +mind to give myself up...."</p> + +<p>"What fer?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"You know—you know I took three thousand dollars out of the vault."</p> + +<p>"Vault don't show nothin' short," said Scattergood, waggling his head. +"Counted it myself. Did look for a minute like they was three thousand +short, but I kind of put that amount in, and then counted ag'in, and, +sure enough, it was all there...."</p> + +<p>Ovid stared, took a step forward. "You mean.... What do you mean, Mr. +Baines?"</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to step outside of what used to be the door," said +Scattergood, "and let Pansy do the explainin'.... What I do after that +depends a heap on ... Pansy...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood went outside and waited, his eyes on the stairs, but nobody +offered to ascend. He could hear the conversation within, but it was +only toward the end that it interested him.</p> + +<p>"Ovid," said Pansy, "you've been hanging around my counter a good +deal—and asking me to dinners, and to go driving on Sunday. What for?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because I liked you awful well, Pansy, but now—now that I've +done this—"</p> + +<p>"If you hadn't done this? If you had made money instead of losing it?"</p> + +<p>"I—oh, what's the use of talking about it? I wanted you should marry +me, Pansy."</p> + +<p>"But you don't want me any more?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody'd marry me—knowing what you know."</p> + +<p>"Ovid," said Pansy, sharply, "there's nothing wrong with you except +that—you haven't enough brains all by yourself. You need to be looked +after ...and I'm going to do it."</p> + +<p>"Looked after?"</p> + +<p>"Ovid Nixon, do you like me well enough to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"I—"</p> + +<p>"Do you? Yes or no ... quick!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then ask me," said Pansy.</p> + +<p>Presently the three emerged into the street from the deserted offices of +Mr. Peaney. Scattergood Baines held in his hands two thousand dollars in +bills, representing net profit on the transaction. He regarded the money +with a frown.</p> + +<p>"Somethings got to be done to you to make you fit to tetch," he said to +it.</p> + +<p>Out of an adjoining store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a +tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. +"Salvation Army, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Hold it out," he said, motioning to the tambourine.</p> + +<p>She obeyed, and he dropped into it the package of bills, and, looking +into her startled, almost frightened eyes, he said: "It come from fools +to sharpers.... I calculate nothin' but a leetle salvation'll kill the +cussedness in it.... Make it do all the salvagin' it kin...."</p> + +<p>Whereupon he passed on, leaving a bewildered woman to stare after him.</p> + +<p>Next morning, Scattergood, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Ovid Nixon, +alighted from the train in Coldriver. Deacon Pettybone happened to be +standing on the depot platform.</p> + +<p>"Make you acquainted with Mis' Nixon," said Scattergood, with gravity. +"She's what Ovid come down with.... Can't blame a young feller for +forgittin' work a day or two when he's got him sich a wife.... Deacon, +this here girl's performed a service for Coldriver. Increased our +population by two—her and Ovid. And, Deacon, Ovid hain't the fust man +that ever was made so's he was wuth countin' in the census by marryin' +him a wife...."</p> + +<p>"Dummed if she hain't got red hair," was the deacon's astonished +contribution. It was as near to congratulations as the deacon ever came.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE SON THAT WAS DEAD</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"The ox is dressed and hung," said Pliny Pickett, with the air of a man +announcing that the country has been saved from destruction.</p> + +<p>"Uh!... How much 'd he dress?" asked Scattergood Baines, moving in his +especially reinforced armchair until it creaked its protest.</p> + +<p>"Eight hunderd and forty-three—accordin' to Newt Patterson's scales."</p> + +<p>"Which hain't never been knowed to err on the side of overweight," said +Scattergood, dryly.</p> + +<p>"The boys has got the oven fixed for roastin' him, and the band gits in +on the mornin' train, failin' accidents, and the dec'rations is up in +the taown hall—'n' now we kin git ready for a week of stiddy rain."</p> + +<p>"They's wuss things than rain," said Scattergood, "though at the minnit +I don't call to mind what they be."</p> + +<p>"Deacon Pettybone's north mowin' is turned into a baseball grounds, and +everybody in town is buyin' buntin' to wrap their harnesses, and +Kittleman's fetched in more 'n five bushels of peanuts, and every young +un in taown'll be sick with the stummick ache."</p> + +<p>"Feelin' extry cheerful this mornin', hain't ye? Kind of more +hopeful-like than I call to mind seein' you fer some time."</p> + +<p>"Never knowed no big celebration to come off like it was planned, or +'thout somebody gittin' a leg busted, or the big speaker fergittin' what +day it was, or suthin'. Seems like the hull weight of this here falls +right on to me."</p> + +<p>"Responsibility," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in his eye, "is a +turrible thing to bear up under. But nothin' hain't happened yit, and +folks is dependin' on you, Pliny, to see 't nothin' mars the party."</p> + +<p>"It'll rain on to the <i>pe</i>-rade, and the ball game'll bust up in a +fight, and pickpockets'll most likely git wind of sich a big gatherin' +and come swarmin' in.... Scattergood," he lowered his voice +impressively, "it's rumored Mavin Newton's a-comin' back for this here +Old Home Week."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Mavin Newton.... Um!... Who up and la'nched that rumor?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody's a-talkin' it up. Folks says he's sure to come, and then +what in tunket'll we do? The sheriff's goin' to be busy handlin' the +crowds and the traffic and sich, and he won't have no time fer extry +miscreants, seems as though.... Folks is a-comin' from as fur 's Denver, +and we don't want no town criminal brought to justice in the middle of +it all. Though Mavin's father 'd be glad to see his son ketched, I +calc'late."</p> + +<p>"Hain't interviewed Mattie Strong as ree-gards <i>her</i> feelin's, have ye?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Pliny, with intense interest, "if Mattie's ever heard +from him? But she's that close-mouthed."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't a common failin' hereabouts," said Scattergood. "How long since +Mavin run off?"</p> + +<p>"Eight year come November."</p> + +<p>"The night before him and Mattie was goin' to be married."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh! Takin' with him that there fund the Congo church raised fer a +new organ, and it's took them eight year to raise it over ag'in."</p> + +<p>"And in the meantime," said Scattergood, "I calc'late the tunes off of +the old organ has riz about as pleasin' to heaven as if 'twas new. +Squeaks some, I'm told, but I figger the squeaks gits kind of filtered +out, and nothin' but the true meanin' of the tunes ever gits up to Him." +Scattergood jerked a pudgy thumb skyward.</p> + +<p>"More 'n two hunderd dollars, it was—and Mavin treasurer of the church. +Old Man Newton he resigned as elder, and hain't never set foot in church +from that day to this."</p> + +<p>"Bein' moved," said Scattergood, "more by cantankerousness than grief."</p> + +<p>"I'll venture," said Pliny, "that there'll be more'n five hunderd old +residents a-comin' back, and where in tunket we're goin' to sleep 'em +all the committee don't know."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Pliny," said Scattergood, suddenly, and Pliny, +recognizing the old hardware merchant's customary and inescapable +dismissal, got up off the step and cut across diagonally to the post +office, where he could air his importance as a committeeman before an +assemblage as ready to discuss the events of the week as he was himself.</p> + +<p>It was a momentous occasion in the life of Coldriver; a gathering of +prodigals and wanderers under home roofs; a week set aside for the +return of sons and daughters and grandchildren of Coldriver who had +ventured forth into the world to woo fortune and to seek adventure. +Preparations had been in the making for months, and the village was +resolved that its collateral relatives to the remotest generation should +be made aware that Coldriver was not deficient in the necessary "git up +and git" to wear down its visitors to the last point of exhaustion. +Pliny Pickett, chairman of numerous committees and marshal of the +parade, predicted it would "lay over" the Centennial in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>The greased pig was to be greasier; the barbecued ox was to be larger; +the band was to be noisier; the speeches were to be longer and more +tiresome; the firemen's races and the ball games, and the fat men's +race, and the frog race, and the grand ball with its quadrilles and +Virginia reels and "Hull's Victory" and "Lady Washington's Reel" and its +"Portland Fancy," were all to be just a little superior to anything of +the sort ever attempted in the state. Numerous septuagenarians were +resorting to St. Jacob's oil and surreptitious prancing in the barn, to +"soople" up their legs for the dance. It was to be one of those +wholesome, generous, splendid outpourings of neighborliness and good +feeling and wonderful simplicity and kindliness, such as one can meet +with nowhere but in the remoter mountain communities of old New England, +where customs do not grow stale and no innovation mars. If any man would +discover the deep meaning of the word "welcome," let him attend such a +Home-coming!</p> + +<p>Though Coldriver did not realize it, the impetus toward the Home-coming +Week had been given by Scattergood Baines. He had seen in it a +subsidence of old grudges and the birth of universal better feeling. He +had set the idea in motion, and then, by methods of indirection, of +which he was a master, he had urged it on to fulfillment.</p> + +<p>Scattergood went inside the store and leaned upon the counter, taking no +small pleasure in a mental inventory of his heterogeneous stock. He had +completed one side, and arrived at the rear, given over to stoves and +garden tools, when a customer entered. Scattergood turned.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Mattie," he said. "What kin I help ye to this time?"</p> + +<p>"I—I need a tack hammer, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Got three kinds: plain, with claws, and them patent ones that picks up +tacks by electricity. I hold by them and kin recommend 'em high."</p> + +<p>"I'll take one, then," said Mattie; but after Scattergood wrapped it up +and gave her change for her dollar bill, she remained, hesitating, +uncertain, embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Was they suthin' besides a tack hammer you wanted, Mattie." Scattergood +asked, gently.</p> + +<p>"I—No, nothing." Her courage had failed her, and she moved toward the +door.</p> + +<p>"Mattie!"</p> + +<p>She stopped.</p> + +<p>"Jest a minute," said Scattergood. "Never walk off with suthin' on your +mind. Apt to give ye mental cramps. What was that there tack hammer an +excuse for comin' here fer?"</p> + +<p>"Is it true that <i>he's</i> coming back, like the talk's goin' around?"</p> + +<p>"I calc'late ye mean Mavin. Mean Mavin Newton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, faintly.</p> + +<p>"What if he did?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I don't know.... Oh, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Want he should come back?"</p> + +<p>"He—If he should come—"</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Calc'late I kin appreciate your feelin's. +Treated you mighty bad, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"He treated himself worse," said Mattie, with a little awakening of +sharpness.</p> + +<p>"So he done. So he done.... Um!... Eight year he's been gone, and you +was twenty when he went, wa'n't ye? Twenty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hain't never had a feller since?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I'm an old maid, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"I've heard tell of older," he said, dryly. "Wisht you'd tell me why you +let sich a scalawag up and ruin your life fer ye?"</p> + +<p>"He wasn't a scalawag—till <i>then</i>."</p> + +<p>"You hain't thinkin' he was accused of suthin' he didn't do?"</p> + +<p>"He told me he took the money. He came to see me before he ran away."</p> + +<p>"Do tell!" This was news to Scattergood. Neither he nor any other was +aware that Mavin Newton had seen or been seen by a soul after the +commission of his crime.</p> + +<p>"He told me," she repeated, "and he said good-by.... But he never told +me why. That's what's been hurtin' me and troublin' me all these years. +He didn't tell me why he done it, and I hain't ever been able to figger +it out."</p> + +<p>"Um!... <i>Why</i> he done it? Never occurred to me."</p> + +<p>"It never occurred to anybody. All they saw was that he took their organ +money and robbed the church. But why did he do it? Folks don't do them +things without reason, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't tell you?"</p> + +<p>"I asked him—and I asked him to take me along with him. I'd 'a' gone +gladly, and folks could 'a' thought what they liked. But he wouldn't +tell, and he wouldn't have me, and I hain't heard a word from him from +that day to this.... But I've thought and figgered and figgered and +thought—and I jest can't see no reason at all."</p> + +<p>"Took it to run away with—fer expenses," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"There wasn't anything to run away from until <i>after</i> he took it. I +<i>know</i>. Whatever 'twas, it come on him suddin. The night before we was +together—and—and he didn't have nothin' on his mind but plans for him +and me ... and he was that happy, Mr. Baines!... I wisht I could make +out what turned a good man into a thief—all in a minute, as you might +say. It's suthin', Mr. Baines, suthin' out of the ordinary, and always I +got a feelin' like I got a right to know."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scattergood, "seems as though you had a right to know."</p> + +<p>"Folks is passin' it about that he's comin' home. Is there any truth +into it?"</p> + +<p>"I calc'late it's jest talk," said Scattergood. "Nobody knows where he +is."</p> + +<p>"He'll come sometime," she said.</p> + +<p>"And you calc'late to keep on waitin' fer him to come?"</p> + +<p>"Until I'm dead—and after that, if it's allowed."</p> + +<p>"I wisht," said Scattergood, "there was suthin' I could do to mend it +all."</p> + +<p>"Nobody kin ever do anythin'," she said.... "But if he should venture +back, calc'latin' it had all blown over and been forgot!... His father'd +see him put in prison—and I—I couldn't bear that, it seems as though."</p> + +<p>"There's a bad thing about borrowin' trouble," said Scattergood. "No +matter how hard you try, you can't ever pay it back. Wait till he +croaks, and then do your worryin'."</p> + +<p>"I've got a feelin' he's goin' to come," she said, and turned away +wearily. "I thought maybe you'd know. That's why I came in, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Mattie. G'-by. Come ag'in when you feel that way, and you +needn't to buy no tack hammer for an excuse."</p> + +<p>Scattergood slumped down in his chair on the store's piazza, and began +pulling his round cheeks as if he had taken up with some new method of +massage. It was a sign of inward disturbance. Presently a hand stole +downward to the laces of his shoes—a gesture purely automatic—and in a +moment, to the accompaniment of a sigh of relief, his broad feet were +released from bondage and his liberty-loving toes were wriggling with +delight. Any resident of Coldriver passing at that moment could have +told you Scattergood Baines was wrestling with some grave difficulty.</p> + +<p>"It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that ever'body has a reason +for ever'thing, except lunatics, and lunatics think they got a reason. +Now, Mavin he wa'n't no lunatic. He wouldn't have stole church money and +run off the night before his weddin' jest to exercise his feet. They +hain't no reason, as I recall it, why he needed two hunderd dollars. +Unless it was to git married on.... And instid of that, it busted up the +weddin'. I calc'late that matter wa'n't looked into sharp enough ... and +eight years has gone by. Lots of grass grows up to cover old paths in +eight year."</p> + +<p>A small boy was passing at the moment, giving an imitation of a cowboy +pursuing Indians. Scattergood called to him.</p> + +<p>"Hey, bub! Scurry around and see if ye kin find Marvin Preston. Uh-huh! +'F ye see him, tell him I'm a-settin' here on the piazza."</p> + +<p>The small boy dug his toes into the dust and disappeared up the street. +Presently Marvin Preston appeared in answer to the indirect summons.</p> + +<p>"How be ye, Marvin? Stock doin' well?"</p> + +<p>"Fust class. See the critter they're figgerin' on barbecuin'? He's a +sample."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Lived here quite a spell, hain't you, Marvin? Quite a spell?"</p> + +<p>"Born here, Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"Know lots of folks, don't ye? Got acquainted consid'able in town and +the surroundin' country?"</p> + +<p>"A feller 'u'd be apt to in fifty-five year."</p> + +<p>"Call to mind the Meggses that used to live here?"</p> + +<p>"Place next to the Newton farm. Recollect 'em well."</p> + +<p>"Lived next to Ol' Man Newton, eh? Forgot that." Scattergood had not +forgotten it, but quite the contrary. His interest in the Meggses was +negligible; his purpose in mentioning them was to approach the Newtons +circuitously and by stealth, as he always approached affairs of +importance to him.</p> + +<p>"Know 'em well? Know 'em as well's you knowed the Newtons?"</p> + +<p>"Not by no means. I've knowed Ol' Man Newton better 'n 'most anybody, +seems as though."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Le's see.... Had a son, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Run off with the organ money," said Marvin, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Remembered suthin' about him. Quite a while back."</p> + +<p>"Eight year. Allus recall the date on account of sellin' a Holstein +heifer to Avery Sutphin the mornin' follerin' ... fer cash."</p> + +<p>"Him that was dep'ty sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"That's the feller."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Ever git a notion what young Mavin up and stole that money fer?"</p> + +<p>"Inborn cussedness, I calc'late."</p> + +<p>"Allus seemed to me like Ol' Man Newton might 'a' made restitution of +that there money," said Scattergood, tentatively.</p> + +<p>"H'm!" Marvin cleared his throat and glanced up the street. "Seein's how +it's you, I dunno but what I kin tell you suthin' you hain't heard, nor +nobody else. Young Mavin sent that there money back to his father in a +letter to be give to the church—and the ol' man <i>burned</i> it. That's +what he up and done. Two hunderd good dollars went up in smoke. Said +they was crimes that was beyond restitution or forgiveness, and robbin' +the House of God was one of 'em."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Now, Marvin, I'd be mighty curious to learn if the ol' man got +that information from God himself or if it come out of his own head.... +No matter, I calc'late. 'Twan't credit with the church young Mavin was +after when he sent back the money, and the Lord <i>he</i> knows the money +come, if the organ fund never did find it out."</p> + +<p>"Guess I'll take a walk down to Spackles's and look over the steer. They +tell me he dressed clost to nine hunderd. Hope they contrive to cook him +through and through. Never see a barbecued critter yit that was done.... +Folks is beginnin' to git here. Guess they won't be a spare bedroom in +town that hain't full up."</p> + +<p>Scattergood pulled on his shoes and, leaving his store to take care of +itself, walked up the road, turned across the mowing which had been +metamorphosed into an athletic field, trusted his weight to the +temporary bridge across the brook, and scrambled up the bank to the +great oven where the steer was to be baked, and where the potato hole +was ready to receive twenty bushels of potatoes and the arch was ready +to receive the sugar vat in which two thousand ears of corn were to be +steamed. Pliny Pickett was in charge, with Ulysses Watts, sheriff, and +Coroner Bogle as assistants. They had fired up already, and were sitting +blissfully by in the blistering heat, bragging about the sort of meal +they were going to purvey, and speculating on whether the imported band +would play enough, and how the ball games would come out, and naming +over the folks who were expected to arrive from distant parts.</p> + +<p>"This here town team hain't what it was ten year ago," said the sheriff. +"In them days the boys knowed how to play ball. There was me 'n' Will +Pratt and Pliny here 'n' Avery Sutphin, that was sheriff 'fore I +was...."</p> + +<p>"What ever become of Avery?" Pliny asked.</p> + +<p>"Went West. Heard suthin' about him a spell back, but don't call to mind +what it was. Wonder if he'll be comin' back with the rest?"</p> + +<p>"Dunno. Think there's anythin' in the rumor that Mavin Newton's comin'?" +"Hope not," said the sheriff, assuming an official look and feeling of +the suspender to which was affixed his badge of office. "Don't want to +have no arrestin' to do durin' Old Home Week."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late to take him in if he comes?"</p> + +<p>"Duty," said Sheriff Watts, "is duty."</p> + +<p>"When it hain't a pleasure," said Scattergood. "Recall what place Avery +Sutphin went to?"</p> + +<p>"Seems like it was Oswego. Some'eres out West like that."</p> + +<p>"Wisht all the town 'u'd quit traipsin' over here," said Pliny. "Never +see sich curiosity. They needn't to think they're goin' to git a look at +the critter while he's a-cookin'. No, siree. Nobody but this here +committee sees him till he's took out final, ready fer eatin'."</p> + +<p>All that day visitors arrived in town. They drove in, came by train and +by stage—and walked. There was no house whose ready hospitality was not +taxed to its capacity, and the ladies in charge of the restaurant in +Masonic Hall became frantic and sent out hysterical messengers for more +food and more help. Every house was dressed in flags and bunting. Even +Deacon Pettybone, reputed to be the "nearest" inhabitant of the village, +flew one small cotton flag, reputed to have cost fifteen cents, from his +front stoop. The bridge was so covered with red, white, and blue as to +quite lose its identity as a bridge and to become one of the wonders of +the world, to be talked about for a decade. As one looked up the street +a similarity of motion, almost machinelike, was apparent. It was an +endless shaking of hands as old friend met old friend joyously.</p> + +<p>"Bet ye don't know who I be?"</p> + +<p>"I'd 'a' know'd you in Chiny. You're Mort Whittaker's wife—her that was +Ida Janes. Hair hain't so red as what it was."</p> + +<p>"You've took on flesh some, but otherwise—'Member the time you took me +to the dance at Tupper Falls—"</p> + +<p>"An' we got mired crossin'—"</p> + +<p>"An' Sam Kettleman come in a plug hat."</p> + +<p>This conversation, or its counterpart, was repeated wherever resident +and visitor met. Old days lived again. Ancient men became middle-aged, +and middle-aged women became girls. The past was brought to life and +lived again. Sometimes it was brought to life a bit tediously, as when +old Jethro Hammond, postmaster of Coldriver twenty years ago, made a +speech seventy minutes long, which consisted in naming and locating +every house that existed in his day, and describing with minute detail +who lived in it and what part they played in the affairs of the +community. But the audience forgave him, because it knew what a good +time he was having.... Houses were invaded by perfect strangers who +insisted in pointing out the rooms in which they were born and in which +they had been married, and in telling the present proprietors how +fortunate they were to live in dwellings thus blessed.</p> + +<p>The band arrived and met with universal satisfaction, though Lafe Atwell +complained that he hadn't ever see a snare drummer with whiskers. But +their coats were red, with gorgeous frogs, and their trousers were sky +blue, with gold stripes, and the drum major could whirl his baton in a +manner every boy in town would be imitating with the handle of the +ancestral broom for months to come.... Through it all Scattergood Baines +sat on the piazza and beamed upon the world, and rejoiced in the +goodness thereof.</p> + +<p>Only one resident took no part in the holiday making, and that was Old +Man Newton, who had closed his house, drawn the blinds, and refused to +make himself visible while the celebration lasted. He took a savage +pleasure in thus making himself conspicuous, knowing well how his +conduct would be discussed, and viewing himself as a righteous man +suffering for the sins of another.</p> + +<p>In the darkness of the evening street Mattie Strong accosted Scattergood +that evening, clinging to his arm tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," she whispered, affrightedly, "he's come!"</p> + +<p>"Who's come?"</p> + +<p>"Mavin Newton—he's here, in town."</p> + +<p>Scattergood frowned. "See him?"</p> + +<p>"Hain't seen him, but he's here. I kin feel him. I knowed it the minute +he come."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I've seen everybody here, and <i>I</i> hain't seen him."</p> + +<p>"He's here, jest the same. I'm a-lookin' fer him. Whatever name he come +under, or however he looks, I'll know him. I couldn't make no mistake +about Mavin."</p> + +<p>"Mattie, I hope 'tain't so.... I hope you're mistook."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know whether I hope so or not. I—Oh, Mr. Baines, I'd rather +be with him, a-comfortin' him and standin' by him, no matter what he +done—"</p> + +<p>Scattergood patted her arm. "I calc'late," he said, softly, "that God +hain't never invented no institution that beats the love of a good +woman.... I'll look around, Mattie.... I'll look around."</p> + +<p>It was the next morning, at the ball game, when Mattie spoke to +Scattergood again.</p> + +<p>"I've seen him," she whispered, and there was a note of happiness in her +voice and a look of renewed youth in her eyes. "He's here, like I said."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>Mattie lowered her voice farther still. "Look at the band," she said.</p> + +<p>"Nobody resembles him there," said Scattergood, after a minute.</p> + +<p>"Wait till they stop playin'—and then see if they hain't somebody +there that takes holt of the fingers of his right hand, one after the +other, and kind of twists 'em.... Look sharp. Mavin he allus done that +when he was nervous—allus. I'd know him by it, anywheres."</p> + +<p>Scattergood watched. Presently the "piece" ended and the musicians laid +down their instruments and eased back in their chairs.</p> + +<p>"Look," said Mattie.</p> + +<p>The bearded snare drummer was performing a queer antic. It was as if his +fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he +drummed. No, he was tightening them so they wouldn't fall off. One +finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to +make certain they were secure.</p> + +<p>"I—knowed he'd come," Mattie said, happily.</p> + +<p>"Um!... This here's kind of untoward. You keep your mouth shet, Mattie +Strong. Don't you go near that feller till I tell you. We don't want a +rumpus to spoil this here week."</p> + +<p>"But he's here.... He's here."</p> + +<p>"So's trouble," said Scattergood, succinctly.</p> + +<p>The rest of that day Scattergood busied himself in searching out old +friends and neighbors of the Newtons. Nothing seemed to interest him +which happened later than eight years before, but no event of that +period was too slight or inconsequential to receive his attention and to +be filed away in his shrewd old brain. He was looking for the answer to +a question, and the answer was piled under the rubbish of eight years of +human activities—a hopeless quest to any but Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Comedy and tragedy were alike interesting to him. Just as he lost no +detail of the old man's conduct when his boy disappeared, so he listened +and laughed when Martin Banks recalled to a group how Old Man Newton had +fallen under the suspicion of bootlegging and how the town had seethed +with the downfall of an elder of the church—and all because the old man +had imported two cases, each of a dozen bottles of the Siwash Indian +Stomach Bitters recommended to cure his dyspepsia. There had been a +moment, said Banks, when the town expected to see Newton shut up in the +calaboose under the post office—until the true contents of those cases +was revealed.</p> + +<p>During the afternoon Scattergood sent six telegrams to as many different +cities. Late that night he received replies, and sent one long message +to an individual high in office in the state. It was an urgent message, +amounting to a command, for in his own commonwealth Scattergood Baines +was able to command when the need required.</p> + +<p>"It's an off chance," he said to himself, "but it's what might 'a' +happened, and if it might 'a' happened, maybe it did happen...."</p> + +<p>Wednesday afternoon the band was thrown into consternation, and the town +into a paroxysm of excitement and speculation, when Sheriff Watts +ascended the platform of the musicians and, placing a heavy hand on the +shoulder of the snare drummer, said, loudly, "Mavin Newton, I arrest ye +in the name of the law."</p> + +<p>Not a soul in that breathless crowd was there who failed to see Mattie +Strong point her finger in the face of Scattergood Baines, and to hear +her utter the one word, "<i>Shame!</i>" Nor did any fail to see her take her +place at the side of the bearded drummer, with her fingers clutching his +arm, and walk to the door of the jail under the post office with the +prisoner.</p> + +<p>Then the word was passed about that the hearing would take place before +Justice of the Peace Bender that very evening. So great was the public +clamor that the justice agreed to hold court in the town hall instead of +in his office; and it was rumored that Johnnie Bones, Scattergood +Baines's own lawyer, had been appointed special prosecutor by the +Governor of the state.</p> + +<p>Opinion ran against Scattergood. It was free and outspoken. Townsfolk +and visitors alike felt that Scattergood had done ill in bringing the +young man to justice—especially at such a time. He should have let +sleeping dogs lie.... And when it heard that Sheriff Watts had carried a +subpoena to Mavin Newton's father, compelling his presence as a witness +against his own son, there arose a wind of disapproval which quite swept +Scattergood from the esteem of the community.</p> + +<p>But the town came to the hearing. In the beginning it was a +cut-and-dried affair. The facts of the crime were established with dry +precision. Then Johnnie Bones called the name of a witness, and the +audience stiffened to attention. Even Old Man Newton, sitting with bowed +head and scowling brow, lifted his eyes to the face of the young lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Avery Sutphin," said Johnnie Bones, and the former sheriff, wearing +such a haircut as Coldriver seldom saw within its corporate limits, and +clothed in such clothing as it had never seen there, was brought through +the door by two strangers of official look. He seated himself in the +witness chair.</p> + +<p>"You are Avery Sutphin, former sheriff of this town?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Where do you reside?"</p> + +<p>"In the state penitentiary," said Avery, seeking to hide his face.</p> + +<p>"Do you know Mavin Newton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When did you last see him?"</p> + +<p>"It was the night of June twelfth, eight year ago."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"In his father's barn."</p> + +<p>"What was he doing?"</p> + +<p>"Milkin'," said Avery.</p> + +<p>"You went to see him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"To git some money out of him."</p> + +<p>"Did he owe you money?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How much money did you go to get?"</p> + +<p>"Two hunderd dollars."</p> + +<p>"Did you get it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you know what money it was?"</p> + +<p>"Church-organ money. He told me."</p> + +<p>"Why did he give it to you?"</p> + +<p>"I made him."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Lemme tell it my own way—if I got to tell it.... He'd took my girl, +and I never liked him, anyhow.... There'd been rumors his old man was +bootleggin'. Nothin' to it, of course, and I knowed that. And I needed +some money. Bought a beef critter off'n Marvin Preston next day. So I +went to Mavin and says I was goin' to arrest his old man because I'd +ketched him sellin' liquor, and Mavin he begged me I shouldn't. I told +him the old man would git ten year, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"What did Mavin say to that?"</p> + +<p>"He jest bowed his head and kind of leaned against the stall."</p> + +<p>"Then what?"</p> + +<p>"I let on I needed money, and told him if he'd gimme two hunderd dollars +I'd destroy the evidence and let the old man go. He says he didn't have +the money, and I says he had the organ money. He didn't say nothin' for +a spell, and then he says, kind of low, and wonderin', 'Which 'u'd be +the worst? Which 'u'd be the worst?' Then I says, 'Worst what?' And he +says for his father to be ketched for a bootlegger or for him to be a +thief.... I jest let him think about it, and didn't say nothin', because +I knowed how he looked up to his old man.</p> + +<p>"Pretty soon he says: 'I'd be a thief, 'cause I couldn't explain. I'd +have to run off—and leave Mattie, that I'm a-goin' to marry +to-morrer.... I could pay it back, but that wouldn't do no good.... But +for father to be arrested, him an elder, and all, would kill him. I +couldn't bear for father to be shamed 'fore all the world or to be +thought guilty of sich a thing.... He's wuth a heap more 'n I be, and he +won't never do it ag'in.' Then he asks if I'll give a letter to his old +man, and I says yes. He walked up and down for maybe a quarter of an +hour, talkin' to himself, and kind of fightin' it out, but I knowed what +he'd do, right along. At the end he come over and says: 'This here means +ruinin' my life and breakin' Mattie's heart ... but I calc'late that's +better 'n holdin' father up to scorn and seein' him in jail.... If they +was only some other way!' His voice was stiddylike, but he was right +pale and his eyes was a-shinin'. I remember how they was a-shinin'. 'I +calc'late,' he says, 'that I kin bear it fer father's sake.' Then he +says to me, kind of fierce, 'If ever you let on to anybody why I done +this, if it's in a hunderd years, I'll come back and kill you.' For a +while he kept still again, and then he went in the house and got the +money, and wrote a letter to his old man, and I promised to give it to +him—but I tore it up."</p> + +<p>"What did the letter say?"</p> + +<p>"It just said somethin' to the effect that he was willin' to do what he +done if his old man would give over breakin' the law and go to livin' +upright like he always done, and that he hoped maybe God seen a +difference in stealin' on account of the reasons folks had for doin' +it—but if God didn't make no difference, why, he'd rather bear it than +have it fall on his old man."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I took the money and come away. And he run away. And that's all."</p> + +<p>The town hall was very still. The stillness of it seemed to pierce and +hurt.... Then it was broken by a cry, a hoarse cry, wrenched from the +soul of a man. "My boy!... My boy!..." Old Elder Newton was on his +feet, tottering toward his son, and before his son he sank upon his +knees and buried his hard, weathered old face upon Mavin's knees.</p> + +<p>Justice of the Peace Bender cleared his throat.</p> + +<p>"This here," he said, "looks to me to be suthin' the folks of this town, +the friends and neighbors of this here father and son, ought to settle, +instid of the law. Maybe it hain't legal, but I dunno who's to +interfere.... Folks, what ought to be done to this here boy that done a +crime and suffered the consequences of it, jest to save his father from +another crime the old man never done a-tall?"</p> + +<p>Neither Mavin nor his father heard. The old elder was muttering over and +over, "My boy that was dead and is alive again...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood arose silently and pointed to the door, and the crowd +withdrew silently, withdrew to group about the entrance outside and to +wait. They were patient. It was an hour before Elder Newton descended, +his son on one side and Mattie Strong on the other.... The band, with a +volunteer drummer, lifted its joyous voice, and, looking up, the trio +faced a banner upon which Scattergood had caused to be painted, "Welcome +Home, Mavin Newton."</p> + +<p>Coldriver had taken judicial action and thus voiced its decision.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jason Locker, who was Sam Kettleman's rival in Coldriver's grocery +industry, was a trifle too amenable to modern ideas at times. He took +notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could +do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and +make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade +he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two +parades.</p> + +<p>Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed +Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference +was as to when and exactly <i>how</i> Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They +were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to +sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the +counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of +olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and +pronounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which +Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew +accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was +rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered.</p> + +<p>But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably +pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current +fashions, made her appearance in a space cleared in the middle of the +store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new +brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far.</p> + +<p>It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being +demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It +came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the +young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner +of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country +making coffee for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wearing a smile for +everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore +observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her +frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger +women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the +advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from +their midst.</p> + +<p>But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette +Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped +about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no +pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst.</p> + +<p>"Looks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon +Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' <i>as</i> well <i>as</i> proper +follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be +expected to ensue."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say +it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette—that way. Looks like +French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for +seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask +her."</p> + +<p>"Names don't count," said Old Man Bogle, oracularly. "She hain't to +blame for pickin' her name. Her ma gave it to her out of a book, seems +as though. Nevertheless, 'tain't no fit name for a woman, and, so fur's +I kin see, she fits her name like Ovid Nixon's tailor pants fits his +laigs."</p> + +<p>"She's light," said the elder.</p> + +<p>"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she +was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly +wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't +nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her."</p> + +<p>"While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup," +said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to +me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John +the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a +deacon of the church."</p> + +<p>"She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was +willin'."</p> + +<p>"I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes, +"that she hain't no stranger to wearin' <i>tights.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the +deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty +satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite +different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a +clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em."</p> + +<p>"My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle, +tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly.</p> + +<p>"How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with +the wiles of it?"</p> + +<p>"He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the +path."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle, +waggling his head.</p> + +<p>"Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon. +"Look.... Comin' acrost the bridge. There's Locker's boy and that there +Wife-ette, and him lookin' like he'd enjoy divin' down her throat."</p> + +<p>"Poor Jason," said the elder, "he's reapin' the whirlwind."</p> + +<p>"Kin he be blind?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody ought to take Jason off to one side and give him warnin'."</p> + +<p>The deacon considered, puckering his thin lips and cocking a hard old +eye. "'Tain't fer us to meddle," he said, righteously. "They's a divine +plan in ever'thing, and we hain't able to see what's behind all this +here. We'll jest set and wait the outcome."</p> + +<p>That is what all Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with +ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or +gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went +undiscussed. Nobody in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the +coffee demonstrator—with the one exception of Homer's father, who was +too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice anything +else.</p> + +<p>On the fourth evening of Yvette's stay in Coldriver there was a dance in +the town hall. Especial interest immediately attached to this affair +because of the speculations as to whether Homer would be so rash as to +invite Yvette as his partner. The village refused to believe the young +man would fail them and remain away. That would be a calamity not easily +endured, so it set itself to plan its actions in case she made her +appearance. It wondered, how she would dress and how she would behave.</p> + +<p>Every girl in the village who possessed clear title to a young man knew +exactly how <i>she</i> would deport herself. The night before the dance no +less than a score of young men were informed with finality that they +were not to dance with the stranger, nor to be seen in her vicinity. +Norma Grainger expressed the will of all when she told Will Peasley that +if he danced one dance with that coffee girl she would up and go home +alone. In the beginning there was no definite concerted action; it was +assured, however, that Yvette would have few partners.</p> + +<p>Homer did not disappoint his friends. During the first dance he entered +the hall with Yvette, and the music all but stopped to stare. Undeniably +she was pretty. It was not her prettiness the women resented, however, +but her air and her clothes. Actually she wore a dress cut low at the +neck, and sleeveless. Coldriver had heard of such garments, and there +were those who actually believed them to exist and to be worn by certain +women in European society among kings and dukes and other frightfully +immoral people. But that one should ever make its appearance in +Coldriver, under their very eyes, was a thing so startling, so +outrageous, as almost to demand the spontaneous formation of a vigilance +committee.</p> + +<p>Even yet there was no concerted action, but sentiment was crystallizing. +Homer and Yvette danced three dances, and Homer's face began to wear a +scowl. No less than five young men approached by him with the purpose of +securing them as partners for Yvette declined with brevity.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you??" he demanded, belligerently. "There hain't +no pertier girl nor no better dancer on the floor."</p> + +<p>"Mebby so. Hain't noticed. Got all <i>my</i> dances took."</p> + +<p>"Me too. My girl she says—"</p> + +<p>"She says what?" snapped Homer.</p> + +<p>"She says she'll go home if I dance with yourn."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> say," said Homer, with set jaw, "that you fellers is goin' to +dance with Yvette, or there's goin' to be more fights in Coldriver 'n +Coldriver ever see before. That's <i>my</i> say."</p> + +<p>He announced he would be back after the next dance, and that <i>somebody</i> +would dance with Yvette. "The feller that refuses," said he, "goes +outside with me."</p> + +<p>He went back to Yvette, who, not lacking in shrewdness, sensed something +of the situation.</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't come," she said, uneasily.</p> + +<p>"I don't ... if you hain't got no objection to dancin' jest with me."</p> + +<p>"It'll look queer if I dance all of them with you."</p> + +<p>"Jest ask me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd +want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I +wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with +you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille."</p> + +<p>Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the +floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two +couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there. +All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in the middle."</p> + +<p>Homer and Yvette approached that square where three couples awaited the +fourth to complete their set. They took their places, to the manifest +embarrassment of the other six. Suddenly Norma Grainger whispered +something to her young man and tugged at his arm. He looked sidewise, +sheepishly, at Homer, and hung back.</p> + +<p>"You come right along," said Norma. "I hain't goin' to have it said of +me that I danced in no set with her."</p> + +<p>"Nor me," said Marion Towne, also tugging at her escort.</p> + +<p>The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast +glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and +walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left +standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes.</p> + +<p>Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then—for in his ungainly +body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without +which none may be called a gentleman—he offered his arm to Yvette. "I +guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful +shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood +Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from +the room.</p> + +<p>"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say."</p> + +<p>"It—it's not your fault," she said, tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have gone."</p> + +<p>"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the +pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with <i>me</i>, be you?"</p> + +<p>"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I—I ought to be used to it. I—" +She began to cry.</p> + +<p>It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but +he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a +pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to +press her to him none too gently.</p> + +<p>"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he +kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash +all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that +task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he +said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to +marry me, hain't you?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know.... You—you don't know anything about me."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I know enough," he said.</p> + +<p>"Your folks wouldn't put up with it."</p> + +<p>"Huh!"</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Then she said, brokenly: "I must go away. I can't +ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and +talking about me.... I want to go away to-night."</p> + +<p>"You sha'n't. Nor no other time, neither."</p> + +<p>And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines's voice. +"Hain't calc'latin' to bust the gal, be you?... Jest happened along to +say the deacon's been talkin' to your pa about you 'n' her, and your +pa's het up consid'able. He's startin' out to look fer you. Lucky I come +along, wa'n't it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm of age," said Homer, aggressively.</p> + +<p>"Lots is," said Scattergood. "'Tain't nothin' to take special pride +in.... Homer, I've watched you raised from a colt, hain't I? Be you +willin' to kind of leave this here to me a spell? I sort of want to look +into things. You go along about your business and leave me talk to +Wife-ette here.... Made up your mind you want her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"She want you?"</p> + +<p>"I—What business is it of yours?" Yvette demanded, angrily. "Who are +you? What are you interfering for?"</p> + +<p>"Kind of a habit with me," said Scattergood, "and my wife hain't ever +been able to cure me, even puttin' things in my coffee on the sly.... +G'-by, Homer. And don't go lickin' nobody. G'-by."</p> + +<p>The habit of obedience to Scattergood's customary dismissal was strong +in Coldriver. For more than a generation the town had been trained to +heed it and to trust its affairs to the old hardware merchant. Homer +hesitated, coughed, mumbled good night to Yvette, and slouched away.</p> + +<p>"There," said Scattergood, "now you and me kin talk. We'll go up to your +room, where nobody kin disturb us." The conventions nor the tongue of +gossip was non-existent to Scattergood Baines, and Yvette, not reared in +a school where trust in men is easily learned, was shrewd enough to +recognize Scattergood's purpose and her own safety.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose you're the local Mr. Fix-it," she said, with sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose," said Scattergood, "that I've knowed Homer sence he was knee +high to a mouse's kitten, and I don't know nothin' about you a-tall. I +gather you're calc'latin' on marryin' Homer.... Mebby you be and mebby +you hain't.... Depends. Come along."</p> + +<p>He led the way to the hotel and allowed Yvette to precede him up the +stairs to her room, which she unlocked and stood aside for him to enter. +He looked about him in the sharp-eyed way characteristic of him, not +omitting to include in his survey the toilet articles on the dresser.</p> + +<p>"Hain't you perty enough without them?" he asked, indicating the lip +stick and rice powder. "Us folks hain't used to 'em, much.... Wunst we +give a home-talent play here, and there come a feller from Boston to +help out. Mis' Blossom was into it, and he come around to paint her up. +She jest give him one look, and says, says she, 'I hain't never painted +my face yit, and I don't calc'late to start in now.' ... I got to admit +she looked kind of pale and peeked amongst the rest, but she stuck to +her principles."</p> + +<p>Yvette stared at Scattergood, nonplused for the first time. What did he +mean? How was she to take him? His face was serene and there was no +glint of humor in his eye.... Yet, somehow, she gathered the idea he was +chuckling inwardly and that there resided in him a broad and tender +toleration for the little antics and makeshifts of mankind. Possibly he +was holding Mrs. Blossom up to her as a model of rectitude; perhaps he +was asking her to laugh with him at a foible of one of his own people. +She wished she knew which.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late on marryin' Homer?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I—"</p> + +<p>"Yes or no—quick."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, lifting her chin bravely.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Knowed him four days, hain't you? Think it's long enough? Plenty +of time to figger it all out?"</p> + +<p>She sat down on the bed, drooping wearily. "I'm tired," she said, "awful +tired. I can't stand this life any longer. I've got to have a place to +rest."</p> + +<p>"Hain't goin' to have Homer used for no sanitorium," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"I like him," said Yvette.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't enough. Up this way folks mostly loves when they git +married—or owns adjoinin' timber."</p> + +<p>Again she was at a loss. What did he mean? If he would only smile!</p> + +<p>"I—I've got a feeling I could <i>trust</i> him," she said, "and he'd be good +to me."</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> would," said Scattergood. "I hain't worritin' about his dealin' +with you; it's your dealin' with him I'm questionin' into."</p> + +<p>"I'd—. He wouldn't be sorry."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Nate Weaver, back country a spell, is lookin' fer a wife. Hain't +young. Got lots of money, and the right woman could weasel it out of +him. Lots of it.... He'd like you fine. Homer won't have much, and if +his pa keeps on feelin' like he does, he won't have none.... If you're +lookin' fer a restin' place, you might consider Nate. I could fix it." +Her eyes flashed. "I haven't come to that yet," she said, sharply, and +then began to cry quietly.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." Scattergood gripped his pudgy hands together so that each might +restrain the other from patting her head comfortingly. "Um!... What's +your name?"</p> + +<p>"My name?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... 'Tain't Wife-ette Hinchbrooke. They hain't no sich name. +'Tain't human.... What's your real one?"</p> + +<p>"Eva Hopkins."</p> + +<p>"How'd you come to change?"</p> + +<p>"A girl's got a right to call herself anything she wants to," she said, +defensively.</p> + +<p>"Except Mrs. Homer Locker," said Scattergood, dryly. "Now jest come +off'n your high hoss, and we'll talk. When we git through, we'll +<i>do</i>.... Either you'll take the mornin' train out of Coldriver, or +you'll stay and we'll see. Depends on what I hear."</p> + +<p>"I could lie," she said.</p> + +<p>"Folks don't gen'ally lie to <i>me</i>," said Scattergood, gently. "They +found out it didn't pay—and I hain't much give to believin' nothin' but +the truth. We deal in it a lot up this here way."</p> + +<p>"I hate your people and their dealings."</p> + +<p>"Don't wonder at it. I seen what they done to you to-night.... But you +don't know 'em like I do. They's times when they act cold and ha'sh and +nigh to cruel, but that hain't when they're real. Them times they're +jest makin' b'lieve, 'cause they hain't got no idee what they ought to +do.... I've knowed 'em these thirty year—right down <i>knowed</i> 'em. Lemme +tell you they hain't a finer folks on earth, bar nobody. They don't show +much outside, but the insides is right. You kin find more kindness and +charity and long-sufferin' and tenderness and goodness right here +amongst the cantankerous-seemin' of Coldriver 'n you kin find anywheres +else on earth.... They're narrer, Eva, and they got sot notions, but +they got a power to do kindness, once you git 'em started at it, that +hain't to be beat.... I kind of calculate God hain't so disapp'inted +with the folks of Coldriver as a stranger might git the idee he is.... +Now we'll go ahead."</p> + +<p>When Scattergood had done asking questions and receiving answers, he sat +silent for a matter of moments. Automatically his hands strayed to the +lacing of his shoes, for his pudgy toes itched for freedom to wiggle. He +dealt with a problem whose complex elements were human emotions and +prejudices, and at such times he found his brain to act more clearly and +efficiently with shoes removed. He detected himself, however, in the act +of untying the laces, and sat upright with ludicrous suddenness.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." he said, in some confusion. "Mandy says I hain't never to do it +when wimmin is around. Dunno why.... Now they's some p'ints I got to +impress on you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Baines," said Yvette, who had reached a condition of respect +and confidence in Scattergood—as most people did upon meeting him face +to face.</p> + +<p>"Fust, Homer hain't no sanitorium for weary wimmin. When you kin come +and say, meanin' it from your heart, 'I love Homer,' then we'll see."</p> + +<p>She nodded acquiescence.</p> + +<p>"Second, it won't never and noways be possible fer you and Homer to live +here onless the folks takes to you. You got to win yourself a welcome in +Coldriver."</p> + +<p>"That means," she said, dully, "that I'd better go."</p> + +<p>"Huh!... Hain't you got no backbone? You do like you're told. You stay +where you be. 'Tain't possible fer you to go back to Locker's store, and +that puts you out of a job, don't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hard up?"</p> + +<p>"I can live a few days—but—"</p> + +<p>"Hain't no buts. You kin live as long as I say so. You stay hitched to +this here hitchin' post, and I'll 'tend to the money. Jest don't do +nothin' but be where you be—and be makin' up your mind if Homer's the +boy you kin love and cherish, or if he's nothin' but a sort of shady +restin' place.... G'-by."</p> + +<p>He got up abruptly and went out. On the bridge he encountered three dark +figures, which, upon inspection, resolved themselves into Old Man Bogle, +Deacon Pettybone, and Elder Hooper.</p> + +<p>"Scattergood," said the elder, "somethin's happened."</p> + +<p>"Somethin' 'most allus does."</p> + +<p>"This here's special and horrifyin'."</p> + +<p>"Havin' to do with what?"</p> + +<p>"That coffee gal, that baggage, that hussy!"</p> + +<p>"Um!... Sich as?"</p> + +<p>"Recall that show Bogle was took to in Boston?"</p> + +<p>"Where the wimmin wore tights—that's been on his mind ever since? +Calc'late I do. Kind of a high spot in Bogle's life. Come nigh bein' the +makin' of him."</p> + +<p>"He claims he recognizes this here gal as one of them dancin' wimmin +that stood in a row with less on to them than any woman ever ought to +have with the lights turned on."</p> + +<p>"No!" exclaimed Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Yep!" said all three of them in chorus.</p> + +<p>"Stood right in front, as I recall it, a-makin' eyes and kickin' up her +heels that immodest you wouldn't b'lieve. Looked right at me, too. I +seen her."</p> + +<p>"Got your money's wuth, then, didn't ye? Wa-al?"</p> + +<p>"Suthin's got to be done."</p> + +<p>"Sich as?"</p> + +<p>"Riddin' the town of her."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead and rid it, then.... G'-by."</p> + +<p>"But we want you sh'u'd help us."</p> + +<p>"G'-by," said Scattergood again, as he moved off ponderously into the +darkness.</p> + +<p>The elder moved nearer Bogle and endeavored to peer into his face. "Be +you sure she's the same one?" he asked, in a confidential whisper.</p> + +<p>"Wa-al—they was about the same heft," said Bogle, "and if this hain't +her, it ought to be. I kin b'lieve it, can't I? Got a right to b'lieve +it, hain't I? Good fer the town to b'lieve it, hain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Calc'late 'tis."</p> + +<p>"All right, then. I aim to keep on b'lievin' it."</p> + +<p>Next day Homer Locker abandoned his work and with the utmost brazenness +hired a rig at the livery and drove to the hotel. A group of notables +assembled upon the bridge to watch the event. They saw him emerge from +the inn with Yvette, help her into the buggy with great solicitude, and +drive away. They did not return until supper time was long past.</p> + +<p>"I'm determined to git this settled one way or t'other," said Homer, +after a long pause. "Be you goin' to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you want me?" Yvette asked, fixing her eyes on his face. "Is it +just because you think I'm pretty?"</p> + +<p>He considered. It was a hard question for a young man not adept in the +use of words to answer. "'Tain't jest that," he said, finally. "I like +you bein' perty. But it's somethin' else. I hain't able to explain it, +exceptin' that I want you more'n I ever wanted anythin' in my life."</p> + +<p>"Maybe, when I tell you about myself, you won't want me at all."</p> + +<p>He paused again, while she studied his face anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I dunno.... I—. Tell ye what. I want you like I know you. I'm +satisfied. I don't want you to tell me nothin'. I don't want to know +nothin'." He turned and looked with clumsy gravity into her eyes, which +did not waver. "Besides," he said, "I don't believe you got anythin' +discreditable to tell."</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to hear," he said, simply. "I'd rather take you, jest +trustin' you and knowin' in my heart that you're good. Somehow I <i>know</i> +it."</p> + +<p>She bit her lip, her eyes were moist, and she sat very still for a long +time; then she said, softly: "I didn't know men like that lived.... I +didn't know."</p> + +<p>Then again, after the passage of minutes: "I was going to marry you, +Homer, just for a home and a good man and to get peace.... But I sha'n't +do it now. I can't come between you and all your folks—and they +wouldn't have me."</p> + +<p>"You're more to me than everybody else throwed together."</p> + +<p>"No, Homer. Before I didn't think I cared.... I do care, Homer. I—I +love you. I don't mind saying it now.... I'm going away in the morning."</p> + +<p>It was a point they argued all the day, but Yvette was not to be moved, +and Homer was in despair. As he drove into the village that evening, +glum and unhappy, Yvette said: "Stop at Mr. Baines's, please, Homer. I +want to speak to him."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was in his accustomed place before his store, shoes on the +piazza beside him, and his feet, guiltless of socks, reveling in their +liberty.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Yvette, "I've made up my mind to go away to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Um!... To-morrer, eh? Made up your mind you don't want Homer, have ye? +Don't blame ye. He's a mighty humble critter."</p> + +<p>"He's the best man in the world," said Yvette, softly, "and I love +him ... and that—that's why I'm going. I can't stay and make him +miserable."</p> + +<p>Scattergood studied her face a moment, and cleared his throat noisily. +"Hum!... I swan to man! Goin', be ye?... Mebby that's best.... But they +hain't no sich hurry. Be out of a job, won't ye? Uh-huh! Wa-al, you stay +till Thursday mornin' and kind of visit with Homer, and say good-by, and +then you kin go. Thursday mornin'.... Not a minute before."</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"Thursday mornin's the time, I said.... G'-by."</p> + +<p>Next morning Scattergood was absent. He had taken the early train out of +town, as Pliny Pickett reported, on a "whoppin' big deal that come up +suddin in the night." It appeared that for once Scattergood had allowed +business to distract him wholly from his favorite occupation of meddling +in other folks' affairs.... Nobody saw him return, for he drove into +town late Wednesday afternoon and went directly to his home.</p> + +<p>For forty-eight hours during his absence rumor had spread and increased +its girth to astounding dimensions. Old Man Bogle had released his +story. He now recollected Yvette perfectly, and when not restrained by +the modesty of some person of the opposite sex, he described her costume +in the play with minute detail. Hourly he remembered more and more, and +the mouth-to-ear repetitions of his tale embellished it with details +even Old Man Bogle's imagination could not have encompassed.... Before +Wednesday night Yvette had arisen in the estimation of the village to an +eminence of evil never before attained by any visitor to Coldriver.</p> + +<p>Jason Locker forbade his son his home if ever he were seen in the +hussy's company again, and Homer left by the front door.... He announced +his purpose of journeying to the South Seas or New York, or some other +equally strange and dangerous shore. The town seethed. It had been +years since any local sensation approached this high moment.... At half +past six Pliny Pickett, Scattergood's right-hand man and general errand +boy, was seen to approach Homer on the street and to whisper to him. +Pliny always enshrouded his most matter-of-fact errands with voluminous +mystery. "Scattergood wants you sh'u'd see him right off," he said, and +tiptoed away.</p> + +<p>Another sensation occurred that evening. Scattergood Baines went to +prayer meeting in the Methodist church. When word of this was passed +about, the Baptists and Congos deserted their places of worship in +whispering groups and invaded the rival edifice until it was crowded as +it had seldom been before. Scattergood in prayer meeting! Scattergood, +who had never been inside a church since the day of his arrival in +Coldriver, forty years before.... Even Yvette Hinchbrooke and her +affairs sank into insignificance.</p> + +<p>But the amazing presence of Scattergood in church was as nothing to the +epochal fact that, after the prayer and hymn, he was seen slowly to get +to his feet. Scattergood Baines was going to lift up his voice in +meeting!</p> + +<p>"Folks," he said, "I've knowed Coldriver for quite a spell. I've knowed +its good and its bad, but the good outweighs the bad by a darn sight." +The congregation gasped.</p> + +<p>"I run on to a case to-day," he said, and then paused, apparently +thinking better of what he was going to say and taking another course. +"They's one great way to reach folks's hearts and that's through their +sympathy. All of you give up to furrin missions to rescue naked fellers +with rings in their noses. That's sympathy, hain't it? Mebby they hain't +needin' sympathy and cast-off pants, but that's neither here nor there. +You <i>think</i> they do.... Coldriver's great on sympathy, and it's a +doggone upstandin' quality." Again the audience sucked in its breath at +this approach to the language of everyday life.</p> + +<p>"If I was wantin' to stir up your sympathy, I'd tell you about a leetle +feller I seen yestiddy. Mebby I will. He wa'n't no naked heathen, and he +didn't have no ring into his nose. He was jest a boy. Uh-huh! Calculate +he might 'a' been ten year old. Couldn't walk a step. Suthin' ailed his +laigs, and he had to lay around in a chair in one of these here kind of +cheap horspittles. Alone he was. Didn't have no pa nor ma.... But he had +to be looked after by somebody, didn't he? Somebody had to pay them +bills."</p> + +<p>Scattergood blew his nose gustily. "Mebby he could 'a' been cured if +they was money to pay for costly doctorin', but they wa'n't. It took all +that could be got jest to pay for his food and keep.... Patient leetle +feller, too, and gentlelike and cheerful. Kind of took to him, I did."</p> + +<p>He paused, turned slowly, and surveyed the congregation, and frowned at +the door of the church. He coughed. He waited. The congregation turned, +following his eyes, and saw Mandy, Scattergood's ample-bosomed wife, +enter, bearing in her arms the form of a child. She walked to +Scattergood's pew and handed the boy to him. Scattergood held the child +high, so all could see.</p> + +<p>He was a red-haired little fellow, white and thin of face, with +pipe-stem legs that dangled pitifully.</p> + +<p>"I fetched him along," said Scattergood. "I wisht you'd look him over."</p> + +<p>The audience craned its neck, exclaiming, dropping tears. The heart of +Coldriver was well protected, it fancied, by an exterior of harshness +and suspicion, but Coldriver was wrong. Its heart lay near the surface, +easy of access, warm, tender, sympathetic. "This is him," said +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>He turned his face to the child. "Sonny," he said, kindly, "you hain't +got no pa nor ma?" "No, sir," said the little fellow.</p> + +<p>"And you live in one of them horspittles?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"It costs money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"How do you git it, sonny? Tell the folks."</p> + +<p>"Sister," said the child. "She's awful good to me. When she kin, she +stays whole days with me, but she can't stay much on account of havin' +to earn money to pay for me. It takes 'most all she earns.... She's had +to do kinds of work she don't like, on account of it earnin' more money +than nice jobs. We're savin' to have me cured, and then I'm goin' to go +to work and keep <i>her.</i> I got it all planned out while I was layin' +there."</p> + +<p>"Is your sister a bad woman?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody dast say that, even if I hain't got legs. I'd grab somethin' and +throw it at 'em."</p> + +<p>"Was this here sister ever one of them actoresses?"</p> + +<p>"Once, when I was sicker 'n usual ... it was awful costly. That time she +was in a show, 'cause she got more money there. She got enough to pay +for what I needed."</p> + +<p>"Wear tights, sonny? Calc'late she wore tights?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. She told me. She said to me it wasn't wearin' tights that done +harm, and she could be jest as good in tights as wearin' a fur coat if +her heart wasn't bad. That's what she said. Yes, sir, she said she +wouldn't wear nothin' if it had to be done to git me medicine."</p> + +<p>"Um!... What's this here sister's name?"</p> + +<p>"Eva Hopkins."</p> + +<p>Scattergood turned again toward the door. "Homer," he called, and Homer +Locker entered, almost dragging Yvette by the arm.... The congregation +heard one sound. It was a glad, childish cry. "Eva!... Eva!... Here I +am."</p> + +<p>Then it saw Yvette Hinchbrooke wrench free from Homer and run down the +aisle to snatch the child from Scattergood's arms into her own.</p> + +<p>Scattergood stood erect, looking from face to face in silence. It was a +full minute before he spoke.</p> + +<p>"There ..." he said. "You kin see the evil of passin' jedgments. You kin +see the evil of old coots traffickin' in rumors.... What you've heard +the boy tell is all true.... That's the girl you was ready to tar and +feather and run out of town.... Now what you think of yourselves?"</p> + +<p>It was Deacon Pettybone, blinking a mist from his watery blue eyes, who +arose to the moment. "Folks," he said, huskily, "I'm goin' to pass among +you directly, carryin' the collection plate. 'Tain't fer furrin +missions. It's fer that child yonder—to git them legs fixed.... And +standin' here I want to acknowledge to sin in public. I been hard, and +lackin' in charity. I been passin' jedgments, contrairy to God's word. I +been stiff-backed and obdurate, and I calc'late they's others a-sittin' +here that needs prayers for forgiveness.... Now I'm a-comin' with the +plate. Them that hain't prepared to give to-night kin whisper to me what +they'll give to-morrer—and have no fear of my forgittin' the amounts +they pledge.... And I'm askin' forgiveness of the young woman and hopin' +she won't hold it ag'in' an old man—when she settles down here amongst +us, like I hope she'll do."</p> + +<p>"Like she's a-goin' to do," said Jason Locker, with a voice and air of +pride. "Why, folks, that there gal is goin' to be my daughter-in-law!"</p> + +<p>Scattergood patted Yvette on the back heavily, but jubilantly. "I've +diskivered," he said, "that if you can't crack a hick'ry nut with a pad +of butter, you better use a hammer.... Sometimes Coldriver's a nut +needin' a sledge—but when it cracks it's full of meat."</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Scattergood Baines lounged back in his armchair, reinforced by iron +crosspieces to sustain his weight, and basked in the warmth from the +Round Oak stove, heated to redness by the clean, dry maple within. He +was drowsy. For the time he had ceased even to search for a scheme +whereby he could rid his hardware stock of one dozen sixteen-pound +sledge hammers acquired by him at a recent auction down in Tupper Falls. +His eyes were closed and his soul was at peace.</p> + +<p>Somebody rattled the door knob and then rapped on the door. This was so +unusual a method of seeking entrance to a hardware store that +Scattergood sat up abruptly, blinking.</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," he said, tartly, "be you comin' in, or be you goin' to stand +out there wagglin' that door knob all day?"</p> + +<p>"I'm coming in, Mr. Baines, as soon as I can contrive to open the door," +replied a male voice, a voice that appeared incapable of expressing +impatience; a gentle voice; the voice of a man who would dream dreams +but perform few actions.</p> + +<p>"Um!... It's you, hey? What d'you allus carry books under your arm for? +How d'you calculate to be able to open doors, with both hands full?"</p> + +<p>The knob turned at last, and Nahum Pound, long schoolmaster in the +little district school on Hiper Hill, came in hesitatingly, clutching +with each arm half a dozen books which struggled to escape with the +ingenuity of inanimate objects. Nahum's hair was white; his face was +vague—lovably vague.... A man of considerable, if confused, learning, +he was.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Scattergood. "Got suthin' on to your mind? Commence +unloadin' it before it busts your back."</p> + +<p>"It's Sarah," said Nahum, helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Sairy, eh? What's Sairy up to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to gather, Mr. Baines. She's—she's difficult. Something +seems to be working in her head."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two, hain't she? Twenty-two?... Prob'ly a number of things +a-workin' in her head. Got any special symptoms?"</p> + +<p>"She—she wants to leave home, Mr. Baines." Nahum said this with mild +amazement. His amazement would have been no greater—and not a whit less +mild—had his daughter announced her intention to swim from New York to +Liverpool, or to marry the chef of the Czar of Russia.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Can't say's that's onnatural—so's to require callin' in a +doctor. Live five mile from town, don't you? Nearest neighbor nigh on to +a mile. Sairy gits to see company only about so often or not so seldom +as that, eh?" Scattergood shut his eyes until there appeared at the +corners of them a network of little wrinkles. "I'm a-goin' to astonish +you, Nahum. This here hain't the first girl that ever come down with the +complaint Sairy's got!... They's been sev'ral. Complaint's older 'n you +or me.... Dum near as old as Deacon Pettybone. Uh-huh!... She's got a +attack of life, Nahum, and the only cure for it ever discovered is to +let her live.... Sairy's woke up out of childhood, Nahum. She's jest +openin' her eyes. Perty soon she'll be stirrin' around brisk.... When +you goin' to drive her in, Nahum? To-morrer?"</p> + +<p>"You—you advise letting her do this thing?"</p> + +<p>"When you goin' to fetch her in, Nahum?" Scattergood repeated.</p> + +<p>"She said she was coming Monday."</p> + +<p>"Um!... G'-by, Nahum." This was Scattergood's invariable phrase of +dismissal, given to friend or enemy alike. It was characteristic of him +that when he was through with a conversation he ended it—and left no +doubt in anybody's mind that it <i>was</i> ended. Nahum withdrew +apologetically. Scattergood called after him, "Fetch her here—to me," +he said, and, automatically, it seemed, reached for the laces of his +shoes. A problem had been presented to him which required a deal of +solving, and Scattergood could not concentrate with toes imprisoned in +leather. He even removed the white woolen socks which Mandy, his wife, +compelled him to wear in the winter season. Presently he was twiddling +his pudgy toes and concentrating on Sarah Pound. He waggled his head. +"After livin' out there," he said to himself, "she'll think Coldriver's +livin'—and so 'tis, so 'tis.... More sometimes 'n 'tis others. +Calculate this is like to be one of 'em...."</p> + +<p>Scattergood was just thinking about dinner on Monday when Nahum Pound +brought his daughter Sarah into the store. One glance at Sarah's face +taught Scattergood that she was in suspicious, if not defiant, mood. If +he had a doubt of the correctness of his observation, Sarah removed it +efficiently.</p> + +<p>"Scattergood Baines," she said, "if you think you're going to boss me +like you do father, and everybody else in this town, you're mistaken. I +won't have it.... Understand that, I won't have it."</p> + +<p>Scattergood rubbed his chin and puffed out his fat cheeks, and smiled +with deceiving mildness. "Sairy," he said, "you needn't to be scairt of +my interferin' with you in your goin's and comin's. I'd sooner stick my +hand into a kittle of b'ilin' pitch than to meddle with a young woman +in your state of mind.... I hain't hankerin' to raise no blisters."</p> + +<p>"I won't stay penned up 'way out there in the country another day. I've +got a right to live. I've got a right to see folks and to go places, +and—to—to live!"</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... To be sure. Jest itchin' to kick the top bar off'n the +pasture fence. Most certain you got a right to live, and nobody hain't +goin' to hender you ... least of all me. But there's jest one +observation I'd sort of like to let loose of, and that's this: Your +life's a whole lot like one of your arms and legs—easy busted. To be +sure, it kin be put in splints and mended up ag'in, but maybe you'll go +limpy or knit crooked so's nothin' kin keep the busted place from +showin'. Bearin' that in mind, if I was you, I wouldn't be too careless +about scramblin' up into places where you was apt to git a fall.... I +calc'late, Sairy, that it's better to miss the view than to fall out of +the tree...."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to see the view if I fall out of every tree I climb," Sarah +said, hotly.</p> + +<p>"Don't object if I find you a boardin' house?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to board with Grandma Penny that was—Mrs. Spackles."</p> + +<p>Scattergood nodded. "G'-by, Sairy.... G'-by, Nahum." He watched father +and daughter leave the store with a twinkle in his eyes, not a twinkle +of humor, but the twinkle that always came when his interest in life, +always keen, was aroused to a point where it tingled. "Calc'late to be +kep' busy—more 'n ordinary busy," he offered as an opinion to be +digested by the Round Oak stove. Presently he added: "She's perty ... +and bein' perty is kind of a remarkable thing ... bein' perty and +young.... Don't seem like God ought to hold folks accountable fer bein' +young, nor yet fer bein' good to look at ... but they's times when it +seems like He does...." On his way back to the store after dinner, +Scattergood stopped at the bank corner, hesitated a moment, and then +mounted the stairs to the offices above. A door bearing the legend, +"Robert Allen, Attorney at Law," admitted him to a large, bare office, +such as one finds in such towns as Coldriver.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Bob?" said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Mr. Baines," said the young man behind the desk, who had +suddenly pretended to be very much occupied with important matters as +his door opened.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Busy time, eh? Better come back later."</p> + +<p>"No. No, indeed. Take this chair right here, Mr. Baines. What can I do +for you?"</p> + +<p>"Depends. Uh-huh! Depends.... Calc'late to make a perty good livin', +Bob?"</p> + +<p>"No complaints."</p> + +<p>"Studied it yourself, didn't you—out of books? No college?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hard work, wasn't it? Mighty hard work?"</p> + +<p>"It might have been easier," said Bob, wondering what Scattergood was +getting at.</p> + +<p>"Like to be prosecutin' attorney for this county, Bob?"</p> + +<p>Prosecuting attorney! With a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a +year—and the prestige! Bob strove valiantly to maintain a look of +dignified interest, but with ill success.</p> + +<p>"I—I might consider it. Yes, I would consider it."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Figgered you would," said Scattergood, dryly. "Hain't got no +help in the office," he observed. "Need some, don't you? Somebody to +write letters and sort of look after things, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Why—er—I've never thought about it."</p> + +<p>"If you was to think about it, you'd calc'late on payin' about six +dollars a week, wouldn't you?" Bob swallowed hard. Six dollars a week +was a great deal of money to this young man, just embarking on the +practice of his profession. "Guess that would be about right," he said.</p> + +<p>"Got anybody in mind, Bob? Thinkin' of anybody specific for the place?"</p> + +<p>Bob shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Nahum Pound's daughter's boardin' with Grandma Penny, that's now +Mis' Spackles. All-fired perty girl, Bob. Don't call to mind no pertier. +Sairy's her name.... G'-by, Bob. G'-by."</p> + +<p>He walked to the door, but paused. "About that six dollars, Bob—I was +figgerin' on payin' that out of my own pocket."</p> + +<p>Bob Allen was not accustomed to the oversight of employees—least of all +to an employee who was very satisfying to look at, who was winsomely +young, whose mere presence distracted his thoughts from that rigorous +concentration upon the logical principles of the law.... He did not know +what to do with Sarah once he had hired her, and it required so much of +his time and brain power to think up something for her to do that it is +fortunate his practice was neither large nor arduous. It is no mean +tribute to the young man that he kept Sarah so busy with apparently +necessary matters that she had no occasion to doubt the authenticity of +her employment.</p> + +<p>Bob faced a second difficulty, due to his inexperience, and that was +that he was at a loss how to comport himself toward Sarah, as to how +friendly he should be, and as to how much he should maintain a certain +grave dignity and reserve in his dealings with her. This was a matter +which need not have troubled him, for Nature has a way of taking into +her own keeping the bearing of young men toward young women when the two +are thrown much into each other's company. Propinquity is a tremendous +force in the life of humanity. It has caused as many love affairs as +the kicking of other men's dogs has caused street fights—which numbers +into infinity. Consequently, while Bob worried much and selected a +number of widely differing attitudes—a thing which caused Sarah some +uneasiness and no little speculation as to what sort of disposition her +employer possessed—the solution lay not with him at all. It took care +of itself.</p> + +<p>Scattergood noted the significance of symptoms. He made a mental +memorandum of the fact that Bob Allen was seldom to be seen among the +post-office loafers; that Bob preferred his office to any other spot; +that Bob had ordered a new suit from a city tailor; that Bob wore a +constant air of anxiety and excitement, and—most expressive symptom of +all for a Coldriver young man—he became interested in residence +property, in lots, and in the cost of erecting dwellings.... Scattergood +looked in vain for reciprocal symptoms to be shown by Sarah. But Sarah +was a woman. What symptoms she exhibited were meaningless even to +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Bob," said Scattergood, one auspicious day, "got any pref'rence for +prosecutin' attorneys—married or single?"</p> + +<p>"It depends," said Bob, cautiously.</p> + +<p>"Um!... How's Sairy behavin', Bob?"</p> + +<p>"She's—she's—" Bob became incoherent, and then speechless.</p> + +<p>"Calc'late I foller you, Bob.... Git your point of view exact.... About +prosecutin' attorneys, Bob, I prefer 'em married."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," said Bob, "if I could get Sarah Pound to marry me, I +wouldn't give a tinker's dam who was prosecutor."</p> + +<p>"Mishandlin' of fact sim'lar to that," said Scattergood, dryly, "has +been done nigh on to a billion times.... Any idee how Sairy stands on +sich a proposition?"</p> + +<p>"She's about equally fond of me and the letter press," said Bob, +dolefully.</p> + +<p>"Good sign," said Scattergood. Then after a short pause: "Say, Bob, +still rent out drivin' hosses at the livery?... G'-by, Bob."</p> + +<p>Bob was astonished to find how easy it is to ask a girl to go driving +the second time—after you have spent an anxious, dubious, fearsome day +screwing up your courage to ask her the first time. He was delighted, +too, because he even fancied Sarah now discriminated between him and the +letter press—in his favor. Bob came fresh and unsophisticated to the +business in hand, which was courtship. Sarah had never before been +courted, but she recognized a courtship when she saw it at such close +range, and found it delightfully exciting. Bob did his clumsy, earnest, +honest best, and Sarah, somewhat to her surprise, became more satisfied +with the universe and with her share in its destinies.... In short, +matters were progressing as nature intended they should progress, and +Scattergood felt almost that they might be trusted to go forward to a +satisfactory dénouement without his interference.</p> + +<p>Then old Solon Beatty died!</p> + +<p>This solved one of Bob Allen's problems; it furnished plenty of +authentic work for Sarah Pound—for Bob was retained as attorney for old +Solon's estate, which he found to be in an amazing state of confusion. +Old Solon left behind him, reluctantly, property of divers kinds, and in +numerous localities, valued at upward of a hundred thousand dollars, +split and invested into as many enterprises and mortgages and savings +accounts as there were dollars! This made work. There were papers to +sort and list, to file and to schedule—clerical work in abundance. It +interfered with the more important business of courtship, but even in +this respect it was not without a certain value.</p> + +<p>"Who's going to get all this money?" Sarah asked, one morning after she +had been listing mortgages until her head ached with the sight of +figures and descriptions. "Does Mary Beatty get it all?"</p> + +<p>"Not unless we find a will somewhere. Everybody thought Solon's +niece—which is Mary Beatty—would get the whole estate. Solon intended +it should go that way, and the Lord knows she's worked for him and +nursed him and coddled him enough to deserve it. Gave her whole life up +to the old codger ... But we can't find a will, and so she won't get but +half. The rest goes to Solon's nephew, Farley Curtis ... under the +statute of descent and distribution, you know," he finished, learnedly.</p> + +<p>"Farley Curtis.... I never heard of him."</p> + +<p>"He's never been here—at least not for years. But he'll be along now. +We're due to see him soon."</p> + +<p>"Correct," said a voice from the door, which had opened silently. In it +stood a young man of dress and demeanor not indigenous to Coldriver. +"You're due to see Farley Curtis—so you behold him. Look me over +carefully. I was due—therefore I arrive." The young man laughed +pleasantly, as if he intended his words to be regarded as whimsical, +yet, somehow, Bob felt the whimsicality to be surface deep; that Curtis +was a young man with much confidence in himself, who felt that if he +were due he would inevitably arrive.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Allen, I suppose," said Curtis, extending his hand. "I am told you +are handling the legal affairs of my late uncle's estate."</p> + +<p>Sarah Pound eyed the newcomer, and as the young men shook hands compared +them, to Bob Allen's disadvantage. To inexperience any comparison must +be to Bob's disadvantage, for Curtis was handsome, dressed with taste, +and gifted with a worldly certainty of manner and an undeniable charm. +Sarah had never encountered all these attributes in a single individual. +She drew on her reading of fiction and knew at once that she was in the +presence of that wonderful creature she had seen described so +frequently—a gentleman. As for Bob Allen, he was big, rugged, careless +of dress, kindly, without pretense of polish.... And besides, to +Curtis's advantage there attached to him a certain literary glamour—of +heirship—and a mystery due to his sudden appearance out of the great +unknown that lay beyond the confines of Coldriver.</p> + +<p>"I am in the dark," said Curtis. "All I know is that Uncle Solon is +dead. It is proper I should come to you for information, is it not? For +instance, there is no harm in asking if there is a will?"</p> + +<p>"None has been found," said Bob, not graciously. He had taken a dislike +to this stranger instinctively, a dislike which increased at an amazing +pace as he noted Curtis's eyes cast admiring glances upon Sarah Pound.</p> + +<p>"In which case," said the young man, "I suppose I may regard myself as +an interested party."</p> + +<p>"Yourself and Miss Beatty are the heirs—so far as has been determined."</p> + +<p>"You have searched all my uncle's papers?"</p> + +<p>"We have gone through them, but not so thoroughly as to reach a final +conclusion. He was a peculiar old man."</p> + +<p>"And no will has been found? No—other papers—" Curtis smiled +deprecatingly. "It is only natural I should be interested," he said, and +smiled at Sarah.</p> + +<p>"Was there anything special you wanted to ask?"</p> + +<p>"Only if there was a will—or other paper." There was a curious +hesitation in Farley Curtis's voice as he spoke the last two words. "I'm +glad, of course, there's not.... Thank you. Think I'll stay in town till +the thing is settled up. Probably see you often. Pleased to have met +you." He included Sarah in the bow with which he took his leave.</p> + +<p>For a few days Farley Curtis lived at the Coldriver House, then moved +to Grandmother Penny's, where Sarah Pound boarded. Secretly Bob Allen +was furious, without apparent cause. He had no reason to draw +conclusions, for boarding houses were scarce in Coldriver. What Sarah +thought of the event was not so easily discovered.</p> + +<p>Bob would naturally have discussed immediately the significance of +Farley Curtis's arrival in Coldriver, with Scattergood, for everybody in +Coldriver went to Scattergood with whatever important occurrence that +befell, but Scattergood was absent on a political mission. When he +returned Bob lost no time in laying the matter before him.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Calculated he'd turn up. Natural.... Acted kind of anxious, eh? +What was it he said about a will—or somethin'?"</p> + +<p>Bob repeated Curtis's conversation minutely.</p> + +<p>"Um!... That young man didn't suspect—he <i>knew</i>," said Scattergood, +reaching automatically for his shoes. "What he wanted to know was—has +it been found?... Um!... Not a will. Somethin'. Somethin' he's afraid of +bein' found.... Hain't the kind of feller I'd like to see spendin' old +Solon's money.... Guess you and me'll go through them papers ag'in."</p> + +<p>So with minute care Bob and Scattergood examined the documents and +memoranda and receipts and accounts of Solon Beatty, but no will, no +minute reference to Farley Curtis, was discovered. They went again to +Solon's house to question Mary and to rummage there with the hope of +falling upon some such hiding place as the queer old man might have +chosen as the safe depository of his will. Mary Beatty was not helpful; +middle-aged, with wasted youth behind her; she was even resentful that +her meticulous housekeeping should be disturbed.</p> + +<p>Scattergood and Bob sat down in the parlor, discouraged. It was evident +there was no will. Solon had neglected to attend to that matter until +it was too late.... Scattergood wiggled his feet uneasily and stared at +the motto over the door.</p> + +<p>"Solon didn't run much to religion," he observed.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mary Beatty.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Have a Bible, maybe? One of them big ones?"</p> + +<p>"Up in his room, Mr. Baines. It always laid on the table +there—unopened."</p> + +<p>"Opened it yourself lately, Mary? Been readin' the Scriptures out of +that p'tic'lar book?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Got a kind of a hankerin' to read a verse or two," said +Scattergood. "Come on, Bob. You 'n' me'll peruse Solon's Bible some."</p> + +<p>The huge Bible with its Doré illustrations lay on the marble-topped +table in old Solon's bedroom. Scattergood opened it—found it stiff with +lack of use, its pages clinging together as if their gilt edging had +never been broken.... Bob leaned over Scattergood while the old man +rapidly thumbed the pages.... He brought to light a pressed flower, and +shrugged his shoulders. What moment of softness in the life of a hard +old man did this flower commemorate?... A letter whose ink was faded to +illegibility! Even Solon Beatty had once known the rose-leaf scent of +romance.</p> + +<p>"Nothing there," said Bob.</p> + +<p>"The reason folks seldom find things," said Scattergood, "is that they +say 'Nothin' there' before they've half looked.... They might be any +quantity of things in this Bible that we hain't overhauled yet." The old +man stood a moment frowning down at the book. "Births and deaths," he +said to himself. "Births and deaths—and marryin's...." Rapidly he +turned to the illumined pages on which were set down the family records +of the Beattys. "Um!... Jest sich a place as he'd pick out.... What you +make of this, Bob?"</p> + +<p>Scattergood loosened a sheet of paper which had been lightly glued to +the page. "Hain't got my specs, Bob."</p> + +<p>The young lawyer read it, re-read it aloud. "I, Farley Curtis, one of +the two legal heirs of Solon Beatty, of Coldriver Township, do hereby +acknowledge the receipt of ten thousand dollars, the same to be +considered an advance of my share of the said Solon Beatty's estate. +For, and in consideration of the said ten thousand dollars I hereby +waive all claims to any further participation in the said estate, and +agree that I will not, whether the said Solon Beatty dies testate or +intestate, make any claim against the said estate, nor upon Mary Beatty, +who, by this advance to me, becomes sole heir to the said estate.'"</p> + +<p>Bob drew a long breath. Scattergood stared owlishly at Mary Beatty.</p> + +<p>"Now, what d'you think of that, eh? Shouldn't be s'prised if that was +the i-dentical paper that was weighin' on the mind of young Mr. Curtis. +Shouldn't be a mite s'prised if 'twas."</p> + +<p>"What is it, Mr. Baines?" asked Mary Beatty. "A will?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al, offhand I'd say it was consid'able better 'n a will. Ya-as.... +Wills kin be busted, but this here docyment—I calc'late it would take +mighty powerful hammerin' to knock it apart."</p> + +<p>"And, Mary," said Bob, "if I were you I shouldn't mention the finding of +it."</p> + +<p>"Not to a soul," said Scattergood. "We'll take it mighty soft and spry +and shet it up in Bob's safe.... Anybody know the combination to it +besides you, Bob?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody but you, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Oh, me!... To be sure, me."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Pound." "Um!... Sairy, eh? Course.... Sairy."</p> + +<p>Within twenty-four hours everybody in Coldriver knew a paper of great +significance had been discovered affecting the heirs to Solon Beatty's +estate, and that the paper was locked in Bob Allen's safe. Bob had not +talked; Scattergood certainly had been silent, and Mary Beatty solemnly +averred that no word had passed her lips. Yet the fact was there for all +to contemplate.... Farley Curtis devoted an entire day to the +contemplation of it in his room at Grandmother Penny's.... That evening +he invited Sarah Pound to drive with him. She found him a delightful and +entertaining companion.</p> + +<p>Sunday was still two days away when Bob looked up from his desk to say +to Sarah: "This Beatty matter has kept us so busy there hasn't been any +time for pleasure. You must be tired out, Miss Pound. Wouldn't you like +to start early Sunday and drive over to White Pine for dinner—and come +back after the sun goes down? It's a beautiful drive."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Sarah, flushing with a feeling that was akin to guilt, +"but I am engaged Sunday."</p> + +<p>Bob turned again to his work, cast into sudden gloom, and wondering +jealously what was Sarah's engagement. Sarah, not altogether easy in her +mind, nor wholly pleased with herself, endeavored to justify herself for +being so lightly off with the old and on with the new.... She compared +Bob to Farley Curtis, and found the comparison not in Bob's favor. Not +that this was exactly a justification, but it was a salve. Sarah was in +the shopping period of her life—shopping for a husband, so to speak. +She was entitled to the best she could get ... and Bob did not seem to +be the best. Farley was sprightly, interesting, with the manners of a +more effete world than Coldriver; Bob was awkward, ofttimes silent, +lacking polish. Farley was solicitous in small matters that Bob failed +utterly to perceive; Farley was always skilled in minute points of +decorum, whose very existence was unknown to Bob. In short, Farley was +altogether fascinating, while Bob, at best, was commonplace. Yet, not in +her objective mind, but deep in her centers of intuition, she was +conscious of a hesitancy, conscious of something that urged her toward +Bob and warned her against Farley Curtis.</p> + +<p>On Sunday Bob saw Sarah drive away with Curtis—and spent a black day of +jealousy and heartburning. During the succeeding two weeks he spent many +black days and sleepless nights, for Curtis monopolized Sarah's leisure, +and Sarah seemed to have thrown discretion to the winds and clothed +herself against fear of Coldriver's gossip, for she seemed to give her +company almost eagerly to the stranger.... And Coldriver talked.</p> + +<p>Bob spoke bitterly of the matter to Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"Um!..." grunted Scattergood, "don't seem to recall any statute +forbiddin' any young feller to git him any gal he kin. Eh?"</p> + +<p>"No. But this Curtis—there's something wrong there. He isn't intending +to play fair.... I—He's got some kind of a purpose, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Think so, eh? What kind of a purpose?" Scattergood had his own ideas on +this subject, but did not disclose them. It was in his mind that Curtis +cultivated Sarah because of Sarah's propinquity of a certain paper which +the man had reason to believe was in Bob Allen's safe.</p> + +<p>Bob's face was set and stern, granite as the hills among which he had +been born and which had become a part of his nature. "If he doesn't play +fair ... if he should—hurt her ... I'd take him apart, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Calc'late you would," said Scattergood, tranquilly, "but there's a law +in sich case, made and pervided, callin' that kind of amusement +murder ..."</p> + +<p>It was not Scattergood's custom to publish his emotions; nevertheless +he was worried. He appreciated the state of mind which had brought Sarah +to Coldriver—the spirit of restless, resentful youth, demanding the +world for its plaything. He knew Sarah's high temper, her eagerness for +adventure.... He knew that thousands of girls before her had been +fascinated by well-told tales of the life to be lived out in the world +of cities, of wealth, of artificial gayeties ... the lure of travel, of +excitement.... And Scattergood did not covet the duty of carrying a +woeful story to old Nahum Pound, the gentle schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>His uneasiness was not decreased by a bit of unpremeditated +eavesdropping that fell in his way the next evening.... Farley Curtis +was talking, Sarah Pound was listening—eagerly.</p> + +<p>"You can't understand what living is," the man was saying, "How could +you? You haven't lived. Here in this backwater you will never live.... +You move around in a fog of monotony. Every day the same. But out +there.... Everything! Everything you want and can imagine is there for +the taking. A beautiful woman can take what she wants—that's what it's +all for—for her to help herself to. Life and excitement and +pleasure—and love ... they are all out there waiting."</p> + +<p>Sarah sighed.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever try to imagine Paris, London, Madrid, Rome?" he went on. +"You can't do it.... But you can see them. I—I would take you if you +would let me ... if things fall out right. I'm poor ...but with this +Beatty money I could take you anywhere. It would give us everything we +want.... Half of that money belongs to me rightfully, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"But I may not get it."</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"There is a paper," he said, "and that paper may stand between you and +me—and Paris and Rome and the world...." He paused, and then said, +carelessly: "Won't you go with me, Sarah—away from this? Won't you let +me take you, to love and to make happy?"</p> + +<p>Presently she spoke, so low her voice was scarcely audible to +Scattergood. "I don't know.... I don't know," she said.</p> + +<p>Scattergood had heard enough. He stole away silently. The time had come +to act, if he were going to act ... if no woeful story were to be +carried to old Nahum Pound concerning his daughter. He might even be too +late.... The lure of great cities and foreign shores might have done its +work, and Farley Curtis's eloquence have served its purpose.</p> + +<p>In the morning Bob Allen was early at his office. His first act was to +open the safe to take out a packet of papers he had been laboring over +the afternoon before.... The packet was not where he had placed it the +night before. He remembered distinctly how he had shoved it into a +certain pigeonhole.... It was not there. He found it in the compartment +below.... Bob was not easily startled or frightened, so now he paused +and took his memory to account. No.... The fault was not with his +memory. He had done exactly as he remembered doing.... Somebody had +opened that safe since he closed it; somebody had fingered its +contents.... He caught his breath, not at the fear of loss, but in +sudden terror of the means by which that loss had been brought about, +the person who might have been the instrument.... Furiously he began +going over the contents of the safe—money, securities, papers. +Everything seemed intact. But one thing remained—the little drawer. He +had put off opening that, because he dreaded to open it, for it +contained the paper that excluded Farley Curtis from a share in his +uncle's estate.... Bob compelled himself to turn the little key, to +open the drawer.... It was empty!...</p> + +<p>Bob walked slowly to his desk and sat down, his eyes fixed upon the safe +as if it fascinated him.... Facts, facts! His soul demanded facts. Those +at hand were few, simple. First, the safe had been opened by some one +who knew the combination. Three persons existed who might have opened +it—or betrayed its combination: Scattergood, himself, Sarah Pound.... +Second, he knew he had not opened it nor betrayed the combination. +Third, he was equally certain Scattergood had not done so.... Fourth—he +groaned!...</p> + +<p>Bob comprehended what had happened; why Farley Curtis had wooed so +persistently Sarah Pound. It was not out of love nor desire, but for a +more sordid purpose ... it was to win her love, to blind her to honor, +to make a tool of her, and through her to secure possession of that bit +of paper which stood between him and riches.</p> + +<p>Presently Sarah Pound entered. Bob could not force himself to look at +her; did not speak. She gazed at him curiously, and when she saw the +grayness of his face, the lines about his mouth, and eyes that advanced +his age by twenty years, she felt a little catch at her heart, a +breathlessness, a sudden alarm.</p> + +<p>"Miss Pound," he said, in a voice which he himself could not recognize +as his own, "you needn't take off your hat.... You—you actually came +back here! You were bold enough to come again to this office.... I +fancied you would be gone—from Coldriver." His voice broke queerly. "I +suppose you realize what you have done—and are satisfied with the +price—the price of forfeiting the respect of every honest man and woman +you know! That is a great deal to give up. It ought to command a high +price—treachery.... I hope you are getting a sufficient return.... It +means nothing to you, of course, but—I loved you. I thought about you +as a man thinks about the woman he hopes will be his wife ... and his +children's mother ... so it—pains—to find you despicable...."</p> + +<p>Sarah's little fists clenched, her eyes glinted.</p> + +<p>"How dare you?" she cried. "What affair is it of yours what I do?... +You're a silly, jealous idiot." With which childish invective she flung +out of the office.</p> + +<p>In an hour Bob Allen was calmer, and so the more unhappy. His mind +cleared, and, being cleared, it directed him to carry his trouble to +Scattergood Baines.</p> + +<p>"Um!... Gone, eh?" said Scattergood. "Sure it's gone?... Um!..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Sarah Pound will be gone, too. How dared she come back to my +office?... Now she'll go with Curtis."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't be s'prised," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "I heard +Farley a-pointin' out to her the <i>dee</i>-sirability of Paris and Rome and +sich European p'ints last night.... You calculate Sairy took the paper?"</p> + +<p>"What else can I think?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... Um!... Paris, Rome, London—might be argued into +stealin' it myself, if I was a gal. Um!... Ever see a toad ketch flies, +Bob? Does it with his tongue. There's toad men, Bob, that goes huntin' +wimmin the same way—with their tongues. Su'prisin' the number and +quality they ketch, too. What was you plannin' on doin', Bob? Goin' back +to your office, wasn't you? And keepin' your mouth shet? Was that the +idee? Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do, Mr. Baines."</p> + +<p>"Didn't figger on droppin' around to Grandma Penny's boardin' house +about eight sharp, did you? Eight sharp.... And kind of settin' down +quiet on the front porch? Jest settin'? Eh?... G'-by, Bob."</p> + +<p>After Bob left the store Scattergood sat half an hour staring at the +stove; then he left the store to its own devices and wandered up the +street toward Grandmother Penny's. He encountered Sarah Pound as she +came out through the gate.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Sairy?" he said, cheerfully. "Havin' consid'able amusement with +life—eh?"</p> + +<p>"I've been enjoying myself, Mr. Baines," Sarah said, making an effort at +coldness and dignity.</p> + +<p>"Bet you hain't enjoyin' yourself enough to warrant your doin' a favor +for an old feller like me, eh?... This evenin', for instance?"</p> + +<p>"I—I'm going away this evening."</p> + +<p>"Um!... Goin' away, eh? Alone? Or along with somebody?"</p> + +<p>"That's my own affair."</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... To be sure, but the train don't leave till nine, does +it? Couldn't manage to do me a favor at eight?"</p> + +<p>"What is the favor, Mr. Baines?"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't much. Sca'cely anythin' a-tall. I calc'late to be a-settin' in +Grandma Penny's parlor at eight sharp. I won't keep you waitin' more 'n +a second—unless somebody happens to be with me a-talkin' my arm off. If +they hain't nobody with me, why, you walk right in. If they is somebody, +why, you jest stand outside of the door a second, and they'll be gone. +Then you come in. But don't come rompin' in if you hear voices. It's a +mite of business, and 'twon't take but a second. Calc'late you kin +manage that, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, shortly.</p> + +<p>"Promise?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"G'-by, Sairy."</p> + +<p>At five minutes before eight Scattergood Baines rapped at Grandmother +Penny's door and asked to speak to Farley Curtis, "Tell him it's +somethin' p'tic'lar reegardin' the Beatty estate," he said, and stepped +into the parlor. Farley appeared almost instantly; dapper, his usual +courteous, self-possessed self. Scattergood began a peculiar and +roundabout conversation after the manner of a man who fears to broach a +subject plainly. Farley showed his irritation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baines," he said, "suppose you get down to business. I'm going away +this evening."</p> + +<p>"To be sure.... To be sure. It's overlappin' eight now, hain't it?" +Scattergood paused, listening. He fancied he heard some one approach and +halt just outside the door. He was certain that a chair creaked on the +porch outside the window.... He cleared his throat and drew a big yellow +envelope from his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Calculate I'm ready for business, if you be.... Which d'you calc'late +is most desirable—havin' half a loaf, or no bread?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You come to Coldriver on business, didn't you? Money business?"</p> + +<p>"Why I came is my own affair."</p> + +<p>"Certain.... Certain.... But things gets noised about. Things has got +noised about concernin' a paper that stands betwixt you and half of the +Beatty estate. Heard 'em myself." Scattergood waggled the envelope. "I +hain't exactly objectin' to makin' a leetle quick money +myself—supposin' it kin be done safe, and the blame, if they is any, +throwed somewheres else.... Now, Mr. Curtis, what kind of a course would +you foller if that paper we been talkin' about was to fall into the +hands of a feller that felt like I do about makin' money?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Farley demanded, moving forward eagerly in his +chair.</p> + +<p>"Hain't good at guessin', be you?"</p> + +<p>"That paper doesn't worry me," said Farley. "Calc'lated on havin' it +before you took the train to-night, eh?"</p> + +<p>Farley scowled.</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I wasn't seein' sich a chance to make a dollar slip +by. The way you was figgerin' on gittin' that paper, Mr. Curtis, won't +work. I know. Uh-huh! I know, because I got ahead of you. I got that +paper myself.... And we kin deal if I kin be made to feel safe.... Most +things leaks out through wimmin.... Hain't mixin' any wimmin into this, +be you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Um!... How about Sairy Pound?"</p> + +<p>Curtis shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Calc'latin' on takin' her away with you to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Not now," said Farley.</p> + +<p>"Seein's how you can't use her to git this paper for you, eh? That it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Calc'lated on marryin' her, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Curtis, harshly.</p> + +<p>"Understand me, I hain't takin' chances.... If this gal's mixed up in +this, I don't deal."</p> + +<p>"Do I look like a man who would let a silly, backwoods idiot of a girl +stand between me and money? I'm through with her. She's no use to me +now. You've said that yourself.... She's nothing to me."</p> + +<p>"Good.... I got the paper right here, and I'm a-listenin' to your offer +for it...."</p> + +<p>"Ten thous—" began Farley, but a swift, furious thrusting open of the +parlor door interrupted, as Sarah Pound flung herself into the room. For +a moment she was speechless with rage.... Shame would come later.... +"You contemptible—contemptible—contemptible—" she cried, +breathlessly. "It was a thing like you I—I could choose!... I could +throw away a man for you!... For a suit of clothes, and manners, and a +lying tongue.... I could compare Bob Allen with you—and choose you!... +Oh!..."</p> + +<p>"Sairy," said Scattergood.</p> + +<p>"But I never would have done it—not that. I'd never have taken that +paper.... You know I wouldn't, Mr. Baines. Say you know that...."</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," said Scattergood, dryly, "they hain't no tellin' how fur a +woman'll go when she's bein' bamboozled by a scamp—so I kind of insured +ag'in' your takin' it by takin' it myself.... Er—Mr. Curtis, if I was +you, I'd sort of slip out soft by the back door. Bob Allen's a-waitin' +for you on the front porch.... There's a train at nine."</p> + +<p>Scattergood put a clumsy arm about Sarah, who, the moment her wrathful +energy ebbed away, sobbed and sobbed and sobbed with shame and fear.</p> + +<p>"Hey, out there," shouted Scattergood, "git a move on you!"</p> + +<p>Bob Allen needed no urging. His arm was substituted for Scattergood's, +his breast for Scattergood's—and Sarah made no complaint. "I +wouldn't.... I wouldn't.... You thought I did," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I thought that," said Bob, brokenly. "How can you ever forgive me?... +I—But I love you, Sarah. Won't that make up for it?"</p> + +<p>"You—believed it," she repeated, and Scattergood grinned.</p> + +<p>"Dummed if she hain't managed to put him in the wrong.... You can't beat +wimmin.... She's put him in the wrong."</p> + +<p>Scattergood peered at them a moment, saw what filled him with perfect +satisfaction, and discreetly withdrew. He went out and sat on the porch +and beamed up at the stars.... He sat there a long, long time, and +nobody called him in. He got up, pressed his nose against the window, +and rapped on the glass.</p> + +<p>"Everybody forgiv' and fixed up," he called, "so's I kin git to bed with +an easy mind?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer. He had not been heard—but what he saw was answer +sufficient for any man.</p> +<br /> + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Scattergood Baines, by Clarence Budington Kelland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCATTERGOOD BAINES *** + +***** This file should be named 13307-h.htm or 13307-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/0/13307/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Cori Samuel and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: Scattergood Baines + +Author: Clarence Budington Kelland + +Release Date: August 27, 2004 [EBook #13307] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCATTERGOOD BAINES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Cori Samuel and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +SCATTERGOOD BAINES + +By +CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND + +Author of +"_The High Flyers_," "_The Little Moment of Happiness_," +"_Sudden Jim_," "_Youth Challenges_," etc. + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. +I. HE INVADES COLDRIVER +II. SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST +III. THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD +IV. HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING +V. HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS +VI. INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE +VII. HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER +VIII. HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON +IX. HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP +X. HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK +XI. HE INVESTS IN SALVATION +XII. THE SON THAT WAS DEAD +XIII. HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT +XIV. HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE + + + +CHAPTER I + +HE INVADES COLDRIVER + + +The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner +of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear +past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the +grocery--he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat. + +It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the +railroad, subsisting on the country, as it were, and sagged down on the +porch of Locker's grocery just before sundown. It is not implied that he +walked all of the twenty-four miles in that single day. Huge bodies move +deliberately. + +He sagged down on Locker's porch, and it is reported the corner of the +porch sagged with him. George Peddie has it from his grandfather, who +was an eyewitness, that Scattergood did not so much as turn his head to +look at the assembled manhood of the vicinity, but with infinite pains +and audible grunts, succeeded in bringing first one foot, then the +other, within reach of his hands, and removed his shoes. Following this +he sighed with a great contentment and twiddled his bare toes openly and +flagrantly in the eyes of all Coldriver. He is said now to have uttered +the first words to fall from his mouth in the town where were to lie his +life's unfoldings and fulfillments. They were significant--in the light +of subsequent activities. + +"One of them railroads runnin' up here," said he to the mountain just +across the road from him, "would have spared me close to a dozen +blisters." + +Conversation had expired on Scattergood's arrival, and the group on the +porch converted itself into an audience. It was an audience that got its +money's worth. Not for an instant did the attention of a single member +of it stray away from this Godsend come to furnish them with their first +real topic of conversation since Crazy French stole a box of Paris +green, mistaking it for a new sort of pancake flour. + +Scattergood arose ponderously and limped out into the middle of the +dusty road. From this vantage point he slowly and conscientiously +studied the village. + +"Uh-huh!" he said. "'Twouldn't pay to do all that walkin' just for a +visit. Calc'late I'll have to settle." + +He walked directly back to the absorbed group of leading citizens, his +shoes dangling, one in each hand, and addressed them genially. + +"Your town," said he, "is growin'. Its population jest increased by me." + +"Sizable growth," said Old Man Penny, dryly, letting his eye rove over +Scattergood's bulk. + +"My line," said Scattergood, "is anythin' needful. Outside of a +railroad, what you figger you need most?" + +Nobody answered. + +"Is it a grocery store?" asked Scattergood. + +Locker stiffened in his chair. "Me and Sam Kittleman calc'lates to sell +all the groceries this town needs," he said. + +"How about dry goods?" said Scattergood. + +Old Man Penny and Wade Lumley stirred to life at this. + +"Lumley and me takes care of the dry goods," said the old man. + +"Uh-huh! How about a clothin' store?" + +"We got all the clothin' stores there's room for," said Lafe Atwell. "I +run it." + +"Kind of got the business of this town sewed up, hain't you?" +Scattergood asked, admiringly. "Wouldn't look with favor on any more +stores?" + +"We calculate to keep what business we got," said Old Man Penny. "A +outsider would have a hard time makin' a go of it here." + +"Quite likely," said Scattergood. "Still, you never can tell. Let some +feller come in here with a gen'ral store, sellin' for cash--and cuttin' +prices, eh? How would an outsider git along if he done that? Up-to-date +store. Fresh goods. Low prices. Eh? Calc'late some of you fellers would +have to discharge a clerk." + +"You hain't got money enough to start a store," Old Man Penny squawked. +"Why, you hain't even got a satchel! You come walkin' in like a tramp." + +"There's tramps--and tramps," said Scattergood, placidly. He reached far +down into a trousers pocket and tugged to the light of day a roll that +his fingers could not encircle. He looked at it fondly, tossed it up in +the air a couple of times and caught it, and then held it between thumb +and forefinger until the eyes of his audience had assured themselves +that the outside bill was yellow and its denomination twenty dollars.... +The audience gulped. + +"Meals to the tavern perty good?" Coldriver's new citizen asked. + +"Say," demanded Locker, "be you really thinkin' about startin' a cash +store here?" + +"Neighbor," said Scattergood, "never give up valuable information +without gittin' somethin' for it. How much money would a complete and +careful account of my intentions be worth to you?" + +Locker snorted. "Bet that wad of bills is a dummy with a counterfeit +twenty outside of it," he said. + +Scattergood smiled tantalizingly. Locker had not, fortunately for +Scattergood, the least idea how close to the truth he had been. On one +point only had he been mistaken. The twenty outside was _not_ +counterfeit. However, except for three fives, four twos, and ninety +cents in silver, it represented Scattergood's total cash capital. + +"I'm goin'," said Scattergood, "to order me _two_ suppers. Two! From +bean soup to apple pie. It's my birthday. Twenty-six to-day, and I +always eat two suppers on my birthdays.... Glad you leadin' citizens see +fit to give me such a hearty welcome to your town. Right kind and +generous of you." + +He turned and ambled down the road toward the tavern, planting his bare +feet with evident pleasure in the deepest of the warm sand, and flirting +up little clouds of it behind him. The audience saw him seat himself on +the tavern steps and pull on his shoes. They were too far to hear him +say speculatively to himself: "I never heard tell of a man gittin' a +start in life jest that way--but _that_ hain't any reason it can't be +done. I'm goin' to do this town good, and this valley. Hain't no more 'n +fair them leadin' citizens should give me what help they feel they kin." + +Scattergood ate with ease and pleasure two complete suppers--to the +openly expressed admiration of Emma, the waitress. Very shortly +afterward he retired to his room, where, not trusting to the sturdiness +of the bed-slats provided, he dragged mattress and bedding to the floor +and was soon emitting snores that Landlord Coombs assured his wife was +the beat of anybody ever slept in the house not countin' that travelin' +man from Boston. Next morning Scattergood was about early, padding +slowly up and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was +studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had +been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for +purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in +Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a +permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really +was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and after reflection. + +True, he had but a moment's glimpse of Coldriver before he decided he +had moved there, but the glimpse showed him the location was the one he +had been searching for.... Scattergood's specialty, his hobby, was +valleys. Valleys down which splashed and roared sizable streams, whose +mountain sides were covered with timber, and whose flats were +comfortable farms--such valleys interested him with an especial +interest. But the valley he had been looking for was one with but a +single possible _outlet_. He wanted a valley whose timber and produce +and products could not go climbing off across the hills, over a number +of easy roads, to market. His valley must be hemmed in. The only way to +market must lie _down_ the valley, with the river. And the river that +flowed down his valley must be swift, with sufficient volume all twelve +months of the year to turn possible mill wheels.... As yet he thought +only of the direct application of power. He had not dreamed yet of great +turbine generators which should transport thousands of horse power, +written in terms of electricity, hundreds of miles across country, there +to light cities and turn the wheels of huge manufactories.... + +Coldriver Valley was that valley! He felt it as soon as he turned into +it; certainty increased as he progressed between those gigantic walls +black with tall, straight, beautiful spruce. So, when he sat shoeless, +resting his blistered feet on Locker's porch, he was ready to make his +decision. The mere making of it was a negligible detail. + +So Scattergood Baines found his valley. He entered it consciously as an +invader, determined to conquer. Pitiful as were the resources of Cortez +as he adventured against the power of Montezuma, or of Pizarro as he +clambered over the Peruvian Andes, they were gigantic compared with +Scattergood's. He was starting to make _his_ conquest backed by one +twenty, three fives, four twos, and ninety cents in silver. It was +obvious to him the country to be conquered must supply the sinews of war +for its own conquest. + +Every village has its ramshackle, disused store building. Coldriver had +one, especially well located, and not so ramshackle as it might have +been. It was big; its front was crossed by a broad porch; its show +windows were not show windows at all, but were put there solely to give +light. Coldriver did not know there was such a thing as inviting +patronage by skillful display. + +"Sonny," said Scattergood to a boy digging worms in the shade of the +building, "who owns this here ruin?" + +"Old Tom Plummer," said the boy, and was even able to disclose where old +Tom was to be found. Scattergood found him feeding a dozen White +Orpingtons. + +"Best layers a man can keep," said Scattergood, sincerely. "Man's got to +have brains to even raise chickens." + +"I git more eggs to the hen than anybody else in town," said old Tom, +"but nobody listens to me." + +"Own a store buildin' downtown, don't you?" + +"Calc'late to." + +"If you was to git a chance to rent it, how much would it be a month?" + +"Repairs or no repairs?" + +"No repairs." + +"Twenty dollars." + +"G'mornin'," said Scattergood, and turned toward the gate. + +"What's your hurry, mister?" + +"Can't bear to stay near a man that mentions so much money in a breath," +said Scattergood, with his most ingratiating grin. + +"How much could you stay and hear?" + +"Not over ten." + +"Huh!... Seein' the buildin's in poor shape, I'll call it fifteen." + +"Twelve-fifty's as far's I'll go--on a five-year lease," said +Scattergood. It will be seen he fully intended to become permanent. + +"What you figger on usin' it fur?" + +"Maybe a opry house, maybe a dime museum, maybe a carpenter shop, and +maybe somethin' else. I hain't mentionin' jest what, but it's +law-abidin' and respectable." + +"Five-year lease, eh? Twelve-fifty." + +"Two months' rent in advance," said Scattergood. + +"Squire Hastings'll draw the papers," said old Tom, heading for the +gate. Scattergood followed, and in half an hour was the lessee of a +store building, bound to pay rent for five years, with more than half +his capital vanished--with no stock of goods or wherewith to procure +one, with not even a day's experience in any sort of merchandising to +his credit. + +His next step was to buy ten yards of white cloth, a small paint brush, +and a can of paint. Ostentatiously he borrowed a stepladder and +stretched the cloth across the front of his store, from post to post. +Then, equally ostentatiously, he mounted the stepladder and began to +paint a sign. He was not unskilled in the business of lettering. The +sign, when completed, read: + + CASH AND CUT PRICES IS MY MOTTO + +Having completed this, he bought a pail, a mop, and a broom, and +proceeded to a thorough housecleaning of his premises. + +Old Man Penny and Locker and the rest of the merchants were far from +oblivious to Scattergood's movements. No sooner had his sign appeared +than every merchant in town--excepting Junkin, the druggist, who sold +wall paper and farm machinery as side lines--went into executive session +in the back room of Locker's store. + +"He means business," said Locker. + +"Leased that store for five year," said Old Man Penny. + +"Cash, and Cut Prices," quoted Atwell, "and you fellers know our folks +would pass by their own brothers to save a penny. He'll force us to cut, +too." + +"Me--I won't do it," asserted Kettleman. + +"Then you'll eat your stock," growled Locker. + +"Fellers," said Atwell, "if this man gits started it's goin' to cost all +of us money. He'll draw some trade, even if he don't cut prices. Safe to +figger he'll git a sixth of it. And a sixth of the business in this +region is a pretty fair livin'. If he goes slashin' right and left, +nobody kin tell how much trade he'll draw." + +"We should 'a' leased that store between us. Then nobody could 'a' come +in." + +"But we didn't. And it's goin' to cost us money. If he puts in clothing +it'll cost me five hundred dollars a year in profits, anyhow. Maybe +more. And you other fellers clost to as much." + +"But we can't do nothin'." + +"We can buy him off," said Atwell. + +The meeting at that moment became noisy. Epithets were applied with +freedom to Scattergood, and even to Atwell, for these were not men who +loved to part with their money. However, Atwell showed them the economy +of it. It was either for them to suffer one sharp pang now, or to endure +a greater dragging misery. They went in a body to call upon Scattergood. + +"Howdy, neighbors!" Scattergood said, genially. + +"We're the merchants of this town," said Old Man Penny, shortly. + +"So I judged," said Scattergood. + +"There's merchants enough here," the old man roared on. "Too many. We +don't want any more. We don't want you should start up any business +here." + +"You're too late. It's started. I've leased these premises." + +"But you hain't no stock in." + +"I calc'late on havin' one shortly," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in +his eye, whose meaning was kindly concealed from the five. + +"What'll you take not to order any stock?" asked Atwell, abruptly. + +"Figger on buyin' me off, eh? Now, neighbors, I've been lookin' for a +place like this, and I calc'late on stayin'. I'm goin' to become +all-fired permanent here." + +"Give you a hundred dollars," said Old Man Penny. + +"Apiece?" asked Scattergood, and laughed jovially. "It's my busy day, +neighbors. Better call in again." + +"What's your figger to pull out now--'fore you're started?" + +"Hain't got no figger, but if I had I calc'late it would be about a +thousand dollars." + +"Give you two hundred," said Old Man Penny. + +Scattergood picked up his mop. "If you fellers really mean business, +talk business. I've figgered my profits in this store, countin' in low +prices, wouldn't be a cent under a couple of thousand the first +year.... And you know it. That's what you're fussin' around here for. +Now fish or git to bait cuttin'." + +"Five hundred dollars," said Atwell, and Old Man Penny moaned. + +"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "You men git back here inside +of an hour with seven hundred and fifty _cash_, and lay it in my hand, +and I'll agree not to sell groceries, dry goods, notions, millinery, or +men or women's clothes in this town for a term of twenty year." + +They drew off and scolded one another, and glowered at Scattergood, but +came to scratch. "It's jest like robbery," said Old Man Penny, +tremulously. + +"Keep your money," retorted Scattergood. "I'm satisfied the way things +is at present." + +Within the hour they were back with seven hundred and fifty dollars in +bills, a lawyer, and an agreement, which Scattergood read with minute +attention. It bound him not to sell, barter, trade, exchange, deal, or +in any way to derive a profit from the handling of groceries, dry goods, +notions, millinery, clothing, and gent's furnishings. It contained no +hidden pitfalls, and Scattergood was satisfied. He signed his name and +thrust the roll of bills into his pocket.... Then he picked up his mop +and went to work as hard as ever. + +"Say," Old Man Penny said, "what you goin' ahead for? You jest agreed +not to." + +"There wasn't nothin' said about moppin'," grinned Scattergood, "and +there wasn't nothin' said about hardware and harness and farm +implements, neither. If you don't b'lieve me, jest read the agreement. +What I'm doin', neighbors, is git this place cleaned out to put in the +finest cash, cut-price, up-to-date hardware store in the state. And +thank you, neighbors. You've done right kindly by a stranger...." + +To this point the history of Scattergood Baines has been for the most +part legendary; now we begin to encounter him in the public records, for +deeds, mortgages, and the like begin to appear with his name upon them. +His history becomes authentic. + +Seven hundred and fifty dollars is not much when put into hardware, but +Scattergood had no intention of putting even that into a stock of goods. +He had a notion that the right kind of man, with five hundred dollars, +could get credit to twice that amount, and as for farm machinery, he +could sell by catalogue or on commission. His suspicion was proven to be +fact. + +But it was not in Scattergood to sit idle while he waited for his stock +to arrive. Coldriver doubtless thought him idle, but he was studying the +locality and the river with the eye of a commander who knew this was to +be his battlefield. What Scattergood wanted now was to place himself +astride Coldriver Valley, somewhere below the village, so that he could +control the upper reaches of the stream. It was not difficult to find +such a location. It lay three miles below town, at the junction of the +north and south branches of Coldriver. The juncture was in a big, +marshy, untillable flat, from which hills rose abruptly. From the +easterly end of the flat the augmented river squeezed in a roaring +rapids through a sort of bottle neck. + +Scattergood stood on the hillside and looked upon this with satisfied +eye. + +"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that +flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy, +maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build. +And," he scratched his head as a sort of congratulation to it for its +efficiency, "I can't study out how anybody's agoin' to git logs past +here without dickerin' with the man who owns the dam...." Plenty of +water twelve months a year to give free power; a flat made to order for +reservoir or log pond; a complete and effective blockade of both +branches of the river which came down from a country richly timbered! It +was one of the spots Scattergood had dreamed of. + +Scattergood knew perfectly well he could not stop a log from passing his +dam. Nor could he shut off the stream. Any dam he built must have a +sluice which could be opened for the passage of timber, and all timber +was entitled to "natural water." But, as he well knew, "natural water" +was not always enough. A dam at this point would raise the level on the +bars of the flat so that logs would not jam, and a log which used the +high water caused by the dam must pay for it. What Scattergood had in +mind was a dam and boom company. It was his project to improve the +river, to boom backwaters, to dynamite ledges, to make the river +passable to logs in spring and fall. It was his idea that such a +company, in addition to demanding pay for the use of "improvements," +could contract with lumbermen up the river to drive their logs.... And a +mill at this point! Scattergood fairly licked his lips as he thought of +the millions upon millions of feet of spruce to be sawed into lumber. + +The firm foundation that Scattergood's strategy rested upon was that +lumbering had not really started in the valley. The valley had not +opened up, but lay undeveloped, waiting to be stirred to life. +Scattergood's strength lay in that he could see ahead of to-day, and was +patient to wait for the developments that to-morrow must bring. To-day +his foresight could get for him what would be impossible to-morrow. If +he stepped softly he could obtain a charter from the state to develop +that river, which, when lumbering interests became actually engaged, +would be fought by them to the last penny.... And he felt in his bones +that day would not long be delayed. + +The land Scattergood required was owned by three individuals. All of it +was worthless--except to a man of vision--so, treading lightly, +Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not +direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to +sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the +river, he tried to sell the newest development in mowing machines, and +his manner of doing so was to hitch to the newly arrived machine, haul +it to Landers's meadow--where the owner was haying--drag it through +the gate, and unhitch. + +"Here," he said, "try this here machine. Won't cost you nothin' to try +it, and I'm curious to see if it works as good as they say." + +Landers was willing. It worked better. Landers regarded the machine +longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it. + +"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers. + +"Might afford a swap?" + +"Might. What you got in mind?" + +"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that +marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good +medder." + +Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to +you for this here mowin' machine." + +"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by +accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers. +Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something +like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the +hardware merchant of a machine. + +One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen +stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a +keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve +dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the +deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with +pitying scorn. + +Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to +the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was +often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of +this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the +legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a +state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard +of that charter they held their sides and roared. + +Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he +would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied +he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would +hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty +thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly +lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and +operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had +acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come +when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley. + +Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them +took train to Coldriver. + +Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling +hardware in his own way--and selling a good deal of it. His store had a +new front, his stock was augmented. It was his business to sell goods, +and he sold them. + +For instance, Lem Jones stopped and hitched his team before the store, +one chilly day. His horses he covered with old burlap, lacking blankets. +While Lem was buying groceries, Scattergood selected two excellent +blankets, carried them out, and put them on the horses. Then he went +back into the store to attend to other matters. Presently Lem came in. + +"Where'd them blankets come from?" he asked. + +"Hosses looked a mite chilly," said Scattergood, without interest, "so I +covered 'em." + +"Bleeged," said Lem. Then, awkwardly, "I calc'late I need a pair of +blankets, but I can't afford 'em this year. Wife's been sick--" + +"Sure," said Scattergood, "I know. If you want them blankets take 'em +along. Pay me when you kin.... Jest give me a sort of note for a +memorandum. Glad to accommodate you." + +So Scattergood marketed his blankets, taking in exchange a perfectly +good, interest-bearing note. Also, he made a friend, for Lem could not +be convinced but Scattergood had done him a notable favor. + +Scattergood now had money in the bank. No longer did he have to stretch +his credit for stock. He was established--and all in less than a year. +Hardware, it seemed, had been a commodity much needed in that locality, +yet no one had handled it in sufficient stock because of the +twenty-four-mile haul. That had been too costly. It cost Scattergood +just as much, but his customers paid for it.... The difference between +him and the other merchants was that he sold goods while they allowed +folks to buy. + +So, wisely, he kept on building up in a small way, while waiting for +bigger things to develop. And as he waited he studied the valley until +he could recite every inch of it, and he studied the future until he +knew what the future would require of that valley. He knew it before the +future knew it and before the valley knew it, and was laying his plans +to be ready with pails to catch the sap when others, taken by surprise, +would be running wildly about seeking for buckets. + +Then Crane and Keith arrived in Coldriver.... That day marked +Scattergood's emergence from the ranks of country merchants, though he +retained his hardware store to the last. That day marked distinctly +Scattergood's launching on a greater body of water. For forty years he +sailed it with varying success, meeting failures sometimes, scoring +victories; but interesting, characteristic in every phase--a genius in +his way and a man who never took the commonplace course when the unusual +was open to him. + +"I suppose you've looked this man Baines up," said Crane to Keith when +they met in the Coldriver tavern. + +"I know how much he weighs and how many teeth he's had filled," Keith +replied. + +"He ought not to be so difficult to handle. He hasn't capital enough to +put this company of his through and his business experience don't amount +to much." + +"For monkeying with our buzz saw," said Keith, "we ought to let him lose +a couple of fingers." + +"How's this for an idea, then?" Crane said, and for fifteen minutes he +outlined his theory of how best to eliminate Scattergood Baines from +being an obstruction to the free flowage of their schemes for Coldriver +Valley. + +"It's got others by the hundred, in one form or another," agreed Keith. +"This jayhawker'll welcome it with tears of joy." + +Whereupon they went gladly on their way to Scattergood's store, not as +enemies, but as business men who recognized his abilities and preferred +to have him with them from the start, that they might profit by his +canniness and energy, rather than to array themselves against him in an +effort to take away from him what he had obtained. + +Only by the exercise of notable will power could Crane keep his face +straight as he shook hands with ungainly Scattergood and saw with his +own eyes what a perfect bumpkin he had to deal with. + +"I suppose you thought we fellows would be sore," he said, genially. + +"Dunno's I thought about you at all," said Scattergood. "I was thinkin' +mainly about me." + +"Well, we're not. You caught us napping, of course. We should have +grabbed off that dam location long ago--but we weren't expecting +anybody to stray in with his eyes open--like yourself.... Of course your +property and charter aren't worth a great deal till we start lumbering." + +"Not to anybody but me," said Scattergood. + +"Well, we expect to begin operations in a year or so. We'll build a mill +on the railroad, and drive our logs down the river." + +"Givin' my company the drivin' contracts?" + +"Looks like we'd _have_ to--if you get in your dam and improvements. +But that'll take money. We've looked you up, of course, and we know you +haven't it--nor any backing.... That's why we've come to see you." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Goin' to drive 'way to the railroad, +eh? How if there was a mill right at my dam? Shorten your drive twenty +mile, wouldn't it, eh?" + +"Yes," said Keith, laughing at Scattergood's ignorance; "but how about +transportation from your mill to the railroad? We can't drive cut +lumber." + +"Course not," said Scattergood, "but this valley's goin' to open up. +It's startin'. There's only one way to open a valley, and that's to run +a railroad up it.... Narrow-gauge 'u'd do here. Carry mostly lumber, but +passengers, too." + +"Thinking of building one?" asked Crane, almost laughing in +Scattergood's face. + +"Thinkin' don't cost nobody anythin'," said Scattergood. "Ever take a +look at that charter of mine?" + +"No." + +"I'll let you read it over a bit. Maybe you'll git a idea from it." + +He extracted the parchment from his safe, and spread it before them. +"Kind of look careful along toward the end--in the tail feathers of it, +so to speak," he advised. + +They did so, and Crane looked up at the fat hardware man with eyes that +were not quite so contemptuous. "By George!" he said, "this thing's a +charter for a railroad down the valley, too." + +"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Dunno's the boys quite see what it was all +about, but they calculated to please me, so they put it through jest as +it stood. Mighty nice fellers up to the legislature." + +"Pretty far in the future," said Keith, "and mighty expensive." + +"Maybe not so far," said Scattergood, "and I could make a darn good +start narrow-gaugin' it with a hunderd thousand." + +"Which you've got handy for use," said Crane. + +"There _is_ that much money," said Scattergood, "and if there is, why, +it kin be got." + +"Let's get back to the river, now," said Keith. "If we're going to start +lumbering in a year, say, we've got to have the river in shape. Take +quite some time to get it cleared and dammed and boomed." + +"Six months," said Scattergood. + +"Cost a right smart pile." + +"The work I'm figgerin' on would come to about thirty-odd thousand." + +"Which you haven't got." + +"Somebody has," said Scattergood. + +"_We_ have," said Crane. "That's why we came to you--and with a +proposition. You've grabbed this thing off, but you can't hog it, +because you haven't the money to put it through. Our offer is this: You +put in your locations and your charter against our money. We'll finance +it. Your enterprise entitles you to control. We won't dispute that. You +can have fifty-one per cent of the stock for what you've contributed. We +take the rest for financing. We're known, and can get money." + +"How you figger to work it?" + +"We'll bond for forty thousand dollars. Keith and I can place the bonds. +That'll give us money to go ahead." + +Scattergood reached down and took off a huge shoe. Usually he thought +more accurately when his feet were unconfined. "That means we'd sort of +mortgage the whole thing, eh?" + +"That's the idea." + +"And if we didn't pay interest on the bonds, why, the fellers that had +'em could foreclose?" + +"But we needn't worry about that." + +"Not," said Scattergood, "if you fellers sign a contract with the dam +and boom company to give them the exclusive job of drivin' all your +timber at, say, sixty cents a thousand feet of logs. And if you'd stick +a clause in that contract that you'd begin cuttin' within twelve months +from date." + +"Sure we'd do that," said Keith. "To our advantage as much as to yours." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood. + +"It's a deal, then?" + +"Far's I'm concerned," said Scattergood, slipping his foot inside his +shoe, "it is." + +That afternoon, the papers having been signed and the deal consummated, +Scattergood sat cogitating. + +"I've been done," he said to himself, solemnly, "accordin' to them +fellers' notion. They come and seen me, and done me. They planned out +how they'd do it, and I didn't never suspect a thing. Uh-huh! Seems like +I was unfortunate, just gettin' a start in life like I be.... Bonds, +says they. Uh-huh! They'll place 'em, and place 'em handy. First +int'rest day there won't be no int'rest, and them bonds'll be +foreclosed--and where'll I be? Mighty ingenious fellers, Crane and +Keith.... And I up and walked right into it like a fly into a molasses +barrel. Them fellers," he said, even more somberly, "come here +calc'latin' to cheat me out of my river.... Me bein' jest a fat man +without no brains...." + +Crane and Keith had left Scattergood the executive head of the new dam +and boom company, and had confided to him the task of building the dam +and improving the river. He approached it sadly. + +"Might as well save what I kin out of the wreck," he said to himself, +and quietly manufactured a dummy contracting company to whom he let the +entire job for a lump sum of thirty-eight thousand seven hundred +dollars. The dummy contractor was Scattergood Baines. + +The dam was completed, booms and cribbing placed, ledges blasted out +well within the six months' period set for those operations. Every +thirty days Scattergood, in the name of the dummy contractor, was paid +eighty per cent of his estimates, and at the completion of the work he +received the remainder of the whole sum. + +"I wouldn't 'a' done it to them boys," he said, as he surveyed a deposit +of upward of seven thousand dollars, his profit on the transaction, "if +it hadn't 'a' been they organized to cheat me out of my river. I +calc'late in the circumstances, though, I'm most entitled to what I kin +salvage out of the wreck." + +Now the Coldriver Dam and Boom Company, Scattergood Baines president and +manager, was ready for business, which was to take the logs of Messrs. +Crane and Keith and drive them down the river at the rate of sixty cents +per thousand feet. It was ready and eager, and so expressed itself in +quaintly worded communications from Baines to those gentlemen. But no +logs appeared to be driven. + +"Jest like I said," Scattergood told himself, and, the day being hot and +the road dusty, he removed his shoes and rested his sweltering bulk in +the shade to consider it. + +"It's a nice river," he said, audibly. "I hate to git done out of it." + +After long delays Crane and Keith made pretense of building camps and +starting to log. But one difficulty after another descended on their +operations. In the spring, when each of them should have had several +millions of feet of spruce ready to roll into the water, not a log was +on rollways. Not a man was in the camps, for, owing to reasons not to be +comprehended by the public, the woodsmen of both operators had struck +simultaneously and left the woods. + +Presently the first interest day arrived, with not even a hope of being +able to meet the required payment at a future date. Bondholders--dummies, +just as Scattergood's contractor was a dummy--met. Their deliberations +were brief. Foreclose with all promptitude was their word, and foreclose +they did. With the result that legal notices were published to the effect +that on the sixteenth day of June the dam, booms, cribbing, improvements, +charter, contracts, and property of whatsoever nature belonging to the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company were to be sold at public auction on the +steps of the county courthouse. Scattergood had lost his river.... + +"Terms of the sale are cash with the bid," said Crane to Keith. "I saw +to that." + +"Good. Wasn't necessary, I guess. There hasn't been even a wriggle out +of Baines." + +"Won't be. We'll have to send somebody up to bid it in. It's just taking +money out of one pocket to put it into the other, but we've got to go +through the motions." + +"Anyhow, let's get credit for grabbing a bargain," said Keith. "Bid her +in cheap. No use taking a big wad of money out of circulation even for a +few days." + +"Ten thousand'll be enough. Say ten thousand six hundred, just to make +it sound better. Have to have two bidders there." + +"Sure," agreed Keith. "I guess this'll teach our fat dreamer of dreams +not to get in the way of the cars." + +Scattergood's stock had gone down in Coldriver. True, his hardware store +was thriving. In the two years his stock had increased from what his +seven hundred and fifty dollars, with credit added, would buy, to an +inventory of better than five thousand dollars, free of debt. It is true +also that with the last winter coming on he had looked about for a +chance to keep his small surplus at work for him, and his eyes had +fallen upon the item of firewood. In Coldriver were a matter of sixty +houses and a hotel, all of which derived their heat from hardwood +chunks, and cooked their meals on range fires with sixteen-inch split +wood. The houses were mostly of that large, comfortable, country variety +which could not be kept warm with one fire. Scattergood figured they +would burn on an average of fifteen cords of wood. + +Now stove wood, to be really useful, must have seasoned a year. It is +not pleasant to build fires with green wood. Appreciating this, +Scattergood ambled about the countryside and bought up every available +stick of wood at prices of the day--and under, for he was a good buyer. +He secured a matter of a thousand cords--and then waited hopefully. + +It was a small transaction, promising no great profits, but Scattergood +Baines was never, even when a rich man, one to scorn a small deal.... +Within sixty days he turned over his corner in wood, realizing a profit +of something over four hundred dollars.... This is merely to illustrate +how Scattergood's capital grew. + +On June 16th Scattergood drove to the county seat. He now owned a horse, +and a buggy whose seat he more than comfortably filled. In the county +seat Scattergood was not unknown, for various county officers had been +helped to their place by his growing influence in his town--notably the +sheriff. + +There was little interest in the sale, and what interest there was +Scattergood caused by his unexpected appearance. Nobody had imagined he +would be present. Now that he was there, nobody could imagine why. He +did not enlighten them, though he was delighted to sit in the sun on the +courthouse steps, waiting for the hour of the sale, and to chat. He +loved to chat, especially if he could get off his shoes and wriggle his +toes in the sunshine. And so he sat, bare of foot, when the sheriff +appeared and made his announcement of the approaching sale. Scattergood +chatted on, apparently not interested. + +"All the dams, booms, cribbings, improvements, and property of the +Coldriver Dam and Boom Company ..." the sheriff read. + +"Including contracts and charter," amended Scattergood. + +"Including contracts and charter," agreed the sheriff, and Scattergood +continued his chat. + +Bidding began. It was not brisk or exciting. Five thousand was the first +offer, from a young man appertaining to Crane. Keith's young man raised +him five hundred. Back and forth they tossed it, carrying on the +pretense, until Keith's young man reached the sum of ten thousand six +hundred dollars.... A silence followed. + +"Ten thousand six hundred I'm offered," said the sheriff, loudly, and +repeated it. He had been a licensed auctioneer in his day. "Do I hear +seven hundred? Seven hundred ... Six fifty ..." A portentous pause. +"Going at ten thousand six hundred, once. Going at ten thousand six +hundred, twice ..." + +"Ten thousand seven hunderd," said Scattergood, casually. + +Crane's young man looked at Keith's young man in a panic. They had only +the sum they had bid upon them.... Cash with bid were the terms of +sale. Scattergood, out of the corner of his eye, saw them rush together +and confer frenziedly. His eye glinted. + +"Ten thousand eight hundred," Crane's youth bid, desperately. + +"Cash with bid is terms of sale," said Scattergood. "I object to +listenin' to that bid without the young man perduces." He smiled at the +sheriff. + +"Mr. Baines is right," said the sheriff. "Protect your bid with the cash +or I cannot receive it." + +"Make _him_ protect his bid!" shouted Crane's young man. + +"Certain," said Scattergood, approaching the sheriff and drawing a huge +roll of bills from his sagging trousers pocket. "Calc'late you'll find +her there, Mr. Sheriff, and some besides. Make your change and gimme +back the rest." + +"I'm waitin' on you, young feller," said the sheriff, eying the young +men.... "Ten thousand seven hundred I hear. Going at ten thousand seven +hundred--once.... Twice.... Three times!... Sold to Mr. Baines for +ten thousand seven hundred dollars...." + +So ends the first epoch of Scattergood Baines's career in Coldriver +Valley. Here he emerges as a personage. From this point his fame began +to spread, and legend grew. Had he not, in two brief years, after +arriving with less than fifty dollars as a total capital, acquired a +profitable hardware store--donated in the beginning by competitors? Had +he not now, for the most part with money wrenched from Crane and Keith +by his dummy contracting, been enabled to bid in for ten thousand seven +hundred dollars a new property worth nearly four times that much? He was +a man into whose band wagon all were eager to clamber. + +But Scattergood did not change. He went back to his hardware store and +waited--waited for Crane and Keith to start their inevitable logging +operations. For in his safe reposed ironclad contracts with those +gentlemen, covering the future for a decade, compelling them to pay him +sixty cents for every thousand feet of timber that floated down his +river. It was a good two years' work. He could well afford to wait.... + +Scattergood sat on the porch of his store, in the sunniest spot, +twiddling his bare toes. + +"The way to make money," he said to the mountain opposite, "is to let +smarter folks 'n you be make it for you ... like I done." + + + +CHAPTER II + +SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST + + +Scattergood Baines sat on the porch of his hardware store and looked +down Coldriver Valley. It was very beautiful, even under the hot summer +sun of the second anniversary of Scattergood's arrival in that part of +the world, but he was not seeing it as it was--mountainous, green, +with untouched forests, quickened to life and sound by the swift, +rushing, splashing downrush of a tireless mountain river. Scattergood +saw the valley as he was going to make it, for he was a specialist in +valleys. + +For years he had searched for an undeveloped valley--for the sort of +valley it would be worth his while to take in hand, and two years ago he +had found it and invaded it. His equipment for its conquest had been +meager--some fifty dollars in money and a head filled from ear to ear +and from eyebrows to scalp lock with shrewdness. His progress in +twenty-four months had been notable, for he was sole proprietor of a +profitable hardware store in Coldriver village, and controlled the upper +stretches of Coldriver by virtue of a certain dam and boom company built +with other men's capital for Scattergood's benefit and behoof. + +Now, in the eye of his mind, he could see the whole twenty-odd miles of +his valley. Along the left bank, hanging perilously to the slope of the +mountain, he saw the rails of a narrow-gauge railroad reaching from +Coldriver Valley to the main line that passed the valley's mouth. He saw +sturdy, snorting little engines drawing logs to sawmills of a magnitude +not dreamed of by any other man in the locality, and he saw other +engines hauling out lumber to the southward. He saw villages where no +villages existed that day, and villages meaning more traffic for his +railroad, more trade for the stores he had it in his thought to +establish. Something else he saw, but more dimly. This vision took the +shape of a gigantic dam far back in the mountains, behind which should +be stored the waters from the melting snows and from the spring rains, +so that they might be released at will to insure a uniform flow +throughout the year, wet months and dry months, as he desired. He saw +this water pouring over other dams, turning water wheels, giving power +to mills and factories. More than that, in the remotest and dimmest +recess of his brain he saw not sharply, not with full comprehension, +this tremendous water power converted into electricity and transported +mile upon mile over far-reaching wires, to give light and energy to +distant communities. + +But all that was remote; it lay in the years to come. For the present +smaller affairs must content him. Even the matter of the narrow-gauge +railroad was beyond his grasp. + +Scattergood reached down mechanically and removed his huge shoes; then, +stretching out his fat legs gratefully, he twiddled his toes in the +sunlight and gave himself up to practical thought. He controlled the +tail of the valley with his dam and boom company; he must control its +mouth. He must have command over the exit from the valley so that every +individual, every log, every article of merchandise that entered or left +the valley, should pass through his hands. That was to be the next step. +He must straddle the mouth of the valley like the fat colossus he was. + +Scattergood was placid and patient. He knew what he wanted to do with +his valley, and had perfect confidence he should accomplish it. But he +had no disposition to hasten matters unwisely. It was better, as he told +Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "to let an apple fall in your lap instead of +skinnin' your shins goin' up the tree after it--and then findin' it was +green." + +So, though he wanted the mouth of his river, and wanted it badly, he did +not rush off, advertising his need, and try brashly to grab the forty or +fifty acres of granite and scrub and steep mountain wall that his heart +desired. Instead, he basked in the sunshine, twiddling his bare toes +ecstatically, and let the huge bulk of him sink more contentedly into +the well-reinforced armchair which creaked under his slightest motion. + +Scattergood glanced across the dusty square to the post office. The mail +was in, and possibly there were letters there for him. He thought it +very likely, and he wanted to see them--but movement was repulsive to +his bulging body. He sighed and closed his eyes. A shrill whistle +attempting the national anthem, with certain liberties of variation, +caused him to open them again, and he saw, passing him, a small boy, +apparently without an object in life. + +"A-hum!" said Scattergood. + +The boy stopped and looked inquiringly. + +"If I knew," said Scattergood to his bare feet, "where there was a boy +that could find his way across to the post office and back without +gittin' sunstroke or stone bruise, I dunno but I'd give him a penny to +fetch my mail." + +"It's worth a nickel," said the boy. + +"Give you two cents," said Scattergood. + +"Nickel or nothin'," said the boy. + +Scattergood scrutinized the boy a moment, then surrendered. + +"Bargain," said he, but as the boy hustled across the square +Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. +He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from +a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned +to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight +suddenly might have resulted in disaster. + +The boy was returning. Scattergood placed the tin object to his lips and +puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of +Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it +rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in +front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his +hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm +that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's +existence, he applied himself again to the whistle. + +"Say," said the boy, "what's that?" + +"Patent whistle," said Scattergood, without interest. + +"Is it your'n, or is it for sale?" + +"Calculate I might sell." + +"How much?" + +"Nickel." + +"Gimme it," said the boy, and Scattergood gravely received back his +coin. + +"Might tell the kids I got more," said Scattergood, and watched the boy +trot down the street, entranced by the horrid sound he was fathering. + +This transaction from beginning to end was eloquent of Scattergood +Baines's character. He had been obliged to pay more than he regarded a +service as worth, but had not protested vainly. Instead he had set about +recouping himself as best he could. The whistle cost him two cents and a +half. Therefore the boy had come closer to working for Scattergood's +figure than for his own demanded price. In addition, Scattergood's wares +were to receive free and valuable advertising, as was proven by the +fact that before night he had sold ten more whistles at a profit of +twenty-five cents! No deal was too small to receive Scattergood's best +and most skillful attention. + +Now he opened his letters, one of which was worthy of attention, for it +was from a friend in the office of the Secretary of State for that +commonwealth--a friend who owed his position there in great measure to +Scattergood's influence. The letter gave the information that two +gentlemen named Crane and Keith had pooled their timber holdings on the +east and west branches of Coldriver, and had filed papers for the +incorporation of the Coldriver Lumber Company. + +This was important. First, the gentlemen named were no friends of +Scattergood's by reason of having underestimated that fleshy individual +to their financial detriment in the matter of a certain dam and boom +company, of which Scattergood was now sole owner. Second, because it +presaged active lumbering operations. Third, because, in Scattergood's +safe were ironclad contracts with both of them whereby the said dam and +boom company should receive sixty cents a thousand feet for driving +their logs down the improved river. + +And fourth--the fourth brought Scattergood's active toes to a rest. +Fourth, it meant that Crane and Keith would be building the largest +sawmill--the only sawmill of consequence--that the valley had seen. + +It was an attribute of Scattergood's peculiar genius that even after you +had encountered him once, and come out the worse for it, you still rated +him as a fatuous, guileless mound of flesh. You did not credit his +successes to astuteness, but to blundering luck. Another point also +should be noted: If Scattergood were hunting bear he gave it out that +his game was partridge. He would hunt partridge industriously and +conspicuously until men's minds were turned quite away from the subject +of bear. Then suddenly he would shift shotgun for rifle and come home +with a bearskin in the wagon. Probably he would bring partridge, too, +for he never neglected by-products. + +"Them fellows," said he to himself, referring to Messrs. Crane and +Keith, "hain't aimin' nor wishin' to pay me no sixty cents a thousand +for drivin' their logs.... I figger they calculate to cut about ten +million feet. That'll be six thousand dollars. Profit maybe two +thousand. Don't see as I kin afford to lose it, seems as though." + +On the river below Coldriver village were three hamlets each consisting +of a general store, a church, and a few scattered dwellings. These +villages were the supply centers for the mountain farms that lay behind +them. Necessity had located them, for nowhere else along the valley was +there flat land upon which even the tiniest village could find a resting +place. These were Bailey, Tupper Falls, and Higgins's Bridge. In common +with Coldriver village their communication with the world was by means +of a stage line consisting of two so-called stages, one of which left +Coldriver in the morning on the downward trip, the other of which left +the mouth of the valley on the upward trip. There was also one freight +wagon. + +The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he +boarded the stage, occupying so much space therein that a single fare +failed utterly to show a profit to the stage line, and alighted at +Bailey. He went directly to the store, where no one was to be found save +sharp-featured Mrs. Bailey, wife of the proprietor. + +"Mornin', ma'am," said Scattergood, politely. "Husband hain't in?" + +"Up the brook, catchin' a mess of trout," she responded, shortly. "He's +always catchin' a mess of trout, or huntin' a deer or a partridge or +somethin'. If you're ever aimin' to see Jim Bailey here, you want to +git around afore daylight or after dark." + +"Hain't it lucky," said Scattergood, "that some men manages to marry +wimmin that kin look after their business?" + +"Not for the wimmin," said Mrs. Bailey, shortly. + +"My name's Baines," said Scattergood. + +"I calculate to know _that_." + +"Like livin' here, ma'am?" + +"Not so but what I could bear a change." + +"Um!... Mis' Bailey, I calc'late you'd hate to see Jim make a little +money so's to be able to git away from here if he wanted to." + +"Him? Only way hell ever make money is to ketch a solid-gold trout." + +"Maybe I'm the solid-gold trout you're speakin' about," said +Scattergood. + +She regarded him sharply a moment. "Set," she said. "Looks like you got +somethin' on your mind." + +There were times when Scattergood could be direct and succinct. He +perceived it was best to be so with this woman. + +"I might want to buy this here store--under certain conditions." + +"How much?" + +"Inventory, and a share in the profits of a deal I got in mind." + +"What's them conditions you mentioned?" + +"That you and Jim don't mention the sale to anybody, and keep on runnin' +the place--for wages--until I'm ready for you to quit." + +"What's the deal them profits is comin' from, and how much you figger +they'll be?" + +"The deal's feedin' about five hunderd men, and the profits'll be +plenty. I furnish the capital and show you how it's to be done. All +Jim'll have to do is foller directions." + +Then, lowering his voice, Scattergood went farther into particulars. +Suddenly Mrs. Bailey arose, and screamed shrilly to an urchin playing in +the road, "You, Jimmy, go up the brook and fetch your pa." Scattergood +knew his deal was as good as closed. Before the up-bound stage arrived +it was closed. The Baileys had cash in hand for their store and +Scattergood carried away a duly executed bill of sale. + +The following day, for fifteen hundred dollars cash, he acquired all the +property of the stage line--and when the news became public it was +believed that Scattergood had departed from his wits, for the line was +notoriously unprofitable and an aching worry to its owners. But the +commotion the transfer of the stage line created was as nothing to the +news that Scattergood had bought a strip of land along the railroad at +the mouth of the river, and was erecting a large wooden building upon +it. When asked concerning this and its purpose, Scattergood replied that +he wasn't made up in his mind what he would use it for, but likely it +would be an "opry" house. + +Following this, Scattergood went to the city, where he spent much +valuable time interviewing gentlemen in wholesale grocery and provision +houses.... + +Jim Bailey liked to fish--which is not an attribute to create scandal. +He was not ambitious, nor was he endowed with a full reservoir of +initiative, but he was a shrewd customer and seldom got the worst of it. +One virtue he possessed, and that was an ability to follow +directions--and to keep his mouth shut. + +Not many days after Scattergood became the owner of the store at Bailey, +Jim was a caller at the new offices of the lumber company, formed when +Crane and Keith pooled their interests. + +"I come to see you," he told Crane, "because it seemed like you got to +feed your lumberjacks, and I want to git the contract for furnishin' and +deliverin' the provisions." + +"We've sure got to feed 'em," said Crane. "But five hundred men eat a +lot of grub. Can you swing it if we give you a chance at it?" + +Bailey produced a letter from the Coldriver bank which stated the bank +was willing to stand behind any contract made by the Bailey Provision +Company, up to a certain substantial amount. + +"Who's the Bailey Provision Company?" + +"Me 'n' my wife mostly holds the stock." + +"Huh!... You'll handle the stuff, deliver it, and all that? What's your +proposition?" + +"Well, havin' been in business twenty-odd year, I kin buy mighty +favorable. More so 'n you fellers. All I want's a livin' profit. Tell +you what I'll do. I'll take this here contract like this: Goods to be +delivered in your camps at actual cost of the stuff and freighting plus +ten per cent. We'll keep stock on hand in depots, and deliver as needed. +It'll save you all the trouble of handlin'. We'll carry the stock, and +you pay once a month for what's delivered." + +Crane called in Keith, and they discussed the proposition. It presented +distinct advantages; might, indeed, save them money in addition to +trouble. Bailey clinched the thing by showing an agreement with the +stage line to transport the provisions at a price per hundred pounds +notably lower than Crane and Keith imagined could be obtained, and went +home carrying the contract Scattergood had sent him to get. + +Scattergood put the paper away in his safe and sat back in his +reinforced armchair, with placid satisfaction making benignant his face. +"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that this here dicker'll keep Crane +and Keith gropin' and wonderin' and scrutinizin' more or less--when it +gits to their ears. Shouldn't be s'prised if it come to worry 'em a +mite." + +So, having created a diversion to conceal the movements of his main +attack, Scattergood got out his maps and began scientifically to plan +his fall and winter campaign. + +Timber was his objective. Not a hundred acres of it, nor a thousand, but +tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand acres of spruce-covered hills +was the goal he had set. To control his valley he must have money; to +get money for his developments he must have timber. Also, ownership of +vast limits of growing spruce was necessary to the control of the +valley. He must own more timber thereabouts than anybody else. He must +dominate the timber situation. To a man whose total resources totaled a +matter of fifty thousand dollars--the bulk of which was tied up in a dam +and boom company as yet unproductive--this looked like a mouthful beyond +his capacity to bite off. Even with timber in the back reaches selling +at sixty-six cents an acre, a hundred thousand acres meant an investment +of sixty-six thousand dollars. True, Scattergood could look forward to +the day when that same timberland would be worth ten dollars an acre--a +million dollars--but looking ahead would not produce a cent to-day. + +Of timberlands, whose cut logs must go down Coldriver Valley to reach a +market, Scattergood's maps showed him there were probably a quarter of a +million acres--mostly spruce. Estimating with rigid conservatism, this +would run eight thousand feet to the acre, or twenty billion feet of +timber--and this did not take into consideration hardwood. In +Scattergood's secret heart he wanted it _all_. All he might not be able +to get, but he must have more than half--and that half distributed +strategically. + +It will be seen that Scattergood was content to wait. His motto was, +"Grab a dollar to-day--but don't meddle with it if it interferes with a +thousand dollars in ten years." + +Scattergood's maps had been the work of two years. That they were +accurate he knew, because he had set down on them most of the facts they +showed. They were valuable, for, in Scattergood's rude printing, one +could read upon them the owner of every piece of timber, every farm, the +acreage in each piece of timber, with a careful estimate of the amount +of timber to the acre--also its proportions of spruce, beech, birch, +maple, ash. + +Toward the head of the valley, where good timber was thickest, +Scattergood's map showed how it spread out like a fan, with the two main +branches of Coldriver and numerous brooks as the ribs. Then, down the +length of the stream, were parallel bands of it. On the map one could +see what this timber could be bought for; prices ranging from two +dollars and a half an acre down the main river to sixty-six cents at the +extremity of the fan. + +As Scattergood studied his maps he saw, far in the future, perhaps, but +clearly and distinctly and certainly, two parallel lines running up the +river to his village; he saw, branching off from a spot below the +village, where East and West Branches joined to pour over a certain dam +owned by him, other narrower parallel lines following river and brooks +back and back into the mountains, the spruce-clad mountains. These +parallel lines were rails. The ones which ran close together were +narrow-gauge--logging roads to bring logs to the big mill which +Scattergood planned to build beside his dam. The broader lines were a +standard-gauge road to carry the cut lumber to the outside world, and +not only the cut lumber, but all the traffic of the valley, all the +freight, the manufactured products of other mills and factories which +were to come along the banks of his river. Here, in black and white, was +set down Scattergood's life plan. When it was accomplished he would be +through. He would be willing to have his maps rolled up and himself to +be laid on the shelf, for he would have done the thing he set out to +do.... For, strange as it may seem, Scattergood was not pursuing money +for money itself--his objective was achievement. + +Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and +Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale. + +"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch--thirty +thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch--close to thirty +thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere." + +"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up +here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of +mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as +ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out +our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead +with it. Pretty sweet for us--with sixty thousand acres in the palm of +our hand and not a cent invested in it." + +"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?" + +"Who'll grab?" + +"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we +could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or +else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole +thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled--and leave +the rest till things develop." + +"It's safe. And we can make it mighty unpleasant for anybody who comes +ramming into this region in a small way. Which reminds me of that +Baines--our friend Scattergood. Are we going to let him get away with +that dam and boom company we made him a present of?" + +"I can't see ourselves digging down for sixty cents a thousand for +driving our logs--contracts or no contracts." + +"Maybe we can buy him off." + +"Hanged if I'll do that--we'll chase him off. Look here--he's got to +handle our logs. If he can't handle them we've got a right to put on our +own crew and drive them down--and charge back to him what it costs us. +Get the idea?" + +"Not exactly." + +"We deliver the logs as specified in the spring. Let him start his +drive. Then, I figure, he'll have some trouble with his men, and most +likely men he don't have trouble with will get into a row with +lumberjacks going out of camp. See? Men of his that we can't handle +we'll pitch into the river. Then we'll take charge with our men and make +the drive. On top of that we'll sue Scattergood for thirty or forty +cents a thousand--extra cost we've been put to by his inability to +handle the drive. That'll put a crimp in him--and if we keep after him +hot and heavy it won't take long to drive him out of the valley." + +"Don't believe he's dangerous, anyhow. That last deal was bullhead +luck." + +"Yes, but he's stirring around. We don't want anybody poking in. There's +a heap of money in this valley for us, if we can keep it to ourselves, +and the sooner the idea gets abroad that it isn't healthful to butt in, +the better." + +"Guess you're right." + +If Scattergood could have heard this conversation perhaps he would not +have been so gayly partaking of the softer joys of life. For that is +what Scattergood was doing. He had polished up his buggy, put his new +harness on his horse, and was driving out to make a social call. Not +only that, but it was a social call upon a lady! + +Scattergood was lonely sometimes. In one of his moments of loneliness +it had occurred to him that a great many men had wives, and that wives +were, undoubtedly, a remarkably effective insurance against that +ailment. + +"I gather," he said, in the course of a casual conversation with Sam +Kettleman, the grocer, "that wives is sometimes inconvenient and +sometimes tryin' on the temper, but on the whole they're returnin' +income on the investment." + +"Some does and some doesn't," said Kettleman, lugubriously. + +"Hotel grub," said Scattergood, "gets mighty similar. Roast beef and +roast pork! Roast pork and roast beef! Then cold roast pork and beef for +supper.... And me obliged, by the way I'm built, to pay extry board. +Sundays I always order me two dinners. Seems like a wife 'u'd act as a +benefit there." + +"But there's drawbacks," said Sam, "and there's mother-in-laws, and +there's lendin' a dollar to your brother-in-law." + +"The thing to do," said Scattergood, "is to pick one without them +impediments. I also figger," he added, wriggling his bare toes, "that a +feller ought to pick one that could lend a dollar to _your_ brother in +case he needed one." + +"Hain't none sich to be found," said Sam. + +"I calc'late to look," Scattergood replied. + +He had already done his looking. The lady of his choice, tradition says, +was older than he, but this is a base libel. She was not older. She had +not yet reached thirty. Scattergood had first encountered her when she +came to his hardware store to buy a plow. On that occasion her excellent +business judgment and her powers of barter had attracted him strongly. +As a matter of fact, he was a bit in doubt if she hadn't the best of him +on the deal.... Her name was Amanda Randle. + +Scattergood gave the matter his best thought, then polished the buggy +as aforesaid, and called. + +"Howdy, Miss Randle?" said he, tying to her hitching post. + +"Howdy, Mr. Baines?" + +"I calculated," said he, "that, bein' as it's a hot night, a buggy ride +might sort of cool you off, after a way of speakin'." + +Amanda blushed, for the proffer of a buggy ride was not without definite +significance in that region. + +"I'll git my shawl and bonnet," she said. + +To the casual eye it would have appeared that Scattergood's summer was +devoted wholly to running his hardware store and to paying court to +Mandy Randle.... But this would not have been so. He was making ready +for the winter--and for the spring that came after it. For in the spring +came the drive, and with the coming of the drive Scattergood foresaw the +coming of trouble. He was not a man to dodge trouble that might bring +profit dangling to the fringe of her skirt. + +Coldriver watched with deep interest the progress of Scattergood's suit. +It had figured Mandy as an old maid--for, as has been mentioned, she was +close upon her thirtieth year, which, in a village where eighteen is the +general age for taking a husband, is well along in spinsterhood. It was +late in October when Scattergood "came to scratch," as the local saying +is. + +"Mandy," said he, "I calc'late you noticed I been comin' around here +consid'able." + +"You have--seems as though," she said, and blushed. It was coming. She +recognized the signs. + +"I been a-comin' on purpose," said Scattergood. + +"Do tell," said Mandy. + +"Yes, ma'am. It's like this: I own a hardware store and some other +prop'ty; not a heap, ma'am, but _some_. It's gittin' to be more. I +calculate, some day, to be wuth consid'able. When a man gits to this +p'int, he ought to have him a wife, eh?" + +Mandy made no reply. + +"So," said Scattergood, "I took to lookin' around a bit, and of all the +girls there was, Mandy, it looked to me like you would be the only one +to make the kind of a wife I want. That's honest. Yes, sir. Says I to +myself, 'Mandy Randle's the one for me.' So I washed up the buggy and +hitched up the horse and come right out. I been comin' ever since, +because that there first impression of mine has been bore out by +facts.... I'm askin' you, Mandy, will you be Missis Baines?" + +"You're stiddy and savin'--and makin'," said Mandy. "Add what _you_ got +to what I got, and we'll be pretty well off. And I aim to help take care +of it." + +"I aim to have you help," said Scattergood. "But, Mandy, I don't want +you scrimpin' and savin' too much. I want my wife should have as good as +the best, and be looked up to by the best. The day'll come, Mandy, when +we'll keep a hired girl!" + +"No extravagances, Scattergood, till I say we kin afford it.... And, +Scattergood, you got to promise not to make no important move without +consultin' me. I got a head for business." + +"Mandy," said Scattergood, "you and me is equal partners." + +Which, say both tradition and history, is how the arrangement worked +out. Mandy and Scattergood _were_ equal partners. Scattergood was to +learn through the years that Mandy's _was_ a good head for business, +and, though business men who came to deal with Scattergood in the future +sometimes laughed when they found Mandy present at their conferences, +they never laughed but once.... And, though Scattergood's proffer of +marriage had not been couched in fervent terms of love, nor had Mandy +fallen on his overbroad bosom with rapture, theirs was a married life to +be envied by most, for there was between them perfect trust, sincere +affection, and wisest forbearance. For forty years Scattergood and Mandy +lived together as man and wife, and at the end both could look back +through the intimate years and say of the other that he had chosen well +his mate. + +It may be thought that this bit of romance is dropped in here by legend +and history merely to amuse, or as a side light on the character of +Scattergood Baines. This is not so. We are forced by the facts to regard +the matter as an integral part of the business transaction related in +this narrative. Not a minor part, not an important part, but perhaps the +deciding factor.... + +John Bones, lawyer, age twenty-six, was a recent acquisition to +Coldriver village. Scattergood had watched the young man's comings and +goings, and had listened to his conversation. Early in November he went +to his bank and drew from deposit two hundred and fifty dollars.... Then +he went to call on Bones. + +"Mr. Bones," he said, "folks says old Clayt Mosier's a client of +your'n." + +"He's given me some business, Mr. Baines." + +"Uh-huh!... Somethin' to do with title to a piece of timber over +Higgins's Bridge way, wa'n't it?" + +"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, but I guess you'll have to ask Mr. Mosier about +that." + +"Huh!... Mosier hain't apt to tell _me_. Seems like I was sort of +int'rested in that thing. I can't manage nohow to git the facts, so I +thought I'd talk to you." + +"I can't help you. I have no right to talk about a client's confidential +matters." + +"To be sure.... How's business?" + +"Not very good." + +"Not gittin' rich, eh?" + +Young Bones looked unhappy, for making both ends meet was a problem he +had not mastered as yet. + +Scattergood got up, closed the door, and walked softly back to the desk. +He drew from his pocket the roll of bills, and spread them out in +alluring pattern. + +"Them's your'n," said he. + +"Mine? How? What for?" + +"I'm swappin' with you." + +"For what, Mr. Baines?" A slight perspiration was noticeable on young +Lawyer Bones's brow. + +"Information," said Scattergood, looking him in the eye. As the young +man did not speak, Scattergood continued, "about Mosier's title matter." + +For an instant the young man stood irresolute; then he reached slowly +over, gathered up the money into a neat roll--while Scattergood watched +him intently--and then, with suddenly set teeth, hurled the roll into +Scattergood's face, and leaped around the desk. + +"You _git_!" he said, between his teeth. "Git, and take your filthy +money with you...." + +Scattergood, who did not in the least look it, could move swiftly. The +young lawyer was abruptly interrupted in his pastime of ejecting +Scattergood forcibly. He found himself seized by his wrists and held as +if he had shoved his arms into steel clamps. + +"Set," said Scattergood, "and be sociable.... And keep the money. It's +your'n. You're hired. I guess you're the feller I'm aimin' to use." + +He forced the struggling young man back into his chair, and released +him--grinning broadly, and not at all as a tempter should grin. "If +it'll relieve your conscience," he said, "I hain't got no more int'rest +in Mosier's affairs than I have in the emperor of the heathen Chinee.... +But I _have_ got a heap of int'rest in a young feller that kin refuse a +wad of money when he can't pay his board bill. Maybe 'twan't jest a nice +way, but I had to find out. The man I'm needin' has to have a clost +mouth--and somethin' a mite better 'n that--gumption not to sell out.... +Git the idee?" + +"I--yes, I guess I do--but--" + +"Any objections to workin' for me?" + +"None." + +"All right. Keep the money. When you've worked it up come for more. And, +young feller, if things turns out for me like I think they will, you're +goin' to quit bein' a lawyer one of these days. I'm a-goin' to need you +in my business. Come over to my store." + +At the store Scattergood spread his maps before the young man, and +pointed to a certain spot. "There's about fifty different passels of +timber in that crotch. I don't aim to need 'em all to-day, but I +calc'late on gittin' a sort of fringe around the edge." He drew his +finger down the East Branch and up the West Branch in a sort of +horseshoe. "Your job's to git options on the fringe--in your own name. +Git the idee?" + +"Yes." + +"Git 'em cheap." + +"Yes, sir." + +"There's five thousand dollars on deposit in the bank in your name. Use +it." When Scattergood trusted a man he trusted him. "And now," he said, +"I calc'late to raise a little dust, so's you won't be noticed." + +Scattergood's little dust consisted of allowing to be inserted in the +local paper an item announcing that Scattergood Baines had bought all +the stock and contracts of the Bailey Provision Company, which concern +was purveying food supplies to all the camps of Messrs. Crane and +Keith.... Then Scattergood settled back to watch the dust rise. + +The dust arose, and filled the eyes and noses of Messrs. Crane and +Keith, as Scattergood expected, with the result that Mr. Crane was a +passenger on Scattergood's stage to Coldriver village. + +"Howdy, Mr. Crane?" said Scattergood, as that gentleman belligerently +entered the hardware store. "I was sort of lookin' forward to seein' +some of you folks." + +"Look here, Baines," said Crane, "what are you butting into our game +for? We let you get away with that other thing, but this last deal of +yours makes it look as if you were hunting trouble. You bought that +provision company to get a lever on us." + +"Maybe so.... Maybe so, but I wouldn't get het up about it.... You see, +it's like this: you folks kind of did what I expected you'd do on that +dam and boom deal, and come pretty close to doin' me out of some +valuable property. I didn't get het up, though, I jest sort of sat +around and waited.... And it come out all right. Now, didn't it?" + +"Bullhead luck." + +"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Now, here's how I figger things to-day. You and +Keith hain't amiable about that deal, and you don't aim to let my dam +and boom company make any money out of you. I expect you can manage it. +If I was in your shoes, and was the kind of a man I judge you folks be, +I'd fix it so's the dam and boom company couldn't handle the drive. Buy +up the men, maybe, and start fights, and be sort of forced to take +charge so's to get my drive through. And then I'd sue for damages.... +That's how I'd do. I calc'late that's about what you and Keith has in +mind, hain't it?" + +Crane was purple with rage, but underneath his rage was a clammy layer +of unpleasant surprise that this mound of flabby fat should have had +such uncanny vision into his hardly creditable plans. + +"You're crazy, man," he blustered. + +"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Anyhow, I took out a mite of insurance ag'in' +sich a happenin'. I got me this here provision company to feed your +men.... Ever happen to think what would happen in the woods if your +lumberjacks run short of grub? Eh?... And suppose it happened, and your +men come bilin' out of camp, sore as bears with bee stings. What then, +eh? Couldn't git another crew this winter, maybe. Eh?" + +Crane blustered. He threatened legal measures, but Scattergood pointed +out no legal measures could be taken until he failed to deliver +supplies. Also, he directed Crane's attention to the fact that the +provision company was a corporation, and liable only to the extent of +its assets. "So, even if you got a judgment, you wouldn't collect enough +to make no profit. And your winter's cut would be off, and what logs you +got cut would rot in the woods. I calc'late you'd stand to git damaged +consid'able." + +"What's your proposition?" spluttered Crane. + +"Hain't got none.... You jest run back to Keith and repeat as much of +this here talk as you can remember. I'm goin' to be busy now. +Afternoon." + +For two weeks Scattergood disappeared, and though Crane and Keith sought +him with fever in their blood, he was not to be found. He filled their +minds; he dominated their conversation; he gave them sleepless nights +and unpleasant days.... Their attention was effectively focused on the +emergency he had presented to them. Scattergood had kicked up an +effective dust. + +At the end of two weeks Scattergood appeared again in town, and went +directly to Johnnie Bones's office. Scattergood now called his lawyer +Johnnie. + +"Got 'em?" he asked. + +"Not all. There's a fifteen-thousand-acre strip cutting right across +your horseshoe, from East to West Branch, and I couldn't touch it. I got +all the rest. That one belongs to a woman, and a more unreasonable +woman to try to do business with I never saw." + +"Um!" said Scattergood. "Know where I been, Johnnie?" + +"No, sir." + +"Gittin' married." + +"What?" + +"Yes. Me 'n' the lady, we met by arrangement in Boston and got us a +preacher and done the job. Marriage, Johnnie, is a doggone solemn +matter." + +"I've heard so," said the young man. + +"Some day," said Scattergood, "I'm a-goin' to marry you off. Calculate I +got the girl in my eye now." + +"I hope," Johnnie said, "that you'll be--er--very happy." + +"Guess we'll manage so-so.... Now about them options, Johnnie. You make +tracks for the city and sort of edge up to Crane and Keith. Might start +by showin' 'em a deed for a mill site down across from theirs at the +railroad. Then you might start askin' questions like you was lookin' for +information. Guess that'll git up their curiosity some. Then you kin +spring your options on 'em.... When you've done that, come off and leave +'em sweatin'. And don't mention me. I hain't in this deal a-tall." + +But before Johnnie could get to Crane and Keith, Crane and Keith came to +Scattergood. + +"You've got some kind of a proposition in mind," said Keith, who did the +talking because he could keep his temper better than Crane. "What do you +want?" + +"Make me an offer," said Scattergood. + +"We'll buy your provision company--and give you a decent profit." + +"Don't sound enticin'," said Scattergood, reaching down and loosening +his shoe. It was too cold to omit the wearing of heavy woolen socks, so +he could not twiddle his toes with perfect freedom, but he could +twiddle them some, and that helped his mental processes. + +"Well, what do you want?" + +"I'll sell the provision company's stock of provisions--and nothin' +more.... At a profit. You got to buy, 'cause you can't make arrangements +to git in grub before I bring on a famine for you.... And I got the grub +stored in warehouses. That's part of it. Second, I'll _lease_ you my +river for three years. You wasn't calc'latin' to pay for the use of it. +So you be obleeged to pay in advance. I figgered my profits on drivin' +at about two thousand this year. Give you a three-year lease for five +thousand. I hain't no hog.... Yes or no." + +There was a brief conference. "Yes," was the answer. + +"Cash," said Scattergood. + +"You'll have to come to the city for it," Keith said, which Scattergood +was not unwilling to do. He returned with a certified check for +twenty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-four dollars and nineteen +cents, of which five thousand was rental of his river, and four thousand +and odd dollars were his profits on his provisions. Not a bad profit +from a dust-throwing project! + +Meantime Johnnie paid his visit to Crane and Keith, and came home to +report. + +"It hit them between wind and water," he said. + +"Uh-huh!... What did you judge they had in mind?" + +"They wanted to buy me out.... Of course I wouldn't sell. My clients +wanted that timber, and were going to work to build their mill.... The +last they said was that they were coming up to see me." + +"Uh-huh! When they come, you mention about that strip of fifteen +thousand acres you couldn't buy, eh? Let on you couldn't get it." + +Johnnie held Scattergood as he was going out. "I want to account for +that five thousand dollars you placed in my name." + +"Go ahead. I hain't perventin' you." + +"I got options on eighteen thousand six hundred acres of timber. The +options cost me twenty-one hundred and seventy dollars, and my expenses +were sixty-one dollars and a half." + +"Um!... Cheap enough. What did the land cost an acre?" + +"Averaged a dollar and seventy-five cents." + +"Huh!... Not so bad. Now tend to Crane and his quiet friend." + +They arrived in due time, accompanied by their lawyer. + +"Mr. Bones," said the lawyer, "you have certain options that my clients +wish to purchase. Undoubtedly they were taken in good faith, but we +would like, before going farther, to know whom you are acting for." + +"You can deal with me. I have full powers." + +"You decline to disclose your principal?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Do I understand the project is to build a mill at once and start to cut +this timber?" + +"That is my information." + +"Aha!... May I ask how much land you have?" + +Johnnie exhibited a map, on which was blocked off the timber in +question. "You see," he said, "there's one fifteen-thousand-acre strip I +couldn't get hold of. It cuts right across the triangle from river to +river." + +Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane. + +"It belongs to a woman who wouldn't do business," Johnnie added. + +"What figure did you pay for the land?" + +"That is hardly a fair question." + +"What do you ask for your options? That's a fair question, isn't it?" +"They're not for sale." + +"But we may make an offer. It might be profitable for your principals to +sell. My clients feel they need this property, lying as it does between +their holdings." + +"I'll listen." + +There followed whispered arguments among the three, resulting in an +offer of a dollar and seventy-five cents an acre for the whole +tract--exactly what Johnnie had agreed to pay. + +"I said I'd listen," said Johnnie, "but I don't seem to hear anything." + +Another conference and a bid of two dollars. Johnnie shrugged his +shoulders. Two dollars and a half an acre was finally offered, and then +Johnnie leaned forward and tapped with his finger on his desk. "If you +gentlemen mean business, let's talk business. I've got what you want. +You can't get it unless I want to sell, and I don't want to sell. I and +my clients know what that timber is worth to us, but any business man +will consider a quick profit if it is _enough_ profit. In five years +that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years +it will be worth fifteen to twenty.... But if you want to buy to-day you +can have it for three dollars through and through." + +"We've got to have it," said Crane, and Keith nodded. + +"Cash," said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood's. + +"Our bank has made arrangements with your local bank to give us what +money we need," said Keith. + +And then, clattering upstairs, came a small boy. Without ceremony he +burst into the room. "Mr. Bones," he shouted, "I was sent to tell you +that strip of timber you tried to buy from the lady is for sale." Then +he whisked out of sight. + +Johnnie shrugged his shoulders. "Costs me some profit," he said. +"Confound that woman!... Well, we can go to the bank and close this up. +Then you fellows can finish up by buying that last fifteen thousand +acres." + +"You bet we will," said Crane, savagely. + +At the bank fifty-five thousand eight hundred dollars in the form of a +certified check was deposited in the hands of the cashier to be paid to +Johnnie when he should deliver proper deeds to the property sold.... It +represented a profit of twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty +dollars. + +"Now for the other parcel," said Crane, and getting the information as +to ownership, he and his companions took buggy to the spot. It was a +comfortable farmhouse, white painted and agreeable to look upon, but the +pleasure of the view was ruined for Crane and Keith by reason of a bulky +figure standing on the porch in conversation with a woman. + +"Baines!" ejaculated Crane. It sounded like a swear word as he said it. + +The three rushed the piazza. + +"Madam," said Crane, not deigning to recognize Scattergood's presence, +"you own a tract of timber--fifteen thousand acres. We hear it is for +sale. We want to buy it." + +"This gentleman was just making me an offer for it," she said, pointing +to Scattergood. + +"We raise his offer twenty-five cents an acre," said Crane, and drew +from his-pocket a huge roll of bills--it being his idea of the +psychology of women that the sight of actual money would have a +favorable effect. + +"That makes two dollars an acre," said she, and looked at Scattergood. + +"Two and a quarter," said he. + +"Two and a half," roared Crane. + +"Two seventy-five," said Scattergood. "Three dollars." + +"Three ten," said Scattergood. + +"Three and a quarter" said Crane. He glared at Scattergood. "If you want +it worse than that," he shouted, "why, confound you, you can have it!" + +"I don't," said Scattergood, placidly. + +The woman figured a moment. "That makes forty-eight thousand seven +hundred and fifty dollars," she said. "I kind of like even money. You +can have it for an even fifty thousand." + +Scattergood looked at her and grinned. One might have detected +admiration in his eyes. + +"Done," said Crane. "We'll get into town and close the deal, ma'am, if +you don't mind." + +"Your buggy seems to be crowded," said Scattergood. "I'll drive the lady +in, if you want I should." + +"We want nothing from you at all, Baines." + +"All right," said Scattergood, placidly, and, getting into his buggy, he +drove away. He drove rapidly, and alighted at Johnnie Bones's office. +Presently he emerged, carrying a legal-appearing document in his hand, +and went across to the bank, where he handed the document to the +cashier. + +Presently the parties appeared, entered the bank, and the cashier, upon +being directed, executed a certified check to the lady for fifty +thousand dollars. Then he handed it to her, and the deed to Mr. Crane. +"You see," said he, "we have the deed all ready for you." + +"Yes," said Scattergood, stepping through the door. "I had it fixed up +for you. I aim to be prompt when I'm tendin' to my wife's business +matters. Gentlemen, I guess you hain't met Mrs. Baines real proper +yet...." + +It was not a happy moment for Messrs. Crane and Keith, but they +weathered it, not suavely, not with complete dignity, but after a +fashion.... Their departure might, perhaps, have been termed brusque. + +"Well, Scattergood," said Mandy, "it was a real good deal." + +"The way you h'isted 'em to fifty thousand was what got my eye," he +said, proudly. "I wouldn't 'a' had the nerve." + +"I knew they'd pay it," she said. "Seems like a reasonable profit, +though the land's been a-layin' there unproductive for thirty year. +Father, he give a thousand dollars for it, and the taxes must 'a' been a +couple of thousand more. Say forty-seven thousand dollars profit...." + +"And I come out of the other deals perty fair. Made twenty-three +thousand off of the options, and nine or ten off of the other things. +Guess the Baines family's a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars +richer by a good day's work." + +"But it can't lay idle," she said. + +"Not a minnit. We'll buy that sixty thousand acres 'way back up the +river for sixty-six cents, like we planned, and have some workin' +capital.... And, Mandy, Crane and Keith hain't got that timber for +keeps. It's comin' back to us some of these days. I feel it in my +bones...." + +"Kind of a nice wind-up for our honeymoon," said Mrs. Baines, +practically. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD + + +Scattergood Baines was on his way to the city! An exclamation point +deserves to be placed after this because it rightly belongs in a class +with the statement that the mountain was coming to Mohammed. Scattergood +had fully as much in common with cities as eels with the Desert of +Sahara. + +He had not started the journey brashly, on impulse, but after debate and +discussion with Mandy, his wife. Mandy's conclusion was that if +Scattergood _had_ to go to the city he might as well get at it and have +it over, exercising the care of an exceedingly prudent man in the +circumstances, and following minutely advice that would be forthcoming +from _her_. Undoubtedly, she thought, he could manage the matter and +return to Coldriver unscathed. + +So Scattergood was clambering into the stage--his stage that plied +between Coldriver village and the railroad, twenty-four miles distant. +When he settled in his seat the stage sagged noticeably on that side, +for Scattergood added to his weight yearly as he added to his other +possessions. Mandy stood by, watching anxiously. + +"Remember," said she, "I pinned your money in the right leg of your +pants, clost to the knee." + +"Mandy," said he, confidentially, "I feel the lump of it. I hope I don't +have to git after it sudden. Dunno but I should have fetched along a +ferret to send up after it." + +"Don't git friendly with no strangers--dressed-up ones, especial. And +never set down your valise. There's a white shirt and a collar and two +pairs of sox, and what not, in there. Make quite an object for some +sharper." + +He nodded solemnly. + +"If you git invited out to _his house_," she said, "it'll save you a +dollar hotel bill, anyhow, and be a heap sight safer." + +"You're right, Mandy, as usual," he agreed. "G'by, Mandy. I calculate +you won't have no trouble mindin' the store." + +"G'by, Scattergood," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "I'll be relieved to +see you gittin' back." + +There seemed to be little sentiment in these, their words of parting, +but in reality it was an exceedingly sentimental passage for them. +Between Scattergood and his wife there was a deep, true, abiding +affection. Folks who regarded it as a business partnership--and there +were many of them--lacked the seeing eye. + +The stage rattled off down the valley--Scattergood's valley. He had +invaded it some years before because valleys were his hobby and because +_this_ valley offered him the opportunity he had been searching for. +Scattergood knew what could be done with a valley, and he was busy doing +it, but he was only at the beginning. As he bumped along he could see +busy villages where only hamlets rested; he could see mills turning +timber into finished products; he could see business and life and +activity where there were only silence and rocks and trees. And where +ran the rutted mountain road, over which his stage was carrying him +uncomfortably, he could see the railroad that was to make his dream a +reality. He could see a railroad stretching all the way from Coldriver +village to the main line, and by virtue of this railroad Scattergood +would rule the valley. + +He had arrived with forty-odd dollars in his pocket. His few years of +labor there, assisted by a wise and business-like marriage, had +increased that forty dollars to what some folks would call wealth. +First, he owned a prosperous hardware store. This was his business. It +netted him a couple of thousand dollars a year. The valley was his +avocation. It had netted him well over a hundred thousand dollars, most +of which was growing on the mountain sides in straight, clear spruce, in +birch, beech, and maple. It had netted him certain strategic holdings of +land along Coldriver itself, sites for future dams, for mills yet to be +built--for railroad yards, depots, and terminals. Quietly, almost +stealthily, he had gotten a hold on the valley. Now he was ready to grip +it with both hands and to make it his own.... That is why he journeyed +to the city. + +He put his canvas telescope between his feet so that he could feel it. +It was as well, he determined, to practice caution where none was +needed, so he would be letter perfect in the art when he reached the +dangers of the city. Between Scattergood's shoes and the feet they +inclosed, were sox. Before his union with Mandy he had been a stranger +to such effeteness. Even now he was prone to discard them as soon as he +was out of range of her vision. To-day he had not escaped, for, warm as +the day was, heavy white woolen sox folded and festooned themselves +modishly over the tops of his shoes. He could not wriggle a toe, which +made his mental processes difficult, for his toes were first aids to his +brain. + +However, he was going to visit a railroad president, and railroad +presidents were said by Mandy to go in for style. Scattergood mournfully +arose to the necessities of the situation. + +The twenty-four-mile ride was not long to Scattergood, for he occupied +it by studying again every inch of his valley. He never tired of +studying it. As the law book to the lawyer so the valley was to +Scattergood--something never to be laid aside, something to be kept +fresh in mind and never neglected. He never passed the length of it +without seeing a new possibility. + +Scattergood flagged the train. The four-hour ride to the city he +occupied in talking to the conductor or brake-man or any member of the +train's crew he could engage in conversation. He was asking them about +their jobs, what they did, and why. He was asking question after +question about railroads and railroading, in his quaint, characteristic +manner. It was his intention to own a railroad, and he was at work +finding out how the thing was done. + +Next morning at seven he was on hand at the terminal offices of the G. +and B. An hour later minor employees began to arrive. + +"Young feller," he said, accosting a pleasant-faced boy, "where d'you +calc'late I'll find Mr. Castle?" + +"President Castle?" asked the boy. + +"That's the feller," said Scattergood. + +"About now he'll be eating grapefruit and poached egg," said the boy. + +"Don't he work none durin' the day?" + +The boy laughed good-humoredly. "He gets down about nine thirty, and +when he don't go off somewheres he's mostly here till four--except +between one and two, when he's at lunch." + +"Gosh!" said Scattergood. "Must be wearin' him to the bone. 'Most five +hours a day he sticks to it. Bear up under it perty well, young feller, +does he? Keep his health and strength?" + +"He works enough to get paid fifty thousand a year for it," said the +boy. + +"That settles it," said Scattergood. "I've picked my job. I'm a-goin' to +be a railroad president." He put his canvas telescope down, and placed a +heavy foot on it for safety. "Calc'late I kin sit here and wait, can't +I?" + +The boy nodded and went on. During the next hour more than one dozen +young men and women passed that spot to eye with appreciation the caller +who waited for Mr. Castle. Scattergood was unaware of their scrutiny, +for he was building a railroad down his valley--a railroad of which he +was the president. + +Scattergood looked frequently at a big, open-faced, silver watch which +was connected to his vest in pickpocket-proof fashion with a braided +leather thong. When it told him nine thirty had arrived, he got up, his +telescope in his hand, and ambled heavily down the corridor. He poked +his head in at an open door, and called, amiably, "Kin anybody tell me +where to find Mr. Castle?" + +He was directed, and presently opened a door marked "President's +Office." The room within did not contain the president. It was crossed +by a railing, behind which sat an office boy. Behind him was a +stenographer. + +"President in?" asked Scattergood. + +The boy looked at him severely, and replied, shortly, that the president +was busy. + +"Havin' only five hours to do all his work," said Scattergood, "I +calc'lated he _would_ be some took up. Tell him Scattergood Baines wants +to have a talk to him, sonny." + +"Have an appointment?" + +"No, sonny," said Scattergood, "but if you don't scamper into his room +fairly _spry_, the seat of your pants is goin' to have an appointment +with my hand." He leaned over the railing as he said it, and the boy, +regarding Scattergood's face a moment, arose and whisked into the next +room. + +Shortly there appeared a youngish man, constructed by nature to adorn +wearing apparel. + +"Be you Mr. Castle?" asked Scattergood. + +"I'm his secretary. What do you want?" + +"Young man, I'm disapp'inted. When I see you I figgered you must be +president of the railroad or the Queen of Sheeby. I want to see Mr. +Castle." + +"What is your business with him?" + +"'Tain't fit for young ears to listen to," said Scattergood. + +"If you have any business with Mr. Castle, state it to me." + +"Um!... I come quite consid'able of a distance to see _him_--which I +calc'late to _do_." He reached over, with astonishing suddenness in one +so bulky, and twirled the secretary about with his ham of a hand. At the +same time he leaned against the gate, which was not fastened to restrain +such a weight. "Now, forrard march, young feller. Lead the way. I'm +follerin' you." And thus Scattergood entered the presence. + +He saw behind a huge, flat desk a very thin man, who leaned forward, +clutching his temples as though to restrain within bounds the machinery +of the brain inside. It was President Castle's habitual posture when +working. The temples and dome of the head seemed to bulge, as if there +was too much inside for the strength of the restraining walls. The +president looked up and fastened eyes that themselves bulged from +hollowed sockets. It was the face of a man who ran his mental dynamo at +top speed in defiance of nature's laws against speeding. + +"Well?" he snapped. "_Well--well_?" + +"Name's Scattergood Baines. Figger to build a railroad. Want to see you +about it," said Scattergood, succinctly. + +"Not interested. Busy. Get out," said Castle. + +Scattergood dropped the secretary, and lumbered up to the president's +desk. He leaned over it heavily. "I've come to see you about this here +thing," he said, quietly. "Either you'll talk to me about it _now_, or +I'll have to sort of arrange so that you'll come to _me_, askin' to talk +about it, later. Now you kin save both our time." + +Castle regarded Scattergood with eyes that seemed to burn with +unnatural nervous energy--it was a brief scrutiny. "Clear out," he said +to his secretary. "Sit down," to Scattergood. + +"Obleeged," said Scattergood. "I'm figgerin' on buildin' a railroad down +Coldriver Valley from Coldriver to connect with the G. and B. narrow +gauge. Carry freight and passengers. Want you to agree about train +service, freight transfer, buildin' a station, and sich matters." + +Here was a man who could get down to business, President Castle +perceived, and who could state his business clearly and to the point. + +"I know the valley. Been talking about it. Where do you come in?" + +"I calculate to build the road." + +"For Crane and Keith?" + +"Eh?" + +"They're the men backing it, aren't they? In to see me about it last +week." + +Crane and Keith! Scattergood's career in the valley had been one of +warfare with Crane and Keith. He had beaten them with his dam and boom +company; he had beaten them in certain stumpage operations. Now they +were after his railroad and his valley. + +"Um!..." he said, and reached down mechanically to loosen his shoe. Here +was need for careful thought. + +"I gave them all necessary information," said the president. + +"Don't concern me none," said Scattergood. "This here is to be _my_ +railroad, and I'm the feller that's goin' to own and run it. Crane and +Keith hain't in it at all." + +"You're too late. The G. and B. has agreed to handle their freight and +to stop passengers at their station. Tentatively agreed to lease and +operate the road when built.... Good morning." "I calculate there's +room for argument," said Scattergood. "I own right consid'able of that +right of way." + +"Railroad can take it under the right of eminent domain," said the +president. + +"Kin one railroad take from another one?" asked Scattergood, a bit +anxiously. + +"No." + +"Um!... Wa-al, you see, Mr. Castle, I got me a charter to build this +railroad. Legislature up and give me one." + +"Makes no difference. We've made an agreement with Crane and Keith which +_stands_. You can't build your road, whatever you've got. Frankly, we +won't tolerate a road there that we don't control. Good morning." + +"That final, Mr. President?" + +"Absolutely." + +"If I was to build in spite of you I calc'late you'd fix things so's +runnin' it wouldn't do much good to me, eh? Stop no trains for me, and +sich like?" + +"Exactly." + +"Um!... Mornin', Mr. President. If you ever git up to Coldriver don't go +to the hotel. Come right to my house. Mandy'll be glad to see you. +Mornin'." + +Scattergood and Johnnie Bones, the young lawyer whom Scattergood had +taken to his heart, were studying a railway map of the state with +special reference to the G. & B. It showed them that the G. & B. +traversed a southerly corner of the state and had within its boundaries +some forty miles of track. + +"The idee," said Scattergood, "is to make that forty mile of track +consid'able more of a worry to Castle than all the rest of his +railroad." + +"Meddling with the railroads is a dangerous pastime," said Johnnie. +"Besides, how can you manage it?" + +"We got a legislature, hain't we?" + +"Yes, but the boys feel pretty friendly to the railroads, I +understand." + +"Feel perty friendly to me, too," said Scattergood. + +"I doubt if you could pass any legislation they wanted to fight hard." + +"Um!... I'll look out for that end, Johnnie. Now what I want is for you +to draw up a bill for me that'll sort of irritate 'em where irritation +does the most hurt--which, I calc'late, is in the pocketbook. Here's my +notion: To make a pop'lar measure of it; somethin' that'll appeal to the +folks. We kin git the papers to start a holler and have folks demandin' +action of their representatives, and sich like. Taxes! That'll fetch 'em +every time." + +"Yes," said Johnnie, dubiously, "but--" + +"You _listen_" said Scattergood. "It stands to reason that the state +don't realize much out of that there forty mile of track. The G. and B. +gits the use of the state, so to speak, without payin' a fair rent for +it. You draw up a bill pervidin' that the railroad has got to pay a fee +of, say a dollar, for every passenger car it runs over them forty miles, +and fifty cents for every freight car. That'll mount to a consid'able +sum every year, eh?" + +"It'll amount to so much," said Johnnie, gazing ruefully at his client, +"that there'll be the devil to pay. You'll pull every railroad in the +state down around your ears." + +"Let 'em drop." + +"And I don't know if the law'll hold water--even if you got it passed. +It's darn-fool legislation, Mr. Baines--but some darn-fool legislation +_sticks_. I don't believe this would, but it _might_." + +"That's plenty to suit me," said Scattergood, slipping on his shoes and +standing up. "You git at it.... And say," he said, as a sort of +afterthought, "I want to git through a leetle bill for my stage line. +Here's about it. Won't take more'n fifty words." He handed Johnnie a +slip, crumpled and grimy, with lead-pencil notes on. "This won't cause +no trouble, anyhow." + +Scattergood went back to his hardware store and sat down in his +reinforced armchair on the piazza. As he sat there young Jim Hands drove +up with his girl, alighted, and went into the ice-cream parlor for +refreshment. Scattergood studied the rig. It lacked something to give it +the final touch of style dear to the country youth. + +Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a +resplendent buggy whip--one with a white silk bow tied above its handle. +This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his +chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig. +He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished +it through the air to try its excellence. + +"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood. + +"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim. + +"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good +whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked." + +Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and +felt in his pocket. + +"Calc'late I _did_ need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips +fetchin'?" + +"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to +you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy." + +The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills, +which he passed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off +with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by +methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the +business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for. +Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business +opportunity slip--large or small--and that he manufactured for himself +fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail +salesmanship to the rank of an art. + +Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain +wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had +pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and +weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find +them and ship them at once. + +Presently Tim Plant, teamster, drove by, and Scattergood hailed him. + +"Tim," he said, "you owe me a leetle bill. This hain't a dun, but I got +a mite of work to be done, and seein' things wasn't brisk with you, I +figgered you might want to work it out--jest to keep busy." + +"Sure," said Tim. + +Whereupon Scattergood elevated himself to the seat beside Tim, and was +driven to the spot he had selected for the Coldriver terminal of his +railroad. + +"I want about a hunderd feet graded along here," he said, "to lay rails +on." + +"Rails!... Gosh! Scattergood, you hain't thinkin' of buildin' a +railroad, be you?" + +"Shucks!" said Scattergood. "I jest got a half dozen rails comin', and I +figgered I'd like to see how they'd look all laid down on the spot. Give +folks an idee how a railroad 'u'd look if there was one." + +In which manner Scattergood collected a doubtful bill, obtained a +quantity of labor at what might be called wholesale rates--and actually +started work on his railroad. Actual, patent for the world to see. The +railroad was begun. Not Crane & Keith, not President Castle, not a court +in the world could deny that actual construction had begun. Scattergood +was insuring himself against possible steps by the enemy to nullify his +charter. + +"What's this here _eminent domain_?" Scattergood asked Johnnie Bones. + +"It's a legal thing that allows railroads to take land necessary to its +operation--paying for it, of course." + +"Anybody's land?" + +"Yes." + +"Crane and Keith, f'r instance?" + +"Yes." + +"Um!... Have to be right of way, or jest land for railroad yards, or to +build railroad buildin's on?" + +"Any land _necessary_ to a railroad." + +"Um!... Who says if it's necessary?" + +"The courts." + +"How'd you git at it?" + +"Start what are called condemnation proceedings." + +"All right, Johnnie, start me some." + +"Against whom, and for what, Mr. Baines?" + +"Against Crane and Keith, to git their land down at the G. and B. All +their mill yards, you know. Don't want the mill buildin'. They're +welcome to that. Jest their yards." + +"But they can't run the mill without the log yard and the yard to pile +out their lumber." + +"Be too bad, wouldn't it? Calc'late I'm a heap sorry for Crane and +Keith. Them fellers arouses my sympathy mighty frequent." + +"But you're not a railroad, Mr. Baines." + +"Yes I be, Johnnie. To-morrow I'll be layin' rails to prove it." + +"But you own land right adjoining Crane and Keith's yards. Plenty of +it." + +"Not plenty, Johnnie.... Not plenty. As long as Crane and Keith owns +_anything_ in this neighborhood I hain't got plenty of it. Get the idee?" + +"You want to run them out?" + +"Wa-al, they hain't been exactly friendly to me. I like to dwell among +friends, Johnnie. Lately they been makin' a sight of trouble for me. +Seems like I ought to sort of return the favor. 'Tain't jest spite, +Johnnie. Spite's a luxury I can't afford if there hain't a money profit +in it. Seems like there might be a dollar or two in this here +proceedin'--if handled jest right." + +Johnnie didn't see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object +in a great many things that Scattergood undertook. It was not his +business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood's +directions. The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood's +right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead. + +"Didn't know Crane's sister married President Castle of the G. and B., +did you, Johnnie?" + +"No. What has that to do with it?" + +"Consid'able.... Consid'able. Goes some ways toward provin' to me I was +expected to call on Castle and that things was arranged on purpose. +Proves to my satisfaction that Crane and Keith went out of their way to +start this rumpus with me.... You start them condemnation proceedin's as +quick as you kin." + +Johnnie started them. Scattergood waited a few days; watched with +interest the laying of the first rails of the Coldriver Railroad, and +then made the day's drive to the state capital with drafts of his pair +of bills in his pocket. He hunted up the representative from his +town--Amri Striker by name. + +"Amri," said he, "how's your disposition these days, eh? Feel like doin' +favors?" + +"Guess a lot of us boys feel like doin' favors for you, Scattergood." +Which was not short of the truth, for Scattergood had been studying the +science of politics as it was practiced in his state and putting to +practical use his education. Indeed, he added to the science not a few +contrivances characteristic of himself, which made the old-timers +scratch their heads and admit that a new man had arisen who must be +reckoned with. Not yet did Scattergood hold the state in the hollow of +his hand, naming governors, senators, directing legislation, as he did +when his years were heavier on his shoulders. Probably, however, there +was no single individual in the commonwealth who could exert as much +influence as he. If there was a single man to compare with him it was +Lafe Siggins, from the northern part of the state. All men admitted that +a partnership between Scattergood and Lafe would be unbeatable. + +"Got a bill I want introduced, Amri," said Scattergood. + +"Let's see her, Scattergood." + +Amri read the bill; then he turned around in his chair and looked out of +the window. Then he walked to the door and opened it suddenly, and +peered up and down the hall. + +"The dum thing's loaded with dynamite," he said, when he came back. + +"Calc'lated on some explosion," said Scattergood. "But I calc'late the +folks'll be for it. Shouldn't be s'prised if the feller who introduced +it and made a fight for it would stand mighty well, back home. Might git +to be Senator, Amri. No tellin'." + +"Can't no sich bill be passed. The boys likes their passes, and I guess +there's some that gits more than passes out of the railroads." + +"If this bill's introduced, Amri," said Scattergood, solemnly, "there'll +be a chance for some of the boys to fat up their savings' +account--pervidin' there's a good chance of its passin'. The +railroads'll git scairt and send quite a bank roll up this way." + +"You bet," said Amri, with watering mouth. + +"Lafe in town?" + +"Come in last week." + +"Lafe, I understand, hain't in politics for fun." + +"Lafe's in right where he kin git the most the quickest." + +"Run out and git him to step up here," said Scattergood. + +In half an hour Lafe Siggins, tall, bony, long, and solemn of face, +stepped into the room, and closed the door after him cautiously. + +"Howdy, Scattergood!" he said. + +"Howdy, Lafe!... Want your backin' for a pop'lar measure. I've up and +invented a new way of taxin' a railroad." + +Lafe started for the door. "Afternoon," he said, with a tone of +finality. + +"But," said Scattergood, "I figger you to do the fightin' for the +railroads--reapin' whatever benefits you can figger out of it for +yourself." + +Lafe paused, considered, and returned. "What's the idee?" he asked. + +"I jest don't want this bill to pass too easy," said Scattergood, +soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye. + +"It wouldn't," said Lafe. + +"Um!... Railroads is more liberal, hain't they, when there's a good +chance of their gittin' licked? Suppose this come to a fight, and it +looked like they was goin' to git the worst of it. Supposin' the outcome +hung on two or three votes, eh? And them votes looked dubious." + +Lafe pressed his thin lips together. + +"I guess I kin account for near half of the boys, Lafe, and I guess you +kin line up clost to half with the railroads, can't you? Well, you don't +stand to lose nothin', do you? All we got to do is keep them decidin' +votes where we want 'em." Then he leaned over and whispered in Lafe's +ear briefly. + +Lafe's thin lips curved upward a trifle at the ends. "Scattergood," +said he, "this here's an idee. Never recollect nothin' resemblin' it +since I been in politics. What _you_ after?" + +"Jest pleasure, Lafe.... Jest pleasure. Is it a deal?" + +"It's a deal." + +"Amri outside?" + +"Standin' guard, Scattergood." + +"When you go out send him in." + +Amri opened the door that Lafe closed behind him. + +"All fixed," said Scattergood. "I want to see these boys to-night." +Scattergood handed Amri a list of names. "And say, Amri, here's a leetle +bill you might jest slip along quick. Don't amount to nothin', but it +might help me some. Like to git the Governor's signature to it as soon +as it kin be done." + +Amri read it cautiously. It was just a harmless little measure having to +do with stage lines. "All right," he said, carelessly. + +Crane was in President Castle's office, and his demeanor was that of a +man who has heard disquieting news. + +"I told you," he said, in tones of reproach, "that he wasn't safe to +monkey with. Keith and I thought he was just a fat, backwoods rube, but +we got burnt, and burnt good. We were going to let him alone, but you +got us into this--and now you've got to get us out again. Know what he's +done? Nothing much but start condemnation proceedings against us to take +our mill yards down on the railroad for a site for a depot and freight +sheds. That's all. And us with close to a hundred thousand tied up in +that mill. If he puts it through ..." + +"He won't," snapped Castle. + +"He's started to build his railroad. Actually laying rails." + +"So I heard. That's to hold his charter.... Don't you worry. He can't +build that road, and you men will. As soon as I found out he had that +charter, and saw the possibilities of that valley, I made up my mind he +had to be eliminated. And he will be." + +"Keith and I tried that." + +"I saw him," said Castle. "He's no fool. You thought he was. I'm not +making any such mistake. Going after you the way he has proves it." + +"And he'll be going after you, too. You want to mind your eye." + +"It's a little different tackling the G. and B., don't you think? And I +doubt if he figures we're really backing you." + +"What he figures and what you think he figures are mighty wide apart +sometimes. It cost me money to find that out." + +The telephone interrupted. Castle answered: "Yes, Hammond, I can see you +now. What is it?... All right. Come right up." Hammond was the +railroad's general counsel. + +He appeared presently. + +"I thought we had the legislature up yonder tamed," he said, angrily, as +he entered the office. + +"We have." + +"Huh!... Take a look at this." He handed to the president Scattergood's +novel taxation, measure. "What you make of that? Who's behind it? What's +the game?" + +Castle read it carefully; then he turned to Crane. "You win," he said, +succinctly. "Your friend Scattergood has brought the fight right on to +our front porch.... What about it, Hammond? Will such a tom-fool law +stand water?" + +"Can't tell. My judgment is that it wouldn't, but it's such a fool law +that nobody can tell. And if it stuck--" He sucked in his breath. "It +would give every jay legisature a show to rough the railroads +beautifully." + +"It would hurt.... Of course it mustn't pass. Get after it and don't let +any grass grow. Kill it in committee. That's the safest way.... Have +Lafe Siggins look after it." + +Hammond bustled out, and Castle turned to his brother-in-law. "I +underestimated this Scattergood _some_," he said. "Now I'll go after +him.... For reasons of necessity we will discontinue all train service +at the flag station at the mouth of Coldriver Valley. That'll leave his +stage line dangling in the air. Just for a taste of what we can do.... +I'll have Hammond look after that condemnation matter for you." + +"He'll be coming around to offer to sidetrack that legislation if you'll +let him build his railroad." + +"Probably. I guess we won't trade." + +But Scattergood did not come around to offer a compromise. He seemed to +have lost interest in the matter wholly and to give his time solely to +his hardware store. But the Transient Car bill, as it came to be called, +began mysteriously to attract unprecedented attention. The press of the +state showed unusual interest in it. In short, it became the one big +measure of the legislative session. Everything else was secondary to it. +When a railroad measure is hotly discussed in every loafing place in a +state there is a measure that legislators handle with gloves. It is +loaded. When the home folks get really interested in a thing they are +apt to demand explanations. Wherefore it was but natural that President +Castle's experts found it impossible to strangle the bill in committee. +It was reported out, and then Hammond found it wise to journey to the +capital to take charge of things himself. + +At the end of a week, Mr. Hammond, general counsel for the G. & B. and +expert handler of legislatures, was forced to write President Castle +that he faced a condition new in his broad experience. + +"The chances," he said, "are more than even that this bill passes. Men +we have been able to depend on are refractory. Siggins is doing his +best, but so far he has been able to account for only forty-five per +cent of the votes. The strange thing about it," he finished, with +genuine amazement, "is that the other side doesn't seem to be spending a +penny." + +Which was perfectly true. Neither in that fight nor in any of the scores +of legislative battles in which Scattergood took part in his after life +did he spend a dollar to buy a vote or to influence legislation. Perhaps +it was scruple on his part; perhaps economy; perhaps he felt that his +own peculiar methods were more efficacious than mere barter and sale. + +From end to end, the state was in excitement over the measure. Skillful +work had made it seem a vital thing to the people, and hundreds of +letters and telegrams poured in to representatives. It looked as if +public opinion were overwhelmingly with the bill. It was Scattergood's +first use of the weapon of public opinion. In this battle he learned its +potentialities. Men who knew him well and were close to him in political +matters declare he became the most skillful creator of a fictitious +public opinion that ever lived in the state. It was in keeping with his +methods that he always seemed to be acting in response to a demand from +the public rather than that he excited the public to demand what +Scattergood wanted. But that was when Scattergood's hair was touched +with gray and his girth had increased by twoscore pounds. + +"I can't find any trace of Scattergood Baines in this matter," Hammond +reported to President Castle. + +That was true. Scattergood stayed at home, tending vigorously to his +hardware business. Representatives did not call on him; he did not call +on them. No trails led to his door. + +President Castle had expected overtures from Scattergood, but none +materialized. To a man of Castle's experience this was more than +strange; it was uncanny. He began to consider the situation really +serious. Was the man so confident as his silence indicated? + +"Get the votes," he wired succinctly to Hammond, and Hammond, reading +the message correctly, dipped into the emergency barrel of the railroad +with generous hands. Prosperity had come to that legislature. Yet he was +able, at the end of another two weeks, to guarantee six votes less than +a majority. The opposition had captured one more vote than he, and +needed but five to pass their measure. Hammond faced the task of +acquiring those five unplaced legislators, and of weaning one away from +Scattergood--and the bill was due to come up in the House in two days. + +That day President Castle himself arrived in the capital, and, after +discussing the situation with Hammond, wired Scattergood, asking for an +appointment. The mountain was going to Mohammed. Scattergood replied not +a word. + +"I calc'late," he said to Mandy, "that President Castle's raisin' him a +blister." + +On the morning of the day on which the bill was to come to a vote +Scattergood appeared unostentatiously in the capital, but word of his +presence flashed from tongue to tongue with miraculous speed. Word of it +came to President Castle, who pocketed his pride for excellent business +reasons, and sent up his card to Scattergood's room. + +"Guess I kin see him a minute," said Scattergood, and the president +ascended with thoughts in his heart which Scattergood was well able to +lead. + +"Baines," said Castle, without preface, "what do you want?" + +"Nothin' you've got, I calc'late," said Scattergood, serenely. + +"You're back of this infernal bill. The railroads can't permit it to +pass. It won't pass." + +"Then what you wastin' your time on me for?" Scattergood asked. + +"If we let you build your infernal little railroad will you drop out of +this?" + +"Hain't in it to speak of." + +"Will you take your hands off--if we give you your railroad and +guarantee train service?" + +"Can't seem to see my way clear." + +"What do you gain by passing this bill? You're nothing ahead. It won't +give you your railroad. It won't give you anything." + +"Calc'late you're right." + +"Listen to reason, man. You want _something_. What is it?" + +"Me?... Um!... I'm a plain kind of a man, Mr. President, with a plain +kind of a wife. Hain't never met Mandy, have you? Wa-al, her and me is +perty contented with life. We got a good hardware store ..." + +"Rot! What do you want?" + +Scattergood leaned forward, his round face, with its bulging cheeks, as +expressionless as some particularly big and ruddy apple. + +"If you're achin' to do favors for me, Mr. President you kin drop in +along about supper time. Right now can't think of a thing you kin do for +me. But I'll try ... I'll spend the afternoon thinkin' over all the +things you might be able to do, and I'll try to pick one of 'em out.... +I got to see a hardware salesman now. Afternoon Mr. President." + +"Baines," said Castle, losing his temper for the first time in a dozen +years, "we'll smash you for this. We'll drive you out of the state. +Well--" + +"Don't slam the door," said Scattergood, placidly; "it might disturb the +other folks in the hotel." + +That afternoon the galleries of the House were jammed. Below, in their +seats, the legislators sat uncomfortably. There was a tenseness in the +air which made men's skin tingle. The Transient Car bill was about to +come to a vote. Everything had been done by both sides that could be +done. There could be no more outside interference; no more money +influence. It was all over. Now the matter was in the hands of those +uneasy men, who, even now, might hold steadfast to their principles or +to the money that had bought them or to the power that had compelled +them--or who might, for reasons secret to their several souls, change +sides with astonishing suddenness, upsetting all calculations. Such +things have been done.... But, even without the happening of the +unexpected, no man could say how the votes would fall. Neither side had +obtained a sure majority. + +The preliminary formalities went forward. Then began the roll call, and +from his place in the gallery Hammond checked off on his list name after +name, as they voted yea or nay--and President Castle watched and kept +mental count. Scattergood was not present. The thing was even, +dangerously even. For every yea there sounded a balancing nay. The count +stood sixty-one for, sixty against ... with ten more votes to call.... +With six votes to call the count was even. + +"Whittaker," called the clerk's monotonous voice. + +"Nay." + +"Robbins." + +"Nay." + +"Baker." + +"Nay." + +"Hooper." + +"Nay." + +"Bolger." + +"Nay." + +"Brock." + +"Nay." + +The six final votes had been cast--and cast solidly against +Scattergood's bill. Scattergood was beaten, decisively, destructively +beaten. Not only was he defeated here, but he was smashed where the +damage was even more destructive--in his prestige. He was a discredited +political leader.... Lafe Siggins could not restrain a chuckle, for +Scattergood had played into his hands. Scattergood had allowed himself +to be eliminated from calculation in the state, leaving Siggins as sole, +undisputed, victorious boss. It had been a clever scheme that +Scattergood had outlined to Lafe--so clever that Lafe hadn't seen the +great good that lay in it for himself--until days later. He shrugged his +shoulders. It was just another case of a man unfamiliar with the game +overplaying his hand. + +President Castle shook hands openly with Hammond. True, there was a +demonstration of disapproval from the gallery--but that was only the +people! It did not signify. + +"We got him," said Castle. + +"But it was a close squeak." + +Castle looked grimly down on the representatives, now huddled together +in whispering groups. + +"I don't often have the impulse to crow over a man," he said, "but this +Baines was so infernally cocky. He told me I might see him at six +o'clock and he'd tell me what I could do for him. Well, I'm going to see +him." His voice was grim and forbidding. + +On the way they picked up Siggins and invited him to dinner. The three +went to the hotel, where, sitting calmly, placidly in the lobby, was +Scattergood. + +Castle walked directly to him. "You were going to tell me what I could +do for you--at this hour, I believe." + +"Did say somethin' like that." + +Castle eyed Scattergood venomously, found him a hard man to crow over. +He admitted Scattergood to be a good loser. + +"I expect you'll be asking favors for some time," Castle said, "and not +getting them. I told you we'd lick you--and we have. I told you we'd +smash you and drive you out of the state. We'll do that just as +surely ..." + +"Maybe so," said Scattergood, phlegmatically. "Maybe so. Nobody kin +tell.... Howdy, Siggins! Lookin' mighty jubilant about somethin'. Glad +to see it.... And Mr. Hammond seems pleased, too. Done a good job of +work, didn't you? Bet your boss is pleased with you, eh?" + +"When you're ready to turn your chunks of right of way over to Crane and +Keith, let them know," said Castle. "I guess the G. and B. loses +interest in you from this on--or it will presently." + +"Jest a jiffy," said Scattergood, as the trio turned away. "Seems like +you was goin' to do a favor for me. Well, you hain't done it yet.... +Guess I need a favor perty bad at this minute, eh? Wa-al, 'tain't a big +one. Jest sort of cast your eye over this here." Scattergood handed +Castle a folded paper of documentary appearance. + +Castle snatched it and read it. It was brief. Not more than fifty words. +It was a copy of a bill having to do with stage lines, passed by both +Houses and signed by the Governor. It provided that wherever any stage +line or _other transportation company of whatsoever nature_ intersected +the line of a railroad or terminated on such line, the railroad should +be compelled to establish a regular station on demand, for the handling +of passengers and freight, and should stop all trains except through +trains, and should establish sidetracks for the handling and transfer of +freight. + +A few formal words, backed by the authority of the state, compelling the +G. & B. to do all, and more than all, that Scattergood had requested of +them! A few words making possible Scattergood's railroad more surely +than agreement with President Castle could have made it! + +"While you folks was busy with the Transient Car bill," Scattergood +said, amiably, "the boys sort of tended to this for me. If I'd thought +Hammond was int'rested I might have called it to his attention. But I +figgered he was paid to watch out for sich things, and I didn't want to +interfere none. Jest as well, I take it." + +Castle was scowling at Hammond, momentarily at a loss for words. Siggins +was gazing at Scattergood with thin lips parted a trifle. His joy was +blanketed. + +"Somethin' else," said Scattergood, looking from one to another, and +finally at Lafe. "Siggins figgered that my gittin' a beatin' on this +bill would sort of make him boss of the state. You see, Mr. President, +this here bill wasn't _meant_ to pass. It was fixed up for a couple of +reasons. One was to git something which I'll tell you about in a second. +Another was to make the boys in the House sort of prosperous like, and +grateful to me for gittin' 'em the prosperity--with the railroads payin' +for it. The last was to settle things between Lafe and me. I sort of +wanted Lafe and the boys in politics to understand which was which.... +And they'll understand.... Now, Mr. President, the thing I wanted to git +was in two parts. First one was to git your attention on this here bill +so's you wouldn't notice my little stage-line thing. The other was +pretty nigh as valuable. I got it. It's a list of every man in this +legislature that took money for a vote on this thing, with how much +money he took and the hour and minute it was paid him--and _who by_. +Seems like I managed to git _your_ name, Mr. President, connected with +them last six votes that you took over body and britches this noon. And +I kin _prove_ every item of it.... With the folks around the state +feelin' like they do, I shouldn't be s'prised if I could make a heap of +trouble." + +President Castle was a big man or he would not hold the position that +was his. He knew when a fight was over. "You win," he said, tersely. +"Name it." + +"Two things. First off I want an agreement with your road, made by a +full vote of the board of directors, agreein' to do jest what this bill +pervides--in case of emergencies. And second, I want your folks should +handle the bonds of my railroad--construction bonds. Guess I could +manage it without, but I need my money for somethin' else. About two +hunderd thousand dollars' worth of bonds'll do it." + +Castle shrugged his shoulders--seeing possibilities for the future. +However, he knew Scattergood had weighed those possibilities himself. + +"Agreed," he said. There was a moment's silence. "By the way," he asked, +"what was the idea of the condemnation proceedings against Crane and +Keith?" + +"Jest a mite of business. With the railroad goin', I need a good mill up +on a site I got below Coldriver. Seems like Crane and Keith got a might +timid, and yestiddy they up and sold out that mill to a friend of +mine--actin' for me--for fifty-five thousand dollars. Figger I got it +dirt cheap. Wuth close to a hunderd thousand, hain't it?... I'm goin' to +move it to Coldriver, lock, stock, and barrel." + +"Baines," said Castle, presently, "the G. and B. will keep hands off +your valley. It will be better for us to work together than at odds. +Suppose we bury the hatchet and work for each other's interest.... I'm +paid to know a coming man when I see one." + +"Was hopin' you'd see it that way, Mr. President. I hain't one that +hankers for strife ... not even with Lafe, here, if he can figger he's +willin' to admit what he's got to admit." + +"I take my orders from you," said Lafe. + +In which authentic manner Scattergood Baines, in one transaction, made +possible and financed his railroad, obtained his first mill, and became +undisputed political dictator of his state. Characteristically, there +was charged to expense for the whole transaction a sum that a very +ordinary man could earn in a week. Scattergood loved cheap results. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING + + +It is known to all the world that Scattergood came to own the stage line +that plied down the valley to the railroad, but minute research and a +sifting of dubious testimony was required to unearth the true details of +that transaction in which the peg leg of Deacon Pettybone figured in a +dominant manner. + +Scattergood had long had his eye on the stage line, because his valley, +the Coldriver Valley, was dominated by it. Transportation was king, and +Scattergood knew that if his vision of developing that valley and of +acquiring riches for himself out of the development were ever to become +actuality, he must first control the means of transporting passengers +and commodities. But the stage line was not to be acquired, because +Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper, who owned it in partnership, had not +been on speaking terms for twenty years. So bitter was the feud that +either would have borne cheerfully a loss to prevent the other from +making a profit. The stage line was a worry and an annoyance to both of +them, but neither of them would sell, because he was afraid his enemy +might derive some advantage. + +As Scattergood well knew, the feud had its inception in religion as +religion is practiced in that community. Deacon Pettybone had been born +a Congregationalist. Elder Hooper was the sturdiest pillar of the +Congregationalist church. They had grown up together from boyhood, as +chums, and later as business partners, but at the mature age of forty +Deacon Pettybone had attended a revival service in the Baptist church. +When he came out of that service the mischief was done--he had been +converted to the tenets of immersion and straightway withdrew from the +church of his birth to enter the fold of its bitterest rival in +Coldriver, if it were possible for the Baptists to be bitterer rivals of +the Congregationalist than the Methodists and Universalists were. +Coldriver's population was less than four hundred. It required a great +deal of religion to get that four hundred safely past the snares and +pitfalls of Coldriver, for there were no fewer than five full-grown +churches, of which the Roman Catholic was the fifth, and a body of folks +who met in one another's houses of a Sabbath under the denomination of +the United Brethren. Five churches worshiped God through the crackling +parchment of their mortgages, when one, or at most two, might have +pointed the way to heaven free and clear, and with no worries over +semiannual interest. + +When Pettybone turned apostate there was such a commotion as had never +before disturbed Coldriver; it subsided, and was forgotten as the years +dragged on, by all but Pettybone and Hooper, who continued tenaciously +to hate each other with a bitter hatred--and the more so that their +financial affairs were so inextricably mingled. + +Even when Pettybone's leg was mashed by a log, and he lay between life +and death, there was no hint of a reconciliation; and when Pettybone +appeared again on Coldriver's streets, hobbling on a peg leg of his own +fashioning, the fires of vindictiveness burned higher and hotter than +ever. + +The situation would have been hopeless to anybody not possessed of +Scattergood's optimism and resource. It is reported that Scattergood +propounded a saying early in his career at Coldriver, to this effect: + +"Anybody kin git anythin' done if he wants it hard enough. Trouble is, +most folks hain't got a sufficient capacity for wantin'." + +Scattergood's capacity for wanting was abnormal, and his ability to want +until he got was what made him the remarkable figure in the life of his +state that he was destined to become. + +Scattergood was sitting on the piazza of his hardware store, basking in +the sunshine, and gazing up the dusty road which passed between +Coldriver's business structures, and disappeared over the hill. His eyes +were half closed, and his bulk, which later became phenomenal, filled +comfortably the specially reinforced chair which came to be called his +throne. Pliny Pickett slouched around the corner, and, as he approached, +the unmistakable odor of horses became noticeable. Inhabitants of +Coldriver knew when Pliny came into a room even if their backs were +turned. + +"Mornin', Pliny," said Scattergood. + +"Mornin', Scattergood." + +"Fetch any passengers?" + +"Drummer 'n' a fat woman to visit the Bogles. Say, Scattergood, looks +like you're goin' to have competition." + +"Um!... Don't say." + +"Hardware," said Pliny, nasally. "Station's heaped with it. Every +merchant in town's layin' in a stock." + +"Do tell," said Scattergood, without emotion. "Kettleman and Locker?" +They were the grocers. + +Pliny nodded. "An' Lumley and Penny mixin' it in with dry goods, and +Atwell minglin' it with clothin'." + +Scattergood reached down and unlaced his shoes. His mind worked more +freely when his toes were unconfined, so that he might wriggle them as +he reasoned. Pliny knew the sign and grinned. + +"Much 'bleeged," said Scattergood, and Pliny moved off. + +"Pliny," said Scattergood. + +"Eh?" + +"Was you thinkin' of buyin' a stove?" + +"No." + +"Could think about it, couldn't you?" + +"Might manage it." + +"Folks thinkin' of buyin' stoves gits prices, don't they? Kind of +inquires around to see where they kin buy cheapest?" + +"Most does." + +"G'-by, Pliny." + +"G'-by, Scattergood." + +Something of the sort was not unanticipated by Scattergood. He knew the +merchants of the town had not forgiven him for once getting decidedly +the better of them in a certain transaction, and he knew now that they +had combined against him. Their idea was transparent to him. It was +their hope to put him out of business by adding hardware to their stocks +and to sell it at cost, until he gave up the ship. They could afford it. +It would not interfere with their normal profits. + +Scattergood wriggled his toes furiously and squinted his eyes. They +alighted on a young man in clerical black, who crossed the square from +the post office. It was no other than Jason Hooper, son of Elder Hooper, +who had been educated to the ministry and had recently come to occupy +the pulpit of his father's church--a pleasant and worthy young man. +Almost simultaneously Scattergood's eyes perceived Selina Pettybone, +daughter of Deacon Pettybone, just entering the post office. + +"Purty as a picture," said Scattergood to himself, and then he chuckled. + +The young minister nodded to Scattergood, and Scattergood spoke in +return. "Mornin', Parson," he said. "How d'you find business?" + +"Business?" The young man looked a bit startled. + +"Oh, how's the marryin' industry, f'r instance? Brisk?" + +Jason smiled. "It might be brisker." + +"Um!... Maybe folks figgers you hain't had enough experience to do their +marryin' jest accordin' to rule--seein' 's you hain't married yourself." + +Jason blushed and frowned. This was a subject that had been brought to +his attention insistently; he had been informed that a minister should +marry, and there were several marriageable daughters in his church. + +"You aren't going to pick a wife for me, too?" he said, with a rueful +smile. + +"Dunno but I might," said Scattergood. "Got any preferences as to weight +and color?" + +"My only preference is to have them all--a long way off," said the young +minister. + +"Some day you'll have opposite leanin's. There'll be a girl you'll want +to snuggle right clost to.... G'-by, Parson, I'll keep my eyes open for +you." + +A few days later consignments of hardware began to arrive, and +Scattergood, sitting on the piazza of his store, watched them carried +with much ostentation into the stores of his rivals. It was noticed that +he scarcely had his shoes on during this week and that he even walked to +the post office barefooted, squirming his delighted toes into the warm +sand with apparent enjoyment. Immediately Locker and Kettleman and +Lumley and the rest made it known to Coldriver and environs that they +were dealing in hardware and not for profit, but merely as a convenience +to their patrons. They emphasized the fact that they would sell hardware +at cost, and exhibited prices which Scattergood studied and saw that he +could not meet. + +The town watched the affair, expecting much of Scattergood, but he made +no move. Apparently he was contented to sit on his piazza and see +customers passing him by for the alluring bargains offered beyond. +Coldriver was disappointed in Scattergood, and it said so, much as a +disgruntled critic will speak of an actor who has made a flat failure in +a favorite piece. + +On a certain afternoon Scattergood was seen to accost Selina Pettybone, +who paused, and drew nearer, showing signs of regret and interest. + +"Seliny," said Scattergood, "you're one of them Daughters of Dorcas, or +half sisters of Mehitable, or somethin' religious and charitable, hain't +you?" + +"Yes," said Selina, with a smile. + +"What does sich folks do when they git to hear of a case of misery and +distress?" + +"They do what they can, Mr. Baines," said Selina. + +"Um!... If you heard Xenophon Banks was took sick of a busted leg, and +his wife was dead these two year, and a 'leven-year-old girl was tryin' +to nuss her pa and look after four more, what d'ye calc'late you'd +calc'late?" + +"I'd calculate," said Selina, "that I ought to go out there to the farm +and see about it at once." + +"Usin' your buggy or mine?" + +"Mine, thank you." + +"G'-by, Selina." + +"G'-by, Mr. Baines," she said, and laughed. + +Scattergood watched her disappear in the direction of her home and then +got up leisurely and ambled toward the Congregational parsonage, in +which young Jason Hooper lived in solitary dignity. Mr. Hooper was in +his study. + +"Howdy, Parson?" said Scattergood. + +"How do you do, Mr. Baines?" + +"Bible say anythin' regardin' visitin' the sick an' ministerin' to the +oppressed?" + +"A great deal, Mr. Baines." + +"Think it's meant, eh? Or was it put there jest to preach about?" + +"It is meant, undoubtedly." + +"For ministers?" + +"Yes." + +"Um!... Xenophon Banks busted his leg. 'Leven-year-old daughter's tryin' +to carry him and four other childern on to her back, so to speak." + +"I'll go at once, Mr. Baines." + +Scattergood fidgeted. "Calculate Xenophon wasn't forehanded. Six mouths +to feed. _More mealtimes than meals_," he said, and fumbled in his +pocket. He was visibly embarrassed. "Here's ten dollars that was give me +to be used for sich a purpose. The feller that give it let on he wanted +it to come like it was give by the church, and him not mentioned. Git +the idee?" + +"I get the idea perfectly," said young Mr. Hooper, his face lighting as +he surveyed Scattergood with a whimsical twinkle--and as he saw this +scheming, money-hungry, power-hungry man in a new light. "The man may +feel confident I shall not betray him." + +"If I was a minister in sich a case I wouldn't forgit some stick candy +for them five childern. Seems like candy's 'most necessary for sich. Dum +foolishness, but keeps 'em quiet.... Git a big bag of candy.... And, if +I was doin' this, I wouldn't let no grass grow under my feet." + +So it happened that Selina Pettybone and the Rev. Jason Hooper, +respectively, daughter of the leading deacon of the Baptist church, and +parson of the Congregational church, arrived at Xenophon Banks's little +house within ten minutes of each other, and each was greatly embarrassed +by the other's presence, for the family feud had compelled them to be +coldly distant to each other all of their short lives.... But there was +much to do, and embarrassment of such kind between an unusually pretty +and wholesome girl, and a reasonably well-looking and kindly young man, +is not an emotion that cannot be easily dissipated. + +About a week later Scattergood chanced to pass Deacon Pettybone's +house, and saw the old gentleman sitting on the front porch, shaping a +large piece of wood with a draw-shave. + +"Afternoon, Deacon," said Scattergood. + +"Set and rest your legs," said the deacon. "Jest puttin' the finishin' +touches on this timber leg of mine." + +"Sturdy-lookin' leg, Deacon." + +"Best I ever made. Always calc'late to keep one ahead. Soon's one leg +wears out and I put on the spare one, I set to work fashionin' another, +to have by me. Always manage to figger some improvement." + +"More int'restin' than cuttin' out ax handles," said Scattergood. + +The deacon looked his scorn. "Anybody kin cut an ax handle, but lemme +tell you it takes study and figgerin' and _brains_ to turn out a timber +leg that's full as good if not better 'n a real one.... I aim to varnish +this here leg and hang it in the harness room. Wisht I could keep it by +me in the kitchen, but the ol' woman says it sp'iles her appetite. +Wimmin is full of notions. Claims she'd go crazy with a leg a-hangin' +back of the stove, and some day she'd up and slam it in the oven and +serve it up for a roast. You kin thank your stars you hain't got +wimmin's notions to worry you, Scattergood." + +"How d'ye stand on the proposition to have the town build a sidewalk up +the hill apast the Congregational church, Deacon?" + +The deacon pounded on the porch with his nearly finished leg, and grew +red in the face. "All the doin's of ol' man Hooper. Connivin' and +squillickin' around for his own ends. Lemme tell you, Scattergood, no +town meetin' of Coldriver'll ever vote sich a steal only over my dead +body. Jest you tell that far and wide." + +Business had been almost at a standstill for Scattergood. The only +sales he made were of small articles his competitors had forgotten or +neglected to stock. He had not taken in enough money for a month to pay +for the wear and tear on his fixtures. Coldriver was coming to set him +down as a failure and a black disappointment; but it marveled that he +took no action whatever and showed no signs of worry. His eyes were as +blue and his manner as humorous as it had ever been. Most of his +conversation seemed to be on the subject of the sidewalk past the +Congregational church, and it was carried on in low tones, and never to +more than one individual at a time. If those individuals had compared +notes they would have been astonished. Scattergood's attitude on the +matter was widely different, depending on whether he talked with Baptist +or Congregationalist. One might almost say that both sides were coming +to him for advice on how to conduct its campaign to carry the town +meeting--and one would have been right. + +The matter had developed into the hottest political issue Coldriver had +ever seen. No presidential election had come near to rivaling it, and +the local-option issue had stirred up fewer heartburnings and given rise +to less bellowing and to fewer hard words. The town meeting was less +than a month away. + +But even in the heat of the campaign Scattergood found time to drive out +to Xenophon Banks's. The road to Banks's was fairly well traveled these +days, for there was hardly a day that did not see either Selina +Pettybone or Parson Hooper driving out to the little house, and, +strangely enough, the days on which both were present appeared to be in +the majority. Scattergood dropped out now and then with pockets full of +stick candy, which he never delivered himself, but which he always +handed to the minister or to Selina to be given anonymously after he was +gone. He seemed as much interested in watching Selina and Jason as he +was in talking with Xenophon, and he might have been perceived +frequently to nod his head with satisfaction--especially on the day when +he heard Jason call Selina by her first name, and on the other day when +he saw the young minister retaining Selina's hand longer than he should +have done in saying good afternoon. That day Jason drove back to town +with Scattergood. + +"Likely-lookin' girl--Seliny," observed Scattergood. + +"Beautiful," said the parson, and Scattergood grinned. + +"Um!... Single ministers is a menace. Yes, sir, churches has busted up +on account of their ministers not bein' married." + +There was no reply. + +"But I calculate you're different. You're jest made and created to be an +old batch. Never seen sich a feller. Couldn't no girl interest you, not +if she was the Queen of Sheeby." + +"Mr. Baines," said Jason, after a pause, "I'm very miserable. I--I think +I shall resign from my church and go away." + +"Sandrich Islands or somewheres--missionery feller?" said Scattergood. + +"I--why, yes, that's what I'll do.... I wish I'd never seen her." Then +he corrected himself sharply. "No, I don't. I'm glad I've seen her. I've +got that much, anyhow. I can always remember her and think about how +sweet and beautiful she was--" + +"And die at the age of eighty with her name comin' from your lips on +your last breath. To be sure.... Seems to me, though, it would be a +sight more satisfyin' to live them fifty-odd years _with_ her and raise +up a fam'ly, and git some benefits out of that sweetness and beauty and +sich like, besides mullin' 'em over in your mind. Speakin' of Seliny, +wasn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't hanker to marry her?" + +"Mr. Baines--" + +"Then why in tunket don't you?" + +"She's a Baptist." + +"White, hain't she?" + +"Yes." + +"Respectable?" + +"Of course, sir." + +"Don't call to mind no state law ag'in' Congregationalists marryin' +Baptists." + +"My congregation wouldn't allow it." + +"Hain't never seen no deed of sale of you to your congregation." + +"Her father would never permit it?" + +"Huh!..." + +"And she's an obedient daughter." + +"Has she said so?" + +"Y-yes." + +"Ho! Kind of human, after all, hain't you? Look pleased when she said +it?" + +"She cried." + +"Comfort her--some." + +"I--She--she loves me, Mr. Baines." + +"Well, I snum! Kind of disobedient to love you, hain't it? Knows her +father 'd be set ag'in' it?" + +"Yes, but she can't help that." + +"Why?" + +"You--why, you _fall_ in love! You don't do it on purpose, Mr. Baines. +It just comes to you." + +"From where?" said Scattergood, abruptly. + +The young minister stared. + +"Who's to blame for there bein' love?" Scattergood demanded. + +After a pause the young man answered. "God," he said. "Why does He send +it?" + +"So that people will marry, and the love will keep them together, strong +to bear the trials and labors of life. I think love is a kind of wages +that God pays to men and women for living on His earth." + +"Um!... Does He send love sort of helter-skelter and hit-or-miss, or +does He aim it at certain folks?" + +"I have often preached that marriages were made in heaven." + +"Then it's a kind of a command, hain't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Which d'ye calculate is the wust disobedience? To refuse to obey an +order sich as this, or to disobey a parent that runs counter to the +wants of the Almighty?" + +The young man's face was alight with happiness. "Mr. Baines," he said, +"I'm grateful to you. I shall marry Selina." + +"Maybe," said Scattergood. "It runs in my mind you got to have dealin's +with Deacon Pettybone, and the deacon always figgers that the news he +gits from heaven is fresher and more dependable than what anybody else +gits. Might ask him and see." + +A few days after that Coldriver knew that Parson Hooper had asked the +hand of Selina from her father and had been rejected with language and +almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had +married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been +enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him +as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it +espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to +marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean, +narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing became a +public question, second in importance only to the sidewalk. + +"Hold your hosses," Scattergood advised Jason. "Let's see what a mite +of dickerin' and persuasion'll do with the deacon. Then, if measures +fails, my advice to you as a human bein' and a citizen is to git Seliny +into a buckboard and run off with her. But hold on a spell." + +So Jason held on, and the town meeting approached, and Scattergood +continued to sit in idleness on the piazza of his store and twiddle his +bare toes in the sunshine. Deacon Pettybone was a busy man, organizing +the forces of the Baptists, and seeking diligently to round up the votes +of neutrals. Elder Hooper, the leader of the Congregationalist party, +was equally occupied, and no man might hazard a guess at the outcome of +the affair. + +"This here is a great principle," said Deacon Pettybone, "and men gives +their lives and sacrifices their families for sich. I'm a-goin' to fight +to the last gasp." + +"Don't blame ye a mite," said Scattergood. "If them Congregationalists +rule this town meetin' you might's well throw up your hands. They'll +rule the town forever." + +"It's got to be pervented." + +"And nobody but you kin manage it," said Scattergood. "The hull thing +rests with you. Why, if you was sick so's to be absent from that meetin' +the Congregationalists 'u'd win, hands down." + +"I b'lieve it," said the deacon, "and nothin' on earth'll keep me +away--nothin'. If I was a-layin' at my last gasp I'd git myself carried +there." + +"Deacon," said Scattergood, solemnly, "much is dependin' on you. +Coldriver's fort'nit to have sich a man at the helm." + +Even the cribbage game under the barber shop was suspended, and the +cribbage game was an institution. It was the deacon's one shortcoming, +but even there he strove to get the better of the enemy, for the two men +who were considered his only worthy antagonists at the game were +Congregationalists. The three bickered and quarreled and threatened +each other with violence, but they played daily. There were few +afternoons when a ring of spectators did not surround the table, +breathlessly watching the champions. It was the great local sporting +event, and who shall quarrel with the good deacon for touching cards in +the innocent game of cribbage? Certainly his pastor did not do so, nor +did the fellow members of his congregation. Indeed, there was even pride +in his prowess. + +But the game was discontinued, and Hamilcar Jones and Tilley Newcamp +were loud in their excoriations of their late antagonist. The +Congregationalists had no hotter adherents than they, nor none who +entered the conflict with more bitterness of spirit. Scattergood saw to +it that he encountered them on the evening before the momentous town +meeting. + +"Evenin', Ham. Evening Tilley." + +"Howdy, Scattergood?" + +"How's things lookin' for to-morrer?" + +"Mighty even, Scattergood. If 'twan't for that ol' gallus Pettybone, +we'd git that sidewalk with votes to spare." + +"Um!... If he was absent from the meetin' things might git to happen." + +"Ho! Tie him to home, and there wouldn't even be a fight." + +"Got a wooden leg, hain't he?" + +"Wisht he had three." + +"Got two, one hangin' in the harness room. Harness room's never locked. +If 'twas a boy could squirm through the window." + +"What of it?" + +"Nothin'. Jest happened to think of it.... Ever stop to think what a +comical thing it 'u'd be if somebody was to ketch a wooden-legged man +and saw his leg off about halfway up? Jest lay him across a saw buck +and saw her off while he hollered and fit. Most comical notion I ever +had." + +"Would make a feller laugh." + +"More 'special if his spare leg was stole away and he didn't have +nothin' but the sawed-off one. Sich a man would have difficulty gittin' +any place he wanted to git to.... G'-by, Ham. G'-by, Tilley. Hope the +meetin' comes out right to-morrer." + +Scattergood went inside and looked at his bank book. In two months his +deposits from sales had amounted to something like a hundred dollars. +The situation spelled nothing less than bankruptcy, but Scattergood +replaced the book and waddled out to his piazza, where he sat in the +cool of the evening, twiddling his toes and looking from the store of +one competitor to the store of another, reflectively. + +At a late hour a small boy named Newcamp delivered a bulky package to +Scattergood, and vanished into the darkness. The package was about large +enough to contain a timber leg. + +The town seethed with politics next morning, and the deacon was in the +center of it. The meeting was called for ten o'clock. At nine thirty a +small boy wriggled up to the deacon and whispered in his ear. The deacon +quickly made his way out of the crowd and down the stairs into the +basement room under the barber shop--for news had been given him of a +chance to swap for votes. He burst into the room, and stopped, frowning, +for Tilley Newcamp stood before him. Hamilcar Jones was not at the +moment visible, because he was behind the door, which he slammed shut +and locked. + +No word was uttered, but a Trojan struggle ensued. It was two against +one, but even those odds did not daunt the deacon. It was full five +minutes before he was flat on his back, panting and uttering such +burning and searing words as might properly fall from the lips of a +Baptist deacon. Tilley Newcamp, who was heavy, sat on his chest. +Hamilcar Jones dragged up a saw buck and laid the deacon's timber leg +across it.... The deacon saw and comprehended, and lifted up his voice. +Another five minutes were consumed in returning him to quiescence. And +then the saw did its work, while the deacon breathed threats of blood +and torture, and regretted that his religion prevented him from using +language better suited to his purpose. The leg was severed; a fragment +full ten inches long fell from the end, and the deacon's assailants drew +away, their fell purpose accomplished. + +There was a rapping on the door. It was Scattergood Baines, and he was +admitted. His face was full of wrath as he gazed within, and he quivered +with fury as he ordered the two miscreants out of the place. + +"What's this, Deacon, what's this?" he demanded. + +The deacon told him at length, and fluently. + +"I was jest in time. Now we kin send for that spare leg and you kin git +to the meetin'. Lucky you had that spare leg." + +The deacon sat on the floor, speechless now, staring down at all that +remained to him of his timber leg. Scattergood, with great show of +solicitude, dispatched a youngster to the deacon's house for his extra +limb. He returned empty-handed. + +"This here boy says the leg hain't in the harness room. Sure you left it +there?" + +Again the deacon found his voice, and his words were to the general +effect that the blame swizzled, ornery, ill-sired, and regrettably +reared pew-gags had, in defiance of law and order, stolen and made away +with his leg--and what was he to do? + +"Deacon, you can't go like that. If this story got into the meetin' it +would do fer you. You'd git laughed out. Them Congregationalists 'u'd +win. You got to have a sound leg to travel on, and I don't see but one +way to git it." + +"How's that?" + +"Call in young Parson Hooper and make him force them adherents of hisn +to give it up." + +Scattergood did not wait for the permission he surmised would not be +given, but sent word for Jason Hooper, who came, saw, and was most +remarkably astonished. + +"Parson," said Scattergood, "this here outrage is onendurable. Some of +you Congregationers done it, and stole his other leg. As leader of your +flock and a honest man, it's your bounden duty to git it back." + +"But I--I know nothing about it. What can I do? I--There isn't a thing +you can do." + +"Deacon," said Scattergood, "there hain't a soul in the world can git +back your leg in time but this young man. Maybe he don't know he kin do +it, but he kin. Hain't you got no offer to make?" + +The parson started to say something, but Scattergood silenced him with a +waggle of the head. + +"I got to git to that meetin'," bellowed the deacon. "There hain't +nothin' in the world I wouldn't give to git there, and git there whole +and hearty, and so's not to be laughed at." + +"Remind you of any leetle want of yourn?" asked Scattergood. He took the +young man aside and whispered to him. + +"Deacon," he said, presently, "Parson Hooper says as how he don't see no +reason for interferin' and helpin' his enemy." The parson had said +nothing of the sort. "But I kin see a reason, Deacon. If this here young +man was a member of your family, so to speak, and was related to you +clost by ties of love and marriage, I don't see how he'd have a right +to hold his hand.... Want this man's daughter f'r your wedded wife, +don't you?" + +"Yes," said the parson, faintly. + +"Hear that, Deacon? Hear that?" + +"Never, by the hornswoggled whale that swallered Jonah." + +"Meetin's about to start," said Scattergood, looking at his watch. + +The deacon sweated and bellowed, but Scattergood adroitly waved the red +flag of animosity before his eyes, and pictured black ruin and +defeat--until the deacon was ready to surrender life itself. + +"Git me my leg," he shouted, "and you kin have anythin'.... Git me my +leg." + +"Is it a promise, Deacon? Calculate it's a promise?" + +"I promise. I promise, solemn." + +Scattergood whispered again in the pastor's ear, who stuttered and +flushed and choked, and hurried out of the room, presently to reappear +with the deacon's spare leg. + +"Now, young feller, make your preparations for that there weddin'.... +Scoot." + +It is of record that the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in +the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to +triumph--and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too +late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all +against him, and he could not withstand the pressure. + +And then.... + +"Parson," said Scattergood, "your pa and the deacon ought to make up." + +"They'll never do it, Mr. Baines." + +"Deacon'll have to let your pa come to the weddin'. There'll be makin' +up and reconciliations when there's a grandson, but I can't wait. I'm in +a all-fired hurry. You go to the deacon and tell him your pa sent him +to say that he's ready to bury the hatchet and begs the deacon's pardon +for everythin'--everythin'." + +"But it wouldn't be true." + +"It's got to be true. Hain't I sayin' it's true? And then you go to your +pa and tell him the deacon wants to make up, and begs _his_ pardon out +and out. Tell both of 'em to be at my store at three o'clock, but don't +tell neither t'other's to be there." + +At three o'clock Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper came face to face in +Scattergood's place of business. + +"Howdy, gents?" said Scattergood. "Lookin' forward to bein' mutual +grandads, I calc'late. Must be quite a feelin' to know you're in line to +be a grandad." + +"Huh!" grunted the deacon. + +"Wumph!" coughed the elder. + +"To think of you old coots dandlin' a baby on your knees--and buyin' it +pep'mint candy and the Lord knows what, and walkin' down the street, +each of you holdin' one of its hands and it walkin' betwixt you.... +Dummed if I don't congratulate you." + +The deacon looked at the elder and the elder looked at the deacon. They +grinned, frostily at first, then more broadly. + +"By hek! Eph," said the deacon. + +"I'll be snummed!" said the elder, and they shook hands there and then. + +"Step back here a minute. I got a mite of business. You won't want the +nuisance of that stage line--with a grandson to fetch up. I'm kinder +hankerin' to run the thing--not that it'll be much of an investment." + +"What you offerin'?" asked the deacon. + +Scattergood mentioned the sum. "Cash," he concluded. + +"Calc'late we better sell," said the elder. + +An hour later, with the papers in his pocket to prove ownership, +Scattergood visited the stores of his rivals, Locker, Kettleman, Lumley, +and Penny. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "you been a-tryin' to crowd me out of business. I +hain't made a cent of profit f'r two months, and I calc'late on a profit +of two hunderd and fifty a month. Jest gimme your check for five hunderd +dollars and I'll take your stocks of hardware off'n your hands at, say, +fifty cents on the dollar, and we'll call it a day." + +"Scattergood, we got you where we want you. You can't hold out another +sixty days." + +"Maybe. But, gentlemen, I guess we kin do business. I jest bought the +only means of transportin' goods, wares, and merchandise into Coldriver. +Beginnin' now, rates for freight goes up. I've studied the law, and +there hain't no way to pervent me. I kin charge what I want for +freighting and what I want will be so much not a one of you kin do +business.... And I'll put in groceries and what not, myself. Gittin' my +freight free, I calc'late to under-sell you quite consid'able.... Kin we +do business?" + +The enemy went into executive session. They surrendered. Scattergood +pocketed a check for five hundred dollars, and came into possession of a +fine stock of hardware at fifty cents on the dollar. Likewise, he owned +the stage line and franchise, controlling the only right of way by which +a railroad could reach up the valley. It had required politics, marrying +and giving in marriage, and patience, to accomplish it, but it was done. + +That evening Mrs. Hooper and Mrs. Pettybone, childhood friends, long +separated by the feud, stopped to speak to Scattergood. + +"Nobody knows how we appreciate what you done Minnie and me," said Mrs. +Pettybone. + +"Blessed is the peacemaker," said Mrs. Hooper. + +"Thankee, ladies. I don't mind bein' a peacemaker any time--when I kin +do it at a profit." + +"It's always done at a profit, Mr. Baines, if you read the Good Book. +This day you laid up a treasure in heaven." + +"Trouble with depositin' profits in heaven," said Scattergood, very +soberly, "is that you got to wait so tarnation long to draw your +int'rest." + + + +CHAPTER V + +HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS + + +"It's a telegram from Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood Baines to his +wife, Mandy, as he tore open the yellow envelope and read the brief +message it contained. + +"Telegram!" said Mandy. "Why didn't he write? Them telegrams come +high.... Huh! Jest one word--'Come.' Costs as much to send ten as it +does one, don't it?" + +"Identical," said Scattergood. + +"Then," said Mandy, sharply, "if he was bound to telegraph why didn't he +git his money's worth?" + +"I calc'late he thought he said a plenty," Scattergood replied. "Johnnie +he don't like to put no more in writin' that's apt to pass from hand to +hand than he's obleeged to.... Mandy, looks like we better start for +home." + +"What d'you s'pose it kin be?" Mandy asked, already busy laying clothing +in their canvas telescope. "Mostly telegrams announces death or +sickness." + +"I kin think of sixty-nine things it _might_ be," said Scattergood, "but +I got a feelin' it hain't none of 'em." + +"We shouldn't of come away on this vacation," said Mandy. "Johnnie Bones +is too young a boy to leave in charge." + +"Johnnie Bones is a dum good lawyer, Mandy, and a dum far-seein' young +man. I don't calc'late Johnnie's done us no harm. Hain't no hurry, +Mandy. We can't git a train home for five hours." + +"We'll be settin' right in the depot waitin' for it," said Mandy, who +declined to take chances. "Be sure you keep your money in the pants +pocket on the side I'm walkin' on. Pickpockets 'u'd have some difficulty +gittin' past me." + +"Only thing ag'in' Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood, "is that he hain't +a first-rate hardware clerk." + +Scattergood, in spite of the ownership of twenty-four miles of +narrow-gauge railroad, of a hundred-odd thousand acres of spruce, and of +a sawmill whose capacity was thirty thousand feet a day, persisted in +regarding these things as side lines, and in looking upon his little +hardware store in Coldriver as the vital business of his life. It was +now ten years since Scattergood had walked up Coldriver Valley to the +village of Coldriver. It was ten years since he had embarked on the +conquest of that desirable valley, with a total working capital of forty +dollars and some cents--and he not only controlled the valley's business +and timber and transportation, but generally supervised the politics of +the state. He could have borne up manfully if all of it were taken away +from him--excepting the hardware store. To have ill befall that would +have been disaster, indeed. + +On the train Scattergood turned over a seat to have a resting place for +his feet, took off his shoes, displaying white woolen socks, a +refinement forced upon him by Mandy, and leaned back to doze and +speculate. When Mandy thought him safely asleep she covered his feet +with a paper, to conceal from the public view this evidence of a +character not overgiven to refinements. It is characteristic of +Scattergood that, though wide awake, he gave no sign of knowledge of +Mandy's act. Scattergood was thinking, and to think, with him, meant so +to unfetter his feet that he could wriggle his toes pleasurably. + +Johnnie Bones was waiting for Scattergood at the station. + +"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "did you sell that kitchen range to Sam +Kettleman?" + +"Almost, Mr. Baines, almost. But when it came to unwrapping the weasel +skin and laying money on the counter, Sam guessed Mrs. Kettleman could +keep on cooking a spell with what she had." + +"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "you're dum near perfect; but you got your +shortcomings. Hardware's one of 'em.... What about that telegram of +yourn?" + +"Yes," said Mandy. + +"Mr. Castle, president of the G. and B.--" + +"I know what job he's holdin' down, Johnnie." + +"--came to see you yesterday. I wouldn't tell him where you were, so he +had to tell me what he wanted. He wants to buy your railroad. Said to +have you wire him right off." + +"Um!..." Scattergood walked deliberately, with heavy-footed stride, to +the telegraph operator, and wrote a brief but eminently characteristic +message. "I might," the telegram said to President Castle. + +"Now, folks," he said, "we'll go up to the store and sort of figger on +what Castle's got in mind." + +They sat down on the veranda, under the wooden awning, and Scattergood's +specially reinforced chair creaked under his great weight as he stooped +to remove his shoes. For a moment he wriggled his toes, just as a golfer +waggles his driver preparatory to the stroke. "Um!..." he said. + +"Castle," said he, presently, "works for jest two objects--makin' money +and payin' off grudges. Most gen'ally he tries to figger so's to combine +'em." + +Johnnie and Mandy waited. They knew better than to interrupt +Scattergood's train of thought. Had they done so he would have uttered +no rebuke, but would have hoisted himself out of his chair and would +have waddled away up the dusty street, and neither of them would ever +hear another word of the matter. + +"He knows I wouldn't sell this road without gittin' money for it. +_Therefore_ he's figgerin' on makin' a lot of money out of it, or payin' +off a doggone big grudge.... Somebody we don't know about is calc'latin' +on movin' into this valley, Johnnie. Somebody that's goin' to do a heap +of shippin'--and that means timber cuttin'.... And it must be settled or +Castle wouldn't come out and offer to buy." + +Johnnie and Mandy had followed the reasoning and nodded assent. + +"What timber be they goin' to cut?" Scattergood poked a chubby finger at +Johnnie, who shook his head. + +"The Goodhue tract, back of Tupper Falls. Uh-huh! Because there hain't +no other sizable tract that I hain't got strings on. And the mills, +whatever kind they be, will be at Tupper Falls. Mills _got_ to be there. +Can't git timber out to no other place. And, Johnnie, buyin' timber is a +heap more important and difficult than buyin' mill sites. Eh?... +Johnnie, you ketch the first train for Tupper Falls. I own a mite of +land along the railroad, Johnnie, but you buy all the rest from the +falls to the station. Not in my name, Johnnie. Git deeds to folks whose +names we're entitled to use--and the more deeds the better. Scoot." + +"Now, Scattergood, don't go actin' hasty," said Mandy. "You don't +_know_--" + +"The only thing I don't know, Mandy, is whether Johnnie 's too late to +buy that land. Knowin' nobody else wants it, and it hain't no good for +nothin' but what they want it for, these folks may not have bought +_yit_...." + +Scattergood shouted suddenly at the passing drayman. "Hey, Pete.... Come +here and git a cookin' range and take it up to Sam Kettleman's house. +Git a man to help you. Tell Mis' Kettleman I sent it, and she's to try +it a week to see if she likes it. Set it up for her and all." + +Scattergood settled back to watch with approval, while two men hoisted +the heavy stove on the wagon and drove away with it. Presently Sam +Kettleman appeared on the porch of his grocery across the street, and +Scattergood called to him: "Well, Sam, glad you decided to git the woman +a new stove. Shows you're up an' doin'. It's all set up by this time." + +Sam stared a moment; then, smitten speechless, he rushed across the road +and stood, a picture of rage, glaring at Scattergood. "I didn't buy no +stove. You know dum well I didn't buy no stove. I can't afford no stove. +You jest git right up there and haul it back here, d'you hear me?" + +"Well, now, Sam, don't it beat all--me makin' a mistake like that? Sure +I'll send after it, right off.... Now I won't have to order one special +for Locker." Locker was the rival grocer. "I kin haul this one right to +his house, and explain to him how he come to git it so soon. I'll say: +'Locker, we jest hauled this stove down from Sam Kettleman's. Had it all +set up there and then Sam he figgered it was too expensive a stove for +him and he couldn't afford it right now on account of business not bein' +brisk.'" + +"Eh?" said Kettleman. + +"'Twon't cause a mite of talk that anybody'll pay attention to. +Everybody knows what Locker's wife is. Tongue wagglin' at both ends. And +I'll take pains to conterdict whatever story she goes spreadin' about +you bein' too mean to git your wife things to do with in the kitchen, +and about how you're 'most bankrupt and ready to give up business. +Nobody'll b'lieve her, anyhow, Sam, but if they do I'll explain it to +'em." + +"Now--" + +"Locker's wife'll be glad to have it, too. She'd have to wait two +weeks for hers, and now she'll git it right off. Oven's cracked on hern, +and she allows she sp'iles every batch of bread she bakes--and her +pledged to furnish six loaves for the Methodist Ladies' Food Sale...." + +"Scattergood Baines, if you dast touch my stove I'll have the law onto +you. You can't go enterin' my house and removin' things without my +permission, I kin tell you. Don't you try to forgit it, neither. If you +think you can gouge me out of my stove jest to make it more convenient +for Mis' Locker, you're thinkin' _wrong_...." + +"'Tain't your stove till it's paid for, Sam." + +"Then, by gum! it'll be mine darn quick. Thirty-eight dollars, was it? +Now you gimme a receipt.... Locker!..." + +Scattergood waddled into the store, wrote a receipt, and put the money +in the safe. When Sam had recrossed the road again he turned to Johnnie +Bones. "Sellin' hard-ware's easy if you put your mind to it, Johnnie. +Trouble with you is you don't take no int'rest in it.... Next time +you'll know better. Train's goin' in fifteen minutes. Better hustle." + +Next noon Scattergood was in his usual place on the piazza of his store +when the train came in. Presently Mr. Castle, president of the G. & B., +came into view, and Scattergood closed his eyes as if enjoying a midday +snooze. Mr. Castle approached, stopped, regarded Scattergood with a +pucker of his thin lips, and said to himself that the man must be an +accident. It was one of Scattergood's most valuable qualities that his +appearance and manner gave that opinion to people, even when they had +suffered discomfiture at his hands. Mr. Castle coughed, and Scattergood +opened his eyes sleepily and peered over the rolls of fat that were his +cheeks. + +"Howdy?" said Scattergood, not moving. + +"Good day, Mr. Baines. You got my message?" + +"Seein' as you got my reply to it, I must have," said Scattergood. + +"Can we talk here?" + +"I kin." + +Mr. Castle looked about. No one was within earshot. He occupied a chair +at Scattergood's side. + +"I understand your message to mean that you are willing to sell your +railroad." + +"I calculate that message meant jest what it said." + +"I know what your railroad cost you--almost to a penny." + +"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood, without interest. + +"I'll tell you why I want it. My idea is to extend it through to +Humboldt--twenty miles. May have to tunnel Hopper Mountain, but it will +give me a short line to compete with the V. and M. from Montreal." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood, who knew well that such an extension was +not only impracticable from the point of view of engineering, but also +from the standpoint of traffic to be obtained. "Good idee." + +"I'll pay you cost and a profit of twenty-five thousand dollars." + +"Hain't interested special," said Scattergood. "I git that much fun out +of railroadin'." + +"It isn't paying interest on your investment." + +"I calculate it's goin' to. I'm aimin' to see it does." + +"Set a figure yourself." + +"Hain't got no figger in mind." + +"Mr. Baines, I'll be frank with you. I want your railroad." + +"So I jedged," said Scattergood. + +"I _need_ it. I'll pay you a profit of fifty thousand--and that's my +last word." + +Scattergood closed his eyes, opened them again, and sat erect. "Now that +business is over with," he said, "better come up and set down to table +with Mandy and me. Mandy's cookin' is considered some better 'n at the +hotel." + +"You refuse?" + +"I was wonderin'," said Scattergood, "if you had any notion if I could +buy the Goodhue timber reasonable?" + +"Eh?" said Mr. Castle, startled. "The Goodhue timber?" + +"Back of Tupper Falls." + +"Who told--" Mr. Castle snapped his teeth together sharply. + +"Leetle bird," said Scattergood. "Dinner's ready." + +"There might come a time when you'd be mighty glad to sell for less than +I'm offering." + +"Once there was a boy," said Scattergood, "and he up and says to another +boy, 'I kin lick you,' The story come to me that the boy sort of +overestimated his weight.'" + +"I'm not threatening you," said Castle. + +"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you +goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?" + +"Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in +Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information." + +"Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg, +and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all +fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used +right." + +"Will you answer a fair question?" + +"If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another." + +"Has McKettrick got to you first?" + +It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face +showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who +McKettrick was--but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any +conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe +what he desired--and Castle believed. + +"He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling +them to you. It cost _me_ money to find out." + +"Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood. + +"Did he offer to buy your road?" + +"If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'." + +It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information, +though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a +haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle +knew less after the interview than he had known when he came; +Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover. + +Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he +had been partially successful. + +"I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on +the quiet. Three strips from the river to the hill were not to be had, +but I bought four strips, two at the ends and two between the pieces I +couldn't get." + +"Better call it a side of bacon, Johnnie. Strip of fat and strip of +lean. Dunno but it's better as it lays. Hear anythin' about the Goodhue +tract?" + +"Somebody's been cruising it for a month back--without a brass band." + +"Um!... Send a wire, Johnnie. Lumberman's Trust Company, Boston. Set +price Goodhue tract...." + +Johnnie telephoned the wire. Two hours later the answer came, "Goodhue +tract no longer in our hands." + +"Did you ever wonder, Johnnie, why I never got int'rested into that +Goodhue timber?" + +Johnnie shook his head. + +"Because," said Scattergood, "you got to log it by rail. Forty thousand +acres of it, and no stream runnin' through it big enough to drive logs +down.... But I got an idee, Johnnie, that loggin' by rail can be done +economical. Know who bought that timber?" + +"No." + +"McKettrick of the Seaboard Box and Paper Company, biggest concern of +the kind in America. Calc'late they'll be makin' pulp here to ship to +their paper mills. Calculate I'll give 'em a commodity rate of around +seven cents to the G. and B. Johnnie, our orchard's goin' to begin +givin' a crop. That'll give us sixteen dollars and eighty cents for +haulin' a minimum car of twenty-four thousand. And this hain't goin' to +be any one-car mill, neither. Five cars a day'll be increasin' our +revenue twenty-four thousand three hunderd dollars a year--on outgoin' +freight. Then there's incomin' freight to figger. All we got to do is +set still and take _that_. Beauty of controllin' the transportation of a +region. But it seems like we ought to git more out of it than that--if +we stir around some. Especial when you come to consider that McKettrick +and Castle is flyin' at each other's throats. It's a situation, Johnnie, +that man owes a duty to himself to take advantage of." + +Scattergood went back to his hardware store and seated himself on the +piazza. Presently a team drove up from down the valley and a tall, gaunt +individual, with hair of the color of a dead leaf, alighted. + +"I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said. + +"You kin," Scattergood replied. + +"Where is he?" + +"Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him." + +The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks +to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and +disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the +scrutiny stopped. + +"Some mistake," he said; "I want the owner of the Coldriver Valley +Railroad." + +"It may be a mistake," said Scattergood. "Calculate it _is_ a mistake to +own a railroad. But 'tain't the only mistake I ever made." + +"_You_ own the road?" + +"Calculate to." + +Evidently the stranger was not impressed by Scattergood in a manner to +arouse him to a notable exertion of courtesy. He allowed it to appear in +his manner that he set a light value on Scattergood; in fact, that it +was not exactly pleasant to him to be compelled to do business with such +a human being. Scattergood's eyes twinkled and he wriggled his toes. + +"Well, Baines," said the stranger, "I want to talk business to you." + +"Step into my private office," said Scattergood, motioning to a chair at +his side, "and rest your legs." + +"I'm thinking of establishing a plant below," said the stranger. "A very +considerable plant. In studying the situation it seems as if your +railroad might be run as an adjunct to my business. I suppose it can be +bought." + +"Supposing" said Scattergood, "is free as air." + +"I'll take it off your hands at a fair figure." + +"'Tain't layin' heavy on my hands," said Scattergood. + +"How much did it cost you?" + +"A heap less 'n I'll sell for.... You hain't mentioned your name." + +"McKettrick." + +Scattergood nodded. + +"I'd sell to a man of that name." + +"How much?" + +"One million dollars," said Scattergood. + +"You're--you're _crazy_," said McKettrick. It was an exclamation of +disgust, a statement of belief, and a cry of pain. "I might go a quarter +of a million." + +"This here's a one-price store--marked plain on the goods. Customers is +requested not to haggle." + +"You're not serious?" + +"One million dollars." + +"I'll build a road down my side of the river." + +"Maybe. Can be done. Twelve mile of tunnel and the rest trestle. +Wouldn't cost more 'n fifteen, twenty million--if you're figgerin' on +the west side of the stream.... How you figgerin' on gettin' your pulp +wood down to Tupper Falls?" + +"What?... What's that?" + +"Goin' to log, yourself, or job it?" + +"Look here, Baines, what do you know?" + +"About what's needful. I try to keep posted." + +"Tell me what you know. I insist." + +Scattergood opened his eyes and peered over his dumpling cheeks at +McKettrick, but said nothing. + +"And how you found it out." + +"I've been figgerin' over your case," said Scattergood. "I'll give you a +sidetrack into your yards pervidin' you pay the cost of bridgin' and +layin' the track, me to furnish ties and rails. _Also_, I'll give you a +commodity rate of seven cents to the G. and B. As to sellin', I don't +calc'late you want to buy at a million. But that hain't no sign you and +me can't do business. You got to log by rail. You got to cut consid'able +number of cords of pulpwood. I'll build your loggin' road, and I'll +contract to cut your pulp and deliver it.... Want to go into it with +me?" + +McKettrick peered at Scattergood with awakened interest. His scrutiny +told him nothing. + +"What backing have you?" + +"My own." + +McKettrick almost sneered. + +"Been lookin' me up?" asked Scattergood. + +"No." + +"Let's step to the bank." + +McKettrick followed Scattergood's bulky figure-wondering. + +In the bank Scattergood presented the treasurer. "Mr. Noble, meet Mr. +McKettrick. He wants you should tell him somethin' about me. For +instance, Noble, about how fur you calculate my credit could be +stretched." + +"Mr. Baines would have no difficulty borrowing from five hundred +thousand to three quarters of a million," said Noble. + +"How's his reppitation for keepin' his word?" said Scattergood. + +"The whole state knows your word is kept to the letter." + +"What you calculate I'm wuth--visible prop'ty?" + +"I'd say a million and a half to two millions." + +"Backin' enough to suit you, Mr. McKettrick?" asked Scattergood. + +McKettrick wore a dazed look. Scattergood did not look like two +millions; he did not look like ten thousand. His bearing became more +respectful. + +"I'll listen to any proposition you wish to make," he said. + +"Come over to Johnnie Bones's," said Scattergood. + +In a moment they were sitting in Johnnie's office, and McKettrick and +Johnnie were acquainted. + +"Here's my proposition," said Scattergood. "I'll build and equip a +loggin' road accordin' to your surveys. You furnish right of way and +enough money to give you forty-nine per cent of the stock in the company +we'll form. I kin build cheaper 'n you, and I know the country and kin +git the labor. You pay the new railroad a set price for haulin' +pulpwood--say dollar 'n a quarter to two dollars a cord, as we figger it +later.... Then I'll take the job of loggin' for you and layin' down the +pulpwood at sidings. It'll save you labor and expense and trouble. I've +showed I was responsible. The new railroad company'll put up bonds, and +so'll the loggin' company--if you say so." + +This was the beginning of some weeks of negotiations, during which +Scattergood became convinced that McKettrick was wishful of using him so +long as he proved useful; then, when the day arrived for a showing of +profit on the profit sheet, the same McKettrick was planning to see that +no profit would be there and that Scattergood Baines should be +eliminated from consideration--to McKettrick's profit in the sum of +whatever amount Scattergood invested in the construction of the +railroad. It was a situation that exactly suited Scattergood's love of +business excitement. + +"If McKettrick had come up here wearin' better manners," said +Scattergood to Johnnie, "and if he hadn't got himself all rigged out as +little Red Ridin' Hood's grandmother--figgerin' I'd qualify for little +Red Ridin' Hood without the eyesight for big ears and big teeth that +little girl had--why, I might 'a' give him a reg'lar business deal. But +seem's he's as he is, I calc'late I'm privileged to git what I kin git." + +Therefore Scattergood made it a clause in the contract that all the +stock in the new railroad and construction company should remain in his +own name until the road was completed and ready to operate. Then 49 per +cent should be transferred to McKettrick. This McKettrick regarded as a +harmless eccentricity of the lamb he was about to fleece. + +The new company was organized with Johnnie Bones as president, +Scattergood as treasurer, an employee of McKettrick's as secretary, and +Mandy Baines and another employee of McKettrick's as the remaining two +directors. + +While the negotiations regarding the railroad were being carried on, +another matter arose to irritate Mr. McKettrick, and, in some measure, +to take the keen edge off his attention. Scattergood usually endeavored +to have some matter arise to irritate and distract when he was engaged +on a major operation, and it was for this reason he had bought the four +strips of land at Tupper Falls. + +McKettrick awoke suddenly to find that his men had not secured the site +for his mills, and that, apparently, it could not be secured. He +discussed the thing with Scattergood. + +"Prob'ly some old scissor bills that got a notion of hangin' on to their +land," Scattergood said. + +"It can't be that, for the sales to the present owners were recent. The +new owners refuse absolutely to sell." + +"And pulp mills hain't got no right of eminent domain like railroads." + +"All substantial businesses ought to have it," said McKettrick. "You +know these folks. I wish you'd see what you can do." + +"Glad to," Scattergood promised, and two days later he reported that all +four landowners might be brought to terms. Three would sell, surely; one +was holding back strangely, but the three had put the matter into the +hands of a local real-estate and insurance broker, by name Wangen. +"We'll go see him," said Scattergood. + +Which they did. "My clients," said Wangen, importantly, "realize the +value of their property. That, I may say, is why they bought." + +"It cost the three of 'em less 'n three thousand dollars for the three +passels," said Scattergood. + +"Prices have gone up," said Wangen. + +"Give them two hundred dollars profit apiece," said McKettrick. + +"Consid'able difference between givin' it and their takin' it," said +Scattergood. "I agree with that," said Wangen. + +"Now, Wangen, you and me has done consid'able business," said +Scattergood, "and you hain't goin' to hold up a friend of mine." + +"If it was a personal thing, Mr. Baines; but I've got to do my best for +my clients." + +"What's your proposition?" + +"Five thousand dollars apiece for the three strips." + +"It's an outrage," roared McKettrick. "I'll never be robbed like that." + +"Take it," said Wangen, "or leave it." + +"You've _got_ to have it," Scattergood whispered. + +McKettrick spluttered and stormed and pleaded, but Wangen was firm and +gave but one answer. There could be but one result: McKettrick wrote a +check for fifteen thousand dollars--and still had one strip to buy--a +strip not at an edge of his mill site, but bisecting it. + +This strip caused the worry when Scattergood needed attention distracted +the most. But Scattergood managed finally to secure it for McKettrick +for seventy-five hundred dollars. Thus it will be seen how Scattergood +resorted to the law of necessity, and how McKettrick suffered from +failure to build securely his commercial structure from its foundation. +Twenty-two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars were paid by +McKettrick for land that had cost Scattergood exactly three thousand six +hundred dollars. Scattergood believed in always paying for services +rendered, so Wangen and each of the four ostensible landowners were +given a hundred dollars. Net profit to Scattergood, eighteen thousand +one hundred and fifty dollars. + +"Which it wouldn't 'a' cost him if he hadn't looked sneerin' at my +stockin' feet," said Scattergood to Johnnie Bones. + +Johnnie Bones prepared the papers for the incorporation of the new +railroad, and the organization was perfected. There were two thousand +shares of one hundred dollars each. McKettrick put in his right of way +at five thousand, an excessive figure, as Scattergood knew well, and +gave his check for the balance of his 49 per cent. Scattergood deposited +a check for his 51 per cent, or one hundred and two thousand dollars. +Work was begun grading the right of way immediately. + +McKettrick vanished from the region and did not appear again except for +flying visits to his rising plant at Tupper Falls. He never inspected so +much as a foot of the new railroad back into the Goodhue tract--and +this, Scattergood very correctly took to be suspicious. The work was +left utterly in Scattergood's hands, with no check upon him and no +inspection. It was not like a man of McKettrick's character--unless +there were an object. + +Once or twice Scattergood encountered President Castle of the G. & B. +while the road was building. + +"Hear you're putting in a logging road for McKettrick," he said. + +"For me," said Scattergood. "Stock stands in my name. Calculate to +operate it myself." + +"Oh!" said Castle, and drummed with his fingers on the window ledge. +Scattergood said nothing. + +"Own the right of way?" asked Castle. + +"'Tain't precisely a right of way," said Scattergood. "It's a easement, +or property right, or whatever the lawyers would call it, to run tracks +over any part of McKettrick's property and operate a loggin' +railroad--where McKettrick says he wants to get logs from." + +"No definite right of way?" + +"Jest what I described." + +"Capitalized for two hundred thousand, I see." + +"Uh-huh!" + +"Any stock for sale?" + +"Not at the present writin'." + +"At a price?" + +"Wa-al, now--" + +"Say a profit of twenty dollars a share." + +"It'll pay dividends on more 'n that figger," said Scattergood, +"which," he added, "you know dum well." + +"Yes," said Castle, "but for a quick turnover--and I'm not figuring +dividends altogether." + +"Kind of got a bone to pick with McKettrick, eh?" + +"Maybe." + +"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "I'll sell you forty-nine per +cent of the stock at a hunderd and twenty. Stock to stand in my name +till the road's ready to operate, I don't want it known I've been +sellin' any.... Shouldn't be s'prised if you was able to pick up control +one way and another--but I hain't goin' to sell it to you." + +"I see," said Castle, closing his eyes and squinting through a slit +between the lids. "It's a deal, Mr. Baines," he said, presently. + +"Cash," said Scattergood. + +"You'll find a certified check in the mail the day after I get the +proper papers." + +Which transaction gave Scattergood another profit on the whole affair of +nineteen thousand six hundred dollars--this time a capitalization of the +spite of man toward man. It will be seen that McKettrick owned 49 per +cent of the stock, Castle, 49 per cent, and Scattergood, 2 per cent. He +was now in a position to await developments. + +They arrived as the railway was on the point of running its first train. +McKettrick brought them in person. He burst upon Scattergood as +Scattergood sat in front of his hardware store, and began to storm. + +"What's this? What's this?" he roared. "What's that railroad doing up +the easterly side of our timber? It's waste money, lost money. It'll +have to be rebuilt. We've made all arrangements to cut off the westerly +side. Now we'll have to swamp roads and log by team till the road can be +moved." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood, "so _that's_ it, eh? I was wonderin' how it +would come." + +"It was an inexcusable blunder, and it'll cost you money. You know how +the railroad's contract with the company reads. Who gave you directions +to run up the easterly side?" + +"My engineer got 'em in your office." + +"Oh, your engineer. He made the mistake, eh? Then the mistake's yours, +all right, for every scrap of writing in our office has the word +'westerly' in it, plain and distinct. It means tearing up those rails, +grading a new line--and you'll pay for it. I sha'n't stand loss for your +mistake. It'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars for that blunder." + +"Hain't you discoverin' it a mite late?" + +"It was left wholly to you." + +"Seems like I noticed it," said Scattergood. "So all that work's lost, +eh? Seems a pity, too." + +"You don't seem to take it seriously." + +"You bet I do, and I calculate to look into it _some_." + +"It won't do any good. The mistake is plain." + +"Shouldn't be s'prised. I git your idee, McKettrick. You've been +figgerin' from the start on smougin' me out of what I invested in that +road, eh?... By the way, your stock's in your name. I'll git the +certificates out of the safe." + +McKettrick shoved the envelope in his pocket. "The Seaboard Box and +Paper Company will force you to remove your tracks from our land. I'll +sue you for damages for your blunder. The Seaboard will sue the new +railroad for damages for failure to have the tracks into the cuttings +on time. I guess when we begin collecting judgments by levying on the +new road, there won't be much of it left. The Seaboard will come pretty +close to owning it." + +"And you and I will be frozen out, eh?" said Scattergood. + +McKettrick purred and smiled. "Exactly," he said. "Now, my advice to you +is not to fight the thing. You can't deny the blunder and you'll save +cost of litigation." + +"What's your proposition?" + +"Transfer your stock to the Seaboard." + +"And lose a hunderd and two thousand?" + +"It's not our fault if you make expensive mistakes." + +"Course not," said Scattergood. "I admit I hain't much on litigation. +S'posin' you and me meets in Boston to-morrow with our lawyers, and sort +of figger this thing out." + +"There's nothing to figure out--but I'll meet you to-morrow. You're +sensible to settle." + +"Calc'late I be," said Scattergood. + +That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle's 49 per cent of +the railroad's stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the +hands of the railroad's chief executive. + +"Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow. There will be a meeting at his hotel +at three o'clock. McKettrick will be there." + +"I'll come," said President Castle. + +The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized. +McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with +Johnnie Bones--and last came President Castle. + +At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet. + +"What do _you_ want here?" he demanded. + +"Well," said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths +of disagreeability, "I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this +concern. I imagine I have a right to be here." + +"What's that? What's that?" McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat +placidly removing his shoes. + +"Calc'late I'll relieve my feet," he said. + +"So I got you, too," McKettrick said to Castle. "I didn't figure on +_that_ luck." + +"Got me? I'm interested." + +McKettrick explained at length, and, as he explained, Castle glared at +him, and then at Scattergood, with increasing rage. As he saw it there +was a plot between Scattergood and McKettrick to get him--and he +appeared to have been gotten. He started to speak, but Scattergood +stopped him. + +"Jest a minute, Mr. Castle," he said. "'Tain't time for you to cuss yet. +Maybe you won't git to do no reg'lar cussin' a-tall. You see, McKettrick +he up and made a little error himself. Regardin' me makin' an error. +Yass.... I don't calc'late to make errors costin' upward of a hunderd +thousand. No.... Not," he said, "that I got any doubts about the word +'westerly' appearin' in all the papers McKettrick's got regardin' this +enterprise. What I doubt some is whether the word 'westerly' was there +right from the start off of the beginnin'. In other words, it looks to +me kind of as if McKettrick had done a mite of fixin' up to them +documents. Rubbin' out and writin' in, so to speak." + +"Fiddlesticks!" said McKettrick. "Of course that is what you would +charge." + +"McKettrick," said Scattergood, "did you figger I'd take notes in lead +pencil on my cuff of where I was to build that railroad? Did you figger +I was goin' to lay down a railroad without knowin' the place I put it +was where it b'longed? Castle he knows me better 'n you, and he +wouldn't guess I'd do sich a thing. No, sir, Mr. McKettrick. I took +them original papers out of your office for jest a day, and bein' as +they constituted an easement on land, I got 'em recorded in the office +of the recorder of deeds. Paid reg'lar money in fees to have it done. +And who you think I got to compare the records with the original in case +somethin' come up, eh? Why, the circuit jedge of this county and the +prosecutin' attorney--they both bein' personal and political friends of +mine.... That's what I done, and if you'll search them records you'll +find the word 'easterly' standin' cool and ca'm in every place where it +ought to be.... So, if you're figgerin' on litigation, I guess maybe +we'll litigate, eh?" + +"These are the references to the records," said Johnnie Bones, laying a +memorandum on the table. "You'll find them correct." + +"Knowing Baines as I do," said President Castle, "I'm satisfied." + +McKettrick and his attorney were conversing in hoarse whispers. +McKettrick looked like a man who had come out of a warm bath into a +cold-storage room. He was speechless, but his lawyer spoke for him. + +"You win," he said, succinctly. + +"Always calc'late to when I kin," said Scattergood. "Now, don't hurry, +gentlemen. I got another leetle matter to call to your attention. +McKettrick there's got forty-nine per cent of the stock in the railroad +that's built where it ought to be, and Castle's got another forty-nine +per cent. That leaves two men with all but two per cent of the stock, +and neither of them in control. If I know them men they hain't apt to +git together and agree peaceable and reasonable. Therefore, the feller +that has the remainin' two per cent of the stock, or forty shares, +stands perty clost to controllin' the corporation, eh? Him votin' with +either of the forty-nine per cents? Sounds that way, don't it?... And I +got that two per cent.... Do I hear any suggestions?" + +Castle stood up and bowed. "I take off my hat to you, Baines.... I bid +ten thousand." + +"Eleven," choked McKettrick. + +"This here road's goin' to be mighty profitable. Contract with the +Seaboard folks makes it look like it would pay eighteen, twenty per cent +on the investment, maybe more. And control--hain't that wuth a figger?" + +"Fifteen," said Castle. + +"Sixteen." + +"Seventeen five hundred." + +"That's enough," said Scattergood. "I got a leetle grudge ag'in' +McKettrick for havin' bad manners, and for regardin' me as somethin' to +pick and eat. It'll hurt him some to have you control this road, Castle, +so you git it, at seventeen thousand five hunderd. I don't want to burn +you, and I calc'late the figger you're payin' is clost to bein' fair. +I'm satisfied. Write a check." + +Castle drew out his check book, and in a moment passed the valuable slip +across to Scattergood. "Thankee," said Baines, "and good day.... Another +time, McKettrick, don't look sneerin' at white woolen socks." + +He walked out of the room, followed by Johnnie Bones. + +"Perty fair deal for a scissor bill," said Scattergood. "This last +check, deductin' four thousand as cost of stock, gives me a profit of +twelve thousand two hunderd and fifty for the day. Add that to eighteen +thousand one hunderd and fifty on the strips of land, and nineteen +thousand six hunderd on the stock I sold Castle first, and what do we +git?" + +"Even fifty thousand," said Johnnie. + +"I always did cotton to round figgers," said Scattergood, comfortably. +"Let's git us a meal of vittles." + + + +CHAPTER VI + +INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE + + +Scattergood Baines was not a man to shingle his roof before he built his +foundations. He knew the value of shingles, and was not without some +appreciation for frescoes and porticoes and didos, but he liked to reach +them in the ordinary course of logical procedure. His completed +structure, according to the plans carefully printed on his brain, was +the domination of Coldriver Valley through ownership of its means of +transportation and of its water power. He wanted to be rich, not for the +sake of being rich, but because a great deal of money is, aside from +love or hate, the most powerful lever in the world. For five years, now, +Scattergood had moved along slowly and irresistibly, buying a bit of +timber here, acquiring a dam site there, taking over the stage line to +the railroad twenty-four miles away, and establishing a credit and a +reputation for shrewdness that were worth much more to him than dollars +and cents in the bank. + +As a matter of fact, Scattergood had amassed considerable more money +than even the gimlet eyes and whispering tongues of Coldriver had been +able to credit him with. It is doubtful if anybody realized just how +strong a foot-hold Scattergood was getting in that valley, but the men +who came closest to it were Messrs. Crane and Keith, lumbermen, who were +beginning to experience a feeling of growing irritation toward the fat +hardware merchant. They were irritated because, every now and then, they +found themselves shut off from the water, or from a bit of timber, or +from some other desirable property, by some small holding of +Scattergood's which seemed to have dropped into just the right spot to +create the maximum amount of trouble for them. It could be nothing but +chance, they told each other, for they had sat in judgment on +Scattergood, and their judgment had been that he was a lazy lout with +more than a fair share of luck. + +"It's nothing but luck," Crane told his partner. "The man hasn't a brain +in his head--just a big lump of fat." + +"But he's always getting in the way--and he does seem to know a +water-power site when he sees it." + +"Anybody does," said Crane. "He's a doggone nuisance and we might as +well settle with him one time as another--and the time to settle is +before his luck gives him a genuine strangle hold on this valley. We've +got too much timber on these hills to take any risks." + +"I leave it with you, Crane. You're the outside man. But when you bust +him, bust him good." + +Crane retired to his office and devoted his head to the subject +exclusively, and because Crane's head was that sort of head he devised +an enterprise which, if Scattergood could be made to involve himself in +it, would result in the extinction of that gentleman in the Coldriver +Valley. + +It was a week later that a gentleman, whose clothes and bearing +guaranteed him to be a genuine denizen of the city, stopped at +Scattergood's store. Scattergood was sitting, as usual, on the piazza, +in his especially reinforced chair, laying in wait for somebody to whom +he could sell a bit of hardware, no matter how small. + +"Good morning," said the gentleman. "Is this Mr. Scattergood Baines?" + +"It's Scattergood Baines, all right. Don't call to mind bein' christened +Mister." + +"My name is Blossom." + +"Perty name," said Scattergood, unsmilingly. + +"I wonder if I can have a little talk with you, Mr. Baines?" + +"Havin' it, hain't you?" + +Mr. Blossom smiled appreciatively, and sat down beside Scattergood. "I'm +interested in the new Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company. You've heard of it, +haven't you?" + +"Some," said Scattergood. "Some." + +"We are starting to build our mill. It will be the largest in America, +with the most modern machinery. Now we're looking about for somebody to +supply us spruce cut to the proper length for pulpwood. You own +considerable spruce, do you not?" + +"Calc'late to have title to a tree or two." + +"Good. I came up to find out if you are in a position to swing a rather +big contract--to deliver us at the mill a minimum of twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood?" + +"Depends," said Scattergood. + +Mr. Blossom drew a jackknife from his pocket and began leisurely to +sharpen a pencil. It was a rather battered jackknife, and Scattergood +noticed that one blade had been broken off. He stretched out his hand. +"Jackknife's kind of lame, hain't it? Don't 'pear to be as stylish as +the rest of you?" + +"It is a bit dilapidated." + +"Got some good ones inside. Fine line of jackknives. Only carry the +best. Show 'em to you." + +He lifted himself out of the groaning chair and went into the store, to +return with a dozen or more knives, which he showed to Mr. Blossom, and +Mr. Blossom looked at them gravely. He was smiling to himself. A man who +could interrupt a deal involving upward of a hundred thousand dollars to +try to sell a jackknife certainly was not of a caliber to give serious +worry to an astute business man. + +"Recommend the pearl-handled one," said Scattergood. "Two dollars 'n' a +half." + +"I'll take it," said Mr. Blossom, and he stuck his old knife in a post, +replacing it in his pocket with the new purchase. + +"Cash," said Scattergood, and Mr. Blossom handed over the currency. + +"Speakin' of pulpwood," said Scattergood, "how much you figger on +payin'?" + +Mr. Blossom named a price, delivered at the mill. + +"Pay when?" + +"On delivery." + +"When want it delivered, eh? What date?" + +"Before May first." + +"Water power or steam?" said Scattergood, somewhat irrelevantly. + +"Both. We're putting in steam engines and boilers, but we're going to +depend mostly on water power." + +"Goin' to build a dam, eh? Big dam?" + +"Yes." + +"Um!... Stock company?" + +"Yes. We'll be solid. Capitalized for a quarter of a million and bonded +for a quarter of a million. Gives us half a million capital to start +business." + +"Stock all sold?" + +"Every share." + +"Who to?" + +"Mostly in small blocks in Boston." + +"Um!... Bonds sold?" + +"Yes." + +"Who bought 'em?" + +"They're underwritten by the Commonwealth Security Trust Company." + +"Want to know!... Got authority? Vested with authority to put it in +writin'?" + +"The contract, you mean?" + +"Calculate to mean that." + +"Yes." + +"Lawyer acrost the street," said Scattergood. + +"You can swing it?" + +"Calculate to." + +"You have the capital to make good?" + +"Know I have, don't you? Wouldn't have come to me if you hadn't?" + +"You'll have to borrow heavily." + +"My lookout, hain't it? Don't need to worry you?" + +"Not in the least." + +"Lawyer's still acrost the street." + +So Scattergood and Mr. Blossom went across the street and up the narrow +stairs to Lawyer Norton's office, where a contract was drafted and +signed, obligating Scattergood to deliver to the Higgins's Bridge Pulp +Company twenty-five thousand cords of pulp, on or before May 1st, +payment to be made on delivery. Mr. Blossom went away wearing a +satisfied expression, and in the course of the day sent to Crane & Keith +a brief message, a message of two words. "He bit," was the telegram. + +Scattergood went back to his chair, and presently might have been seen +to unlace his shoes absent-mindedly. For an hour he sat there, twiddling +his bare toes. Then he got up, jerked Mr. Blossom's old jackknife from +the post where it had been abandoned, and pocketed it. + +"If nothin' else happens," he said to himself, "I'm figgered to make a +profit of sixty cents and a tradin' knife." + +There followed a very busy fall and winter for Scattergood. Not that he +neglected his hardware store, but from its porch, and later from a post +beside its big stove, he recruited men for his camps and directed the +labor of cutting and piling pulpwood along the banks of Coldriver. +Also, from time to time, he visited various banks to borrow the money +necessary to carry on the operation, sometimes on notes and collateral, +sometimes on timber mortgages. The sum of his borrowing mounted and +mounted, until, before the arrival of spring, his credit had been +strained to the uttermost. + +Nor had the pulp company been idle. Its new mills had arisen beside the +river at Higgins's Bridge, machinery had been installed, and the little +hamlet was beginning to speculate in town lots and to look forward to +unexampled prosperity. + +But before the ice was out of the river disquieting rumors began to +breathe out of Higgins's Bridge. They were the meerest vapor of +conjecture at first, apparently based upon no evidence whatever, but +friends delighted to convey them to Scattergood, as friends always +delight to perform such a disagreeable duty. + +"Hear things hain't goin' right down to the new pulp mill," said Deacon +Pettybone, one bitterly cold afternoon, when he came into Scattergood's +store to thaw the icicles out of his sparse beard. + +"Do tell," said Scattergood. + +"Be perty bad for you if they was to go wrong, wouldn't it?" + +"Perty bad, Deacon." + +"'Most ruin you, wouldn't it? Clean you out? Leave you with nothin'?" + +"Hain't mortgaged my health. Hain't mortgaged my brains. Have them left, +Deacon. Don't figger I'm clean bankrupt till them two is gone." + +But it was to be noticed that Scattergood toasted his bare toes a great +deal during the ensuing days. He scarcely put on his shoes except when +he was going out to wallow through the drifts; and, as Coldriver knew, +when Scattergood waggled his bare toes he was struggling with a +problem. + +Also it might have been noticed that he pored much over the detailed +maps in the county atlas, studying the flow of streams and the lie of +timber. It might have been seen that several large blocks of timber had +been marked by Scattergood with red crosses, and that certain other +limits had been blotted out in black. The black pieces were neither +numerous nor individually extensive, but they belonged to Scattergood. +Those marked with red crosses were the property of Messrs. Crane & +Keith. + +Now, it may be taken as axiomatic that in those early days the value of +a piece of timber depended upon its accessibility to flowing water down +which logs might be driven. A medium piece of timber on the banks of a +stream which came to plentiful flood in the spring was worth more in +hard dollars and cents than a much larger and finer piece back in the +hills. A piece of timber which had no access whatever to water +approximated worthlessness. On the atlas, the largest pieces of Crane & +Keith timber were back from the river--not too far back, but still +separated from it by narrow strips which, for the most part, were farms. +Some few pieces ran down to the river, but it was apparent that Crane & +Keith were looking to the future--buying timber when it was at its +lowest, and preparing to hold for a better day. They had bought +strategically. More than one tributary valley was in their hands, and, +when the day ripened, small land purchases would connect their holdings, +bring them to water, and place them in such a commanding position that +the valley would be as surely theirs as if they owned every foot of it. +Inasmuch as Scattergood planned, himself, to control Coldriver Valley, +the prospect was not pleasing to him. + +Scattergood closed the atlas and put on his shoes. "Um!..." he said. +"Calculate that'll keep their minds off'n other things a spell. If +they see me dickerin' there, they won't figger I'm dickerin' some place +else." + +If Scattergood had been a general, history would have recorded that he +won his battles by making feints at some vulnerable point in the enemy's +line, and then struck his major blow at a distance where he was not +suspected to be operating at all. + +It chanced that Crane & Keith were cutting timber from the Bottle--a +valley so named. Their rollways were piled high, and it was time for +them to team to the river. To reach the river they must pass through the +Bottleneck and over the farm belonging to Old Man Plumm. There was +another road into the valley--a public road--but it was a fifteen-mile +haul. Old Man Plumm was a non-assertive person, and good-natured. His +farm was a ramshackle, down-at-heels, worthless place, off which he +gleaned the meagerest of livelihoods, so that he had not been averse to +permitting Crane & Keith to traverse his land for a nominal +consideration. It was cheaper for Crane & Keith than purchase--and so +the matter stood. + +Scattergood went across the road to Lawyer Norton's office. + +"Goin' up Bottleneck way perty soon?" he asked. + +"Not that I know of, Scattergood." + +"Nice drive. Old Man Plumm's got a farm there." + +"I know that, of course." + +"Don't figger to visit him?" + +"Why--" said Norton, beginning to see that Scattergood had something in +view--"I could." + +"Wouldn't try to buy the farm, would you?" + +Norton hesitated. "I--I might." + +"Cash?" + +"Why, I suppose so." + +"In your own name, eh? Not in anybody else's." + +"How much should I pay?" + +"Folks always pays what they have to--no more--no less. Immediate +possession. Always a good thing. Got any money?" + +"No." + +"Call at the bank. They'll give you what's needed. Ought to be back with +the deed by night. Fast hoss?" + +"Fast enough." + +"G'-by, Norton." + +That night Norton returned with the deed and with Old Man Plumm, who +took the morning stage for Connecticut and his youngest daughter. + +"Hear folks is trespassin' on your land, Norton. Name of Crane and +Keith. Haulin' logs acrost. No contract with you? No contract with +Plumm?" + +"No contract." + +"Hain't got a right to do it, have they?" + +"No." + +"If I owned that land I'd give 'em notice," said Scattergood. "G'-by, +Norton. Goin'to Boston to-day. Set tight, Norton. G'-by." + +Twenty-four hours later both Crane and Keith were in Coldriver, storming +up to Lawyer Norton's office. Scattergood was in Boston and not visible. + +"What does this mean?" blustered Crane, displaying to Norton the notice +mailed at Scattergood's direction. + +"What it says." + +"You can't stop us hauling to the river." + +Norton shrugged his shoulders. "You can use the state road." + +"Fifteen miles! You know it's impossible. We've got millions of feet on +our rollways. It'll doze and spoil if we don't get it out." + +"That's your lookout." + +"What do you want?" + +"Nothing." + +"It's some kind of a hold-up. What'll you take for that farm?" + +"Not for sale." + +"What will it cost us to haul across you?" + +"You can't haul across. Not for money, marbles, or chalk. Use the road." + +That was the best Crane & Keith could get out of Norton, though they +besieged him for a week, though they consulted lawyers, though they made +threats, and though they begged and promised. Norton was a stubborn man. + +During this week Scattergood had been in Boston. His first visit had +been to Linderman, president of the Atlantic Pulp and Paper Company. + +"Have you an appointment with Mr. Linderman?" asked a clerk. + +"Never heard of me." + +"Then I'm afraid you can't see him. He's very busy." + +"That his office? That door?" + +"Yes." + +"He in? Right in there?" + +"Yes." + +Scattergood walked calmly toward it. The slender clerk interposed. +Scattergood picked him up, tucked him under a huge arm, and waddled +through the great man's door. + +"Howdy, Mr. Linderman? Howdy?" + +Linderman looked up and frowned, then his eyes twinkled. + +"Who are you? What have you there?" + +"Young feller I found outside. 'Fraid of steppin' on him, so I picked +him up to save him. You can run along now, sonny," he said to the clerk. +"He let on I couldn't see you," Scattergood explained. + +"What's your name?" + +"Scattergood Baines." + +"Of Coldriver?" Scattergood was surprised, but did not show it. "Yes." + +"Sit down." + +"Thankee.... Come to do a mite of business with you. Interested in pulp, +hain't you. Quite consid'able interested?" + +"Very much." + +"Know the Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company?" + +"Of course. Understand they're in difficulties." + +"In some, and goin' to be in more. That's why I come down." + +Thereupon Scattergood explained in detail his contract with the pulp +company, and his theories of what that company was planning to do to +him. "Double barreled," he said. "Crane and Keith owns them bonds. +Figger on freezin' out the stockholders and buyin' 'em out for a song. +Figger on bustin' me. Next we hear the mill'll be in receiver's hands. +No money. Can't pay no contracts. My notes'll come due, and I'm done +for. Simple. Crane thought it up." + +"What do you want of me? So far as I can see, you are up against it. You +can't borrow any more, and your notes won't be extended. You're done." + +"Hain't started yet--not yet. Figger to start to-day. That's why I come +to see you." + +"But I can do nothing for you." + +"Higgins's Bridge mill's good, hain't it? Logical payin' proposition? +Money to be made?" + +"Yes." + +"Like to own it cheap?" + +"Of course." + +"Crane and Keith is gittin' ready for a killin'. Own big block of stock. +Paid par. Want to sell, I hear ... if anybody's fool enough to buy. Then +want to buy back for dum' near nothin' when receivership comes. Good +scheme. Money in it. Crane thought it up." + +"What's your idea?" + +"Buy all they got. Option the rest. Easy.... What happens when a man +sells somethin' he hain't got?" + +"He has to get it some place." + +"If he can't get it, what?" + +"Makes it expensive for him." + +"Thought so. Figgered that way.... Nobody to interfere. Crane and Keith +left orders to sell. They won't be takin' notice. Got 'em worried some +place else. Mighty worried." Scattergood recounted the story of Plumm's +farm. + +Mr. Linderman scrutinized Scattergood intently and nodded his head. "And +you want me--" + +"Put up the money. Git the stock. Lemme handle it. Gimme twenty per +cent." + +"In stock?" + +"Calc'late so." + +"Baines," said Linderman, "I'll go you. Crane and Keith are due for a +lesson." + +"Ready now?" + +"Yes." + +"G'-by, Mr. Linderman. Have money when I want it. G'-by." + +Scattergood had a list of stockholders in the pulp company and knew they +were worried. He spent two days in interviewing a dozen of them, and +found little difficulty optioning their stock at a pleasant figure. They +imagined he must be crazy, and he did nothing to destroy the belief. + +Then he called at the offices of Crane & Keith. + +"Want to see the boss man," he said. + +"What for?" + +"Hear you got stock for sale. Pulp company. Figger to buy." + +Here was a lamb ready for the slaughter. Mr. McCann, who received him, +could see the delight of his employers, and his own profit, if he +should succeed in taking this fat backwoodsman into camp. + +"You want to buy stock in the pulp company, I understand?" + +"Yes." + +"How much?" + +"How much you got?" + +"Guess we can sell you all you want." + +"Money-makin' proposition, hain't it?" + +"Of course." + +"But you're willin' to sell? Kind of funny, hain't it?" + +"Oh no. We have so many enterprises." + +"Glad you want to sell. I figger to make money on this stock. Want to +buy a lot of it." + +"About how many shares?" + +"What you askin'?" said Scattergood. + +"Par." + +"Shucks! Give you thirty." + +There was haggling and bickering until a price of sixty was agreed upon, +and Mr. McCann's heart expanded with satisfaction. + +"Now, how many shares?" + +"Want control. Want fifty-one per cent, anyhow. Got 'em?" + +"Of course." This was not the fact, but Mr. McCann was not addicted to +unnecessary facts. He knew where he could get the rest for less than 60. +There would be an additional profit and additional credit coming to him. +In cold reality, Crane & Keith owned some 40 per cent of the stock. + +"Take all you'll sell." + +"I can let you have fifteen hundred shares--for cash." This was an even +60 per cent, but McCann knew where he could get the other 20. + +"Come to the bank. Come now. Give you the cash." + +"I can't deliver but one thousand shares to-day, but I can give you the +other five hundred to-morrow." + +"Suits me. Pay for 'em all to-day. Gimme what you got and a receipt for +the rest. Comin' to the bank?" + +Mr. McCann put on his coat and hat and accompanied Scattergood to the +bank, where he received a certified check for the full amount, gave +Scattergood in return a thousand shares of stock, and a receipt which +recited that Scattergood had paid for five hundred shares more, to be +delivered within twenty-four hours. + +Scattergood went to see Mr. Linderman; McCann went out to round up five +hundred shares of stock. By midnight he was a worried young man. The +stock he had thought to pick up so readily was not to be had. Everybody +seemed to have disposed of it and nobody seemed to know exactly who had +been doing the buying, for the options had been taken in a number of +names. Next morning McCann sought diligently until he found Scattergood. + +"I've been a bit delayed in the delivery of the rest of the stock," he +told Scattergood, and there was cold moisture on his forehead. "Would +you mind waiting until to-morrow?" + +"Guess I'll have to," said Scattergood. "G'-by. Better be movin' around +spry. I want to git back home." + +That night McCann wired his employers to get back home as quickly as +conveyances would carry them. They did so, and in no happy mood, for +Lawyer Norton had remained immovable in his position. Young McCann told +his tale hesitatingly. + +"Who did you say you sold to?" demanded Crane. + +"Fat man by the name of Baines." + +"Baines! He's busted. Hasn't a cent." + +"Paid cash." + +Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane. Just then the telephone +rang. It was Scattergood. + +"Want to speak to Mr. Crane," he said. + +"Hello!" Crane said, gruffly. "What's this about your buying pulp +company stock?" + +"Bought some. Bought a little. Called up to see why your young man +wasn't deliverin'. Want to git home." + +"Where did you get the money?" + +"Have to know that? Have to know where it come from before you kin make +delivery? Hain't inquisitive, be you?" + +Mr. Crane made use of language. "I want to see you--got to have a talk. +Come right down here." + +"Jest been measurin'," said Scattergood, "and I figger it's a mite +longer from here to there than it is from there to here. If you want to +see me, here I be." + +"Where?" + +Scattergood gave an office address and hung up the receiver. + +"They'll be here in a minnit," he said to Mr. Linderman, and he was not +exaggerating greatly as to the time required to bring the gentlemen to +him. "Know Mr. Linderman--Crane and Keith?" said Scattergood. "Come in +and set." + +"What do you want with pulp company stock?" Crane demanded. + +"Paper the kitchen. Maybe, if I kin git enough, I'll paper the parlor. +Lack five hunderd shares for the parlor. Got'em with you?" + +"No, and we're not going to get them." + +"Um!... Paid for 'em, didn't I? Got a receipt?" + +"What's Linderman doing in this?" + +Mr. Linderman leaned forward a little. "I'm in a legitimate business +transaction--something quite foreign to you gentlemen's notions of doing +business. I came into it to make a profit, but mostly to teach you +fellows a lesson in decent business methods. I don't like you. I don't +like your ways. If you like your ways you must expect to pay for the +pleasure you get out of them.... Mr. Baines is waiting for delivery of +the stock he bought." + +"I suppose you know we haven't got it?" + +"I do." + +"We can't deliver." + +"Yes, you can. Go out in the open market and buy. Now, I own a few +shares, for instance. I might sell." + +The faces of Messrs. Crane and Keith did not picture lively enjoyment. +They were caught. If it had been Scattergood alone they might have +wriggled out of it, they thought, for they had scant respect for his +sagacity, but Linderman--well, Linderman was not to be trifled with. + +"How much?" said Crane. + +"You need five hundred shares. Par is a hundred, is it not? I will part +with mine for three hundred. First, last, and only offer. In ten minutes +the price goes up to three fifty, and fifty for each five minutes after +that." + +"It's robbery ..." Mr. Crane spluttered, and made uncouth sounds of +rage. + +"Now you know how the other fellow has been feeling. Seven minutes +left...." + +Four more minutes sped before the surrender came. + +"Certified check," said Mr. Linderman. "My messenger will go to the bank +for you." + +The check was drawn for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and Crane +and Keith settled back sullenly. + +"You can retain your bonds. I believe you have about a quarter of a +million dollars' worth of them. Glad to have you finance the mill for +me. It will, of course, go ahead under my direction," said Linderman. "I +guess I can iron out the difficulties you gentlemen have arranged for, +and there will be no receivership. That will relieve Mr. Baines, who has +a considerable contract with the company." Mr. Crane swore softly. + +Scattergood heaved himself to his feet. "One other leetle matter, Crane. +There's the Plumm farm. Kind of exercised about that, hain't you? Stayed +up in the country a week to look after it--while I was dickerin' down +here.... Like to buy that farm?" + +There was no answer. + +"Calculate to take a hint from Mr. Linderman. That farm's mine, and you +can't haul a log acrost it. My price is fifteen thousand. Bought it for +two. Price goes up hunderd dollars a minute. Cash deal." + +That surrender was more prompt, and a second check was sent to the bank +to be certified. + +"G'-by, gentlemen," said Scattergood, and Messrs. Crane and Keith took +their departure in no dignified manner, but with rancor in their hearts, +which there was no method of salving. + +"Let's take stock," said Scattergood. "Like to know jest how we come +out." + +"Let's see. We bought the stock at an average of sixty dollars a share. +That makes a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in expenses, doesn't it? +The five hundred shares just transferred cost thirty thousand dollars +and we sold them for a hundred and fifty thousand. Profit on that part +of the deal is a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. That made the +total capital stock in the mill worth a quarter of a million of +anybody's money; cost us exactly thirty thousand dollars, didn't it? +Nice deal.... And you cleaned up an extra thirteen thousand on your side +issue. Not bad." + +"I git five hunderd shares worth fifty thousand dollars, don't I? Then +my thirteen. That's sixty-three thousand. Then my profit on twenty-five +thousand cords of pulpwood--which is goin' to be paid, I jedge. That'll +be anyhow another twenty-five thousand. Calc'late this deal's about +fixed me so's I kin go ahead with a number of plans. Much obleeged, Mr. +Linderman. You come in handy." + +"So did you, Mr. Baines. Mighty handy." + +"Oh, me. I had to. I was jest takin' out reasonable insurance ag'in' +loss...." + +"I guess you have a permanent insurance policy against loss, inside your +head." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood, slipping his feet into his shoes, preparatory +to leaving, "difficulty about that kind of insurance is that most folks +lets it lapse 'long about the first week after they're born." + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER + + +The world has come to think of Scattergood Baines as an astute and +perhaps tricky business man, or as the political despot of a state. +Because this is so it has overlooked or neglected many stories about the +man much more indicative of character, and more fascinating of detail +than those well-known and often-repeated tales of his sagacity in +trading or his readiness in outwitting a political enemy. To one who +makes a careful study of Scattergood's life with a view to writing a +truthful biography, he inevitably becomes more interesting and more +lovable when seen simply as a neighbor, a fellow townsman of other New +Englanders, and as a country hardware merchant. There is a certain charm +in the naivete with which he was wont to stick his pudgy finger in the +affairs of others with benignant purpose; and it is not easy to believe +other tales of hardness, of ruthless beating down of opposition, when +one repeatedly comes upon well-authenticated instances in which he has +stood quietly hidden behind the scenes to pull the strings and to make +his neighbors bow and dance and posture in accordance with some schemes +which he has formulated for their greater happiness. + +Scattergood loved to meddle. Perhaps that is his dominant trait. He +could see nothing moving in the community about him and withhold his +hand. If Old Man Bogle set about buying a wheelbarrow, Scattergood would +intervene in the transaction; if Pliny Pickett stopped at the Widow +Ware's gate to deliver a message, Scattergood saw an opportunity to +unite lonely hearts--and set about uniting them forthwith; if little Sam +Kettleman, junior, and Wade Lumley's boy, Tom, came to blows, +Scattergood became peacemaker or referee, as the needs of the moment +seemed to dictate. It would be difficult to find a pie in Coldriver +which was not marked by his thumb. So it came about that when he became +convinced that Grandmother Penny was unhappy because of various +restrictions and inhibitions placed on her by her son, the dry-goods +merchant, and by her daughter-in-law, he determined to intervene. +Scattergood was partial to old ladies, and this partiality can be traced +to his earliest days in Coldriver. He loved white hair and wrinkled +cheeks and eyes that had once been youthful and glowing, but were dulled +and dimmed by watching the long procession of the years. + +Now he sat on the piazza of his hardware store, his shoes on the +planking beside him, and his pudgy toes wriggling like the trained +fingers of an eminent pianist. It was a knotty problem. An ordinary +problem Scattergood could solve with shoes on feet, but let the matter +take on eminent difficulty and his toes must be given freedom and elbow +room, as one might say. Later in life his wife, Mandy, after he had +married her, tried to cure him of this habit, which she considered +vulgar, but at this point she failed signally. + +The facts about Grandmother Penny were, not that she was consciously ill +treated. Her bodily comfort was seen to. She was well fed and reasonably +clothed, and had a good bed in which to sleep. Where she was sinned +against was in this: that her family looked upon her white hair and her +wrinkles and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that her interest in +life was gone--in short, that she was content to cumber the earth and to +wait for the long sleep. To them she was simply one who tarries and is +content. Scattergood looked into her sharp, old eyes, eyes that were +capable of sudden gleams of humor or flashes of anger, and he _knew_. He +knew that death seemed as distant to Grandmother Penny as it had seemed +fifty years ago. He knew that her interest in life was as keen, her +yearning to participate in the affairs of life as strong, as they had +been when Grandfather Penny--now long gone to his reward--had driven his +horse over the hills with one hand while he utilized the other arm for +more important and delightful purposes. + +Scattergood was remembering his own grandmother. He had known her as no +other living soul had known her, because she had been his boyhood +intimate, his defender, always his advocate, and because the boyish love +which he had given her had made his eyes keen to perceive. His parents +had fancied Grandma Baines to be content when she was in constant +revolt. They had supposed that life meant nothing more to her now than +to sit in a comfortable rocker and to knit interminable stockings and to +remember past years. Scattergood knew that the present compelled her +interest and that the future thrilled her. She wanted to participate in +life, to be in the midst of events--to continue to live so long as the +power of movement and of perception remained to her. He was now able to +see that the old lady had done much to mold his character, and as he +recalled incident after incident his face wore a softer, more melancholy +expression than Coldriver was wont to associate with it. He was +regretting that in his thoughtless youth he had failed to accomplish +more to make gladder his grandmother's few remaining years. + +"I calc'late," said Scattergood to himself--but aloud--"that I'll kind +of substitute Grandmother Penny for Grandma Baines--pervidin' Grandma +Baines is fixed so's she kin see; more'n likely she'll understand what +I'm up to, and it'll tickle her--I'm goin' to up and borrow me a +grandmother." + +He wriggled his toes and considered. What thing had his grandmother most +desired? + +"Independence was what she craved," he said, and considered the point. +"She didn't want to be beholdin' to folks. She wanted to be fixed so's +she could do as she pleased, and nobody to interfere. I calc'late if +Grandma Baines 'd 'a' been left alone she'd 'a' found her another +husband and they'd 'a' had a home of their own with all the fixin's. It +wasn't so much doin' that grandma wanted, it was knowin' she _could_ do +if she wanted to." + +Scattergood's specially reinforced chair creaked as he strained forward +to pick up his shoepacs and draw them on. It required no small exertion, +and he straightened up, red of face and panting a trifle. He walked up +the street, crossed the bridge, and descended to the little room under +the barber shop where the checker or cribbage championship of the state +was decided daily. Two ancient citizens were playing checkers, while a +third stood over them, watching with that thrilled concentration with +which the ordinary person might watch an only son essaying to cross +Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Scattergood knew better than to interrupt +the game, so he stood by until, by a breath-taking triple jump, Old Man +Bogle sent his antagonist down to defeat. Then, and only then, did +Scattergood speak to the old gentleman who had been the spectator. + +"Morning Mr. Spackles," he said. + +"Mornin', Scattergood. See that last jump of Bogle's? I swanny if +'twan't about as clever a move as I see this year." + +"Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "I come down here to find out could I +ask you some advice. You bein' experienced like you be, it 'peared to +me like you was the one man that could help me out." + +"Um!..." grunted Mr. Spackles, his old blue eyes widening with the +distinction of the moment. "If I kin be of any service to you, I +calculate I'm willin'. 'Tain't often folks comes to me for advice any +more, or anythin' else, for that matter. Guess they figger I'm too old +to 'mount to anythin'." + +"Feel like takin' a mite of a walk?" + +"Who? Me? I'm skittisher'n a colt this mornin'. Bet I kin walk twenty +mile 'fore sundown." + +They moved toward the door, but there Mr. Spackles paused to look back +grandly upon the checker players. "Sorry I can't linger to watch you, +boys," he said, loftily, "but they's important matters me and +Scattergood got to discuss. Seems like he's feelin' the need of sound +advice." + +When they were gone the checker players scrutinized each other, and then +with one accord scrambled to the door and stared out after Scattergood +and Mr. Spackles. + +"I swanny!" said Old Man Bogle. + +"What d'you figger Scattergood wanted of that ol' coot?" demanded Old +Man Peterson. + +"Somethin' deep," hazarded Old Man Bogle. "I always did hold Spackles +was a brainy cuss. Hain't he 'most as good a checker player as I be? +What gits me, though, is how Scattergood come to pick him instid of me." + +"Huh!..." grunted Old Man Peterson, and they resumed their game. + +Scattergood walked along in silence for a few paces; then he regarded +Mr. Spackles appraisingly. + +"Mr. Spackles," said he, deferentially, "I dunno when I come acrost a +man that holds his years like you do. Mind if I ask you jest how old you +be?" + +"Sixty-six year," said Spackles. + +"Wouldn't never 'a' b'lieved it," marveled Scattergood. "Wouldn't 'a' +set you down for a day more 'n fifty-five or six, not with them clear +eyes and them ruddy cheeks and the way you step out." + +"Calc'late to be nigh as good as I ever was, Scattergood. J'ints creak +some, but what I got inside my head it don't never creak none to speak +of." + +"What I want to ask you, Mr. Spackles," said Scattergood, "is if you +calc'late a man that's got to be past sixty and a woman that's got to be +past sixty has got any business hitchin' up and marryin' each other." + +"Um!... Depends. I'd say it depends. If the feller was perserved like I +be, and the woman was his equal in mind and body, I'd say they was no +reason ag'in' it--'ceptin' it might be money." + +"Ever think of marryin', yourself, Mr. Spackles?" + +"Figgered some. Figgered some. But knowed they wasn't no use. Son and +daughter wouldn't hear to it. Couldn't support a wife, nohow. Son and +daughter calc'lates to be mighty kind to me, Scattergood, and gives me +dum near all I kin ask, but both of 'em says I got to the time of life +where it hain't becomin' in 'em to allow me to work." + +"How much kin sich a couple as I been talkin' about live on?" + +"When I married, forty-odd year ago, I was gittin' a dollar a day. Me +'n' Ma we done fine and saved money. Livin's higher now. Calc'late it +'u'd take nigh a dollar 'n' a half to git on comfortable." + +"Figger fifty dollars a month 'u'd do it? Think that 'u'd be enough?" + +"Scattergood, you listen here to me. I hain't never earned as much as +fifty dollar a month reg'lar in my whole life--and I got consid'able +pleasure out of livin', too." They had walked up the street until they +were passing the Penny residence. Grandmother Penny was sitting on the +porch, knitting as usual. She looked very neat and dainty as she sat +there in her white lace cap and her lavender dress. + +"Fine-lookin' old lady," said Scattergood. + +Mr. Spackles regarded Grandmother Penny and nodded with the air of a +connoisseur. "Dum'd if she hain't." He lifted his hat and yelled across +the road: "Mornin', Ellen." + +"Mornin', James," replied Grandmother Penny, and bobbed her head. "Won't +you folks stop and set? Sun's a-comin' down powerful hot." + +"Don't mind if we do," said Scattergood. He seated himself, and mopped +his brow, and fanned himself with his broad straw hat, whose flapping +brim was beginning to ravel about the edges. Presently he stood up. + +"Got to be movin' along, Mis' Penny. Seems like I'm mighty busy off and +on. But I dunno what I'd do without Mr. Spackles, here, to advise with +once in a while. He's jest been givin' me the benefit of his thinkin' +this mornin'." + +With inward satisfaction Scattergood noticed how the old lady turned a +pert, sharp look upon Mr. Spackles, regarding him with awakened +interest. To be considered a man of wisdom by Scattergood Baines was a +distinction in Coldriver even in those days, and for a man actually to +be consulted and asked for advice by the ample hardware merchant was to +lift him into an intellectual class to which few could aspire. + +"I hope he gin you good advice, Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny. + +"Allus does. If ever you're lookin' for level-headedness, and f'r a man +you kin depend on, jest send a call for Mr. Spackles. G'-by, ma'am. +G'-by, Mr. Spackles, and much 'bleeged to you." + +Mr. Spackles was a little bewildered, for he had not the least idea +upon what subject he had advised Scattergood, but he was of an acuteness +not to pass by any of the advantage that accrued from the situation. He +replied, with lofty kindness, "Any time you want for to consult with me, +young man, jest come right ahead." + +When Scattergood was gone, Mr. Spackles turned to the old lady and +waggled his head. + +"Ellen, that there's a mighty promisin' young man. Time's comin' when +he's a-goin' to amount to suthin'. I'm a-calc'latin' on guidin' him all +I kin." + +"I want to know," said Grandmother Penny, almost breathless at this new +importance of Mr. Spackles's, and Mr. Spackles basked in her admiration, +and added to it by apochryphal narratives of his relations with +Scattergood. + +For a week Scattergood let matters rest. He was content, for more than +once he saw Mr. Spackles's faded overalls and ragged hat on the Penny +premises, and watched the old gentleman in animated conversation with +Grandmother Penny, who seemed to be perter and brighter and handsomer +than she had ever seemed before. + +On one such day Scattergood crossed the street and entered the gate. + +"Howdy, folks?" he said. "Wonder if I kin speak with Mr. Spackles +without interferin'?" + +"Certain you kin," said Grandmother Penny, cordially. + +"Got a important bankin' matter over to the county seat, Mr. Spackles, +and I was wonderin' if I could figger on your help?" + +"To be sure you kin, Scattergood. To be sure." + +"Got to have a brainy man over there day after to-morrer. B'jing! that's +circus day, too. Didn't think of that till this minnit. Wonder if you'd +drive my boss and buggy over and fix up a deal with the president of the +bank?" + +"Glad to 'bleege," said the flattered Mr. Spackles. + +"Circus day," Scattergood repeated. "Been to a circus lately, Mis' +Penny?" + +"Hain't seen one for years." + +"No?... Mr. Spackles, what be you thinkin' of? To be sure. Why, you kin +bundle Mis' Penny into the buggy and take her along with you! Finish the +business in no time, bein' spry like you be, and then you and her kin +take in the circus and the side show, and stay f'r the concert. How's +that?" + +Mr. Spackles was suddenly red and embarrassed, but Grandmother Penny +beamed. + +"Why," says she, "makes me feel like a young girl ag'in. To be sure I'll +go. Daughter'll make a fuss, but I jest don't care if she does. I'm +a-goin'." + +"That's the way to talk," said Scattergood. "Mr. Spackles'll be round +f'r you bright and early. Now, if you kin spare him, I calc'late we got +to talk business." + +When they were in the street Mr. Spackles choked and coughed, and said +with some vexation: + +"You went and got me in f'r it that time." + +"How so, Mr. Spackles? Don't you want to take Mis' Penny to the circus?" + +"Course I do, but circuses cost money. I hain't got more 'n a quarter to +my name." + +"H'm!... Didn't calc'late I was askin' you to take a day of your time +for _nothin_', did you? F'r a trip like this here, with a lot hangin' on +to it, I'd say ten dollars was about the fittin' pay. What say?" + +Mr. Spackles's beaming face was answer enough. + +Grandmother Penny and Mr. Spackles went to the circus in a more or less +surreptitious manner. It was a wonderful day, a successful day, such a +day as neither of them had expected ever to see again, and when they +drove home through the moonlight, across the mountains, their souls +were no longer the souls of threescore and ten, but of twoscore and one. + +"Great day, wa'n't it, Ellen?" said Mr. Spackles, softly. + +"Don't call to mind nothin' approachin' it, James." + +"You be powerful good company, Ellen." + +"So be you, James." + +"I calculate to come and set with you, often," said James, diffidently. + +"Whenever the notion strikes you, James," replied Grandmother Penny, and +she blushed for the first time in a score of years. + +Two days later Pliny Pickett stopped to speak to Scattergood in front of +the hardware store. Pliny supplemented and amplified the weekly +newspaper, and so was very useful to Baines. + +"Hear tell Ol' Man Spackles is sparkin' Grandmother Penny," Pliny said, +with a grin. "Don't figger nothin' 'll come of it, though. Their +childern won't allow it." + +"Won't allow it, eh? What's the reason? What business is 't of theirn?" + +"Have to support 'em. The ol' folks hain't got no money. Spackles 's got +two-three hunderd laid by for to bury him, and so's Grandmother Penny. +Seems like ol' folks allus lays by for the funeral, but that's every red +cent they got. I hear tell Mis' Penny's son has forbid Spackles's comin' +around the house." + +This proved to be the fact, as Scattergood learned from no less an +authority than Mr. Spackles himself. + +"Felt like strikin' him right there 'n' then," said Mr. Spackles, +heatedly, "but I seen 'twouldn't do to abuse one of Ellen's childern." + +"Um!... Was you and Grandmother Penny figgerin' on hitchin' up?" +Scattergood asked. + +"I put the question," said Mr. Spackles, with the air of a youth of +twenty, "and Ellen up and allowed she'd have me. But I guess 'twon't +never come off now. Seems like I'll never be content ag'in, and Ellen's +that downcast I shouldn't be a mite s'prised if she jest give up and +passed away." + +"Difficulty's money, hain't it? Largely financial, eh?" + +"Ya-as." + +"Folks has got rich before. Maybe somethin' like that'll happen to you." + +"Have to happen mighty suddin, Scattergood, if it aims to do any good in +this world." + +"I've knowed men to invest a couple hunderd dollars into some venture +and come out at t'other end with thousands. You got couple hunderd, +hain't you?" + +"Ellen and me both has--saved up to bury us." + +"Um!... Git buried, anyhow. Law compels it. Doggone little pleasure +spendin' money f'r your own coffin. More sensible to git some good out +of it.... I'm goin' away to the city f'r a week or sich a matter. When I +come back we'll kind of thrash things out and see what's to be done. +Meantime, don't you and Grandmother Penny up and elope." + +In this manner Scattergood planted the get-rich-quick idea in the head +of Mr. Spackles, who communicated it to Grandmother Penny in the course +of a clandestine meeting. The old folks discussed it, and hope made it +seem more and more plausible to them. Realizing the fewness of the days +remaining to them, they were anxious to utilize every moment. It was +Grandmother Penny who was the daring spirit. She was for drawing their +money out of the bank that very day and investing it somehow, somewhere, +in the hope of seeing it come back to them a hundredfold. + +Scattergood had neglected to take into consideration Grandmother Penny's +adventuresome spirit; he had also neglected to avail himself of the +information that a certain Mr. Baxter, registered from Boston, was at +the hotel, and that his business was selling shares of stock in a mine +which did not exist to gullible folks who wanted to become wealthy +without spending any labor in the process. He did a thriving business. +It was Coldriver's first experience with this particular method of +extracting money from the public, and it came to the front handsomely. +Mr. Spackles got wind of the opportunity and told it to Grandmother +Penny. She took charge of affairs, compelled her fiance to go with her +to the bank, where they withdrew their savings, and then sought for Mr. +Baxter, who, in return for a bulk sum of some five hundred dollars, sold +them enough stock in the mine to paper the parlor. Also, he promised +them enormous returns in an exceedingly brief space of time. Their +profit on the transaction would, he assured them, be not less than ten +thousand dollars, and might mount to double that sum. They departed in a +state of extreme elation, and but for Mr. Spackles's conservatism +Grandmother Penny would have eloped with him then and there. + +"I'd like to, Ellen. I'd like to, mighty well, but 'tain't safe. Le's +git the money fust. The minnit the money comes in, off we mog to the +parson. But 'tain't safe yit. Jest hold your hosses." + +When Scattergood returned and was visible again on the piazza of his +hardware store, it was not long before the village financiers came to +him boasting of their achievement. He, Scattergood, was not the only man +in town with the ability to make money. No, indeed, and for proof of it +here were the stock certificates, purchased from a deluded young man for +a few cents a share, when common sense told you they were worth many, +many dollars. Scattergood listened to two or three without a word. +Finally he asked: + +"How many folks went into this here thing?" + +"Sev'ral. Sev'ral. Near's I kin figger, folks here bought nigh five +thousand dollars' wuth of stock off'n Baxter. Must 'a' been fifty or +sixty went into the deal." + +"Dum fools," said Scattergood, with sudden wrath. "Has it got so's I +don't dast to leave town without you folks messin' things up? Can't I +leave overnight and find things safe in the mornin'?... You hain't got +the sense Gawd give field mice--the whole kit and b'ilin' of you. Serves +you dum well right, tryin' to git somethin' f'r nothin'. Now git away +fr'm here. Don't pester me.... You've been swindled, that's what, and it +serves you doggone well right. Now git." + +It was one of the few times that Coldriver saw Scattergood in a rage. +The rage convinced them. Scattergood said they were swindled and he was +in a rage. Therefore he must be right. The news spread, and knots of +citizens with lowered heads and anxious eyes gathered on street corners +and whispered and nodded toward Scattergood, who sat heavily on his +piazza, speaking to nobody. It was Grandmother Penny who dared accost +him. She crept up to his place and said, tremulously: + +"Be you sure, Scattergood, about that feller bein' a swindler?" + +Scattergood looked down at her fiercely. Then his eyes softened and he +leaned forward and scrutinized her face. + +"Did you git into this mess, too, Grandmother Penny?" + +"Both me 'n' James," she said. "You let on that folks got rich quick by +investin'. Me 'n' James was powerful anxious to git money so's--so's we +could git married on it. So we drawed out our money and--and invested +it." + +"Come here, Grandmother," said Scattergood, and she stood just before +his chair, her head coming very little higher than his own as he sat +there, big and ominous. "So the skunk took _your_ money, too. I hain't +carin' a whoop for them others. They got what was comin' to 'em, and I +didn't calculate to do nothin'. But you! By crimminy!... Wa-al, +Grandmother, you go off home and knit. I'll look into things. It's on +your account, and not on theirs." He shook his head fiercely toward the +town. "But I calculate I'll have to git theirn back, too.... And, +Grandmother--you and James kin rest easy. Hain't sayin' no more. Jest +wait, and don't worry, and don't say nothin' to nobody.... G'-by, +Grandmother Penny. G'-by." + +That evening Scattergood drove out of Coldriver in his rickety buggy. +Nobody had dared to speak to him, but, nevertheless, he carried in his +pocket a list of the town's investors in mining stock, together with the +amounts of their investments. He was not seen again for several days. + +Two days later Scattergood appeared in the lobby of the Mansion House, +in the county seat. He scrutinized the register, and found, to his +satisfaction, that a Mr. Bowman of Boston was occupying room 106. Mr. +Bowman had signed the hotel register in Coldriver as Mr. Baxter, also of +Boston. Scattergood seated himself in a chair and lighted one of the +cigars which made his presence so undesirable in an inclosed space. He +appeared to be taking a nap. + +Fifteen minutes after Scattergood began to nod, Sam Bangs, a politician +with some strength in the rural districts, came down the stairs in +company with a young man of prepossessing appearance, and clothing which +did not strike the beholder as either too gaudy or too stylish. Indeed +the young man impressed the world as being a sober, conservative person +in whose judgment it would be well to place confidence. + +When Bangs saw Scattergood he stopped and whispered a moment to his +companion, who nodded. They approached Scattergood, and Bangs touched +him on the shoulder. + +"Mr. Baines," he said, "I want you should meet my friend Mr. Bowman. +Mr. Bowman's a broker. Been buyin' some stocks off'n him--or calculate +to. I knowed you done consid'able investing so I took the liberty." + +Scattergood looked drowsily at the young man. "Set," he said. "Set and +have a cigar." + +The young Mr. Bowman accepted the cigar, but, after a glance at it, +thrust it into his mouth unlighted. The conversation began with national +politics, swung to crops, and veered finally to the subject of +investments. Mr. Bowman, backed in his statements by Mr. Bangs, spoke to +Scattergood of a certain mine whose stock could be had for a song, but +whose riches in mineral, about to be reached by a certain shaft or drift +or tunnel, were fabulous. Scattergood was interested. An appointment was +made for further discussion. + +The appointment was kept that evening, in the same lobby, and Mr. +Bowman, while finding more than ordinary difficulty in convincing this +fat country merchant, did eventually succeed in bringing him to a point +of enthusiasm. + +"Looks good," said Scattergood. "Calc'late a feller could make a +killin'. I'm a-goin' into it hair, hide, and hoofs. Figger me f'r not +less 'n five thousand dollars' wuth of it. Ought to make me fifty +thousand if it makes a cent." + +"You're conservative, Mr. Baines, conservative." + +"Always calculated to be, Mr. Bowman." He looked up as a middle-aged man +with a drooping mustache approached. "Howdy, John? Still workin' f'r the +express company, be you?" + +"Calc'late to, Mr. Baines. Got charge of the local office. 'Tain't all +pleasure, neither. In a sight of trouble this minnit." + +"I want to know," said Scattergood. "Stand to lose my job," said John, +sadly. "Dunno where I'll find me another." + +"What you been doin', eh? What got you in bad?" + +"One of them dummed gold shipments from the state bank. Hadn't ought to +speak about it, 'cause the comp'ny's bein' awful secret. Hain't lettin' +it out." He glanced apprehensively at Mr. Bowman. + +"Needn't to be afraid of Mr. Bowman, John. What's the story?" + +"Bank shippin' bullion. Three chunks of it. Wuth fifty-odd thousand +dollars. I know, 'cause that's the comp'ny's liability wrote in black +and white.... Been stole," he said, after a brief pause. + +"Where?" + +"Out of my office, this mornin'. Not a trace. Jest up and disappeared. +Detectives and all can't run on to no clue. Might as well 'a' melted and +run through a crack. Jest gone, and that's all anybody kin find." + +"Mighty sorry to hear it, John. Hope you wasn't keerless, and don't +figger you was. Guess you won't be blamed when the facts comes out." + +"If they ever do," said John. "G' night, Mr. Baines. I'm mighty oneasy +in my mind." + +Scattergood turned the subject back at once to mining stocks. + +"You set me down for five thousand dollars. Don't let nobody else have +it. Got jest that sum comin' due tomorrer. You and me'll drive over to +git it, and you fetch them stock certificates along. Got 'em in that +little satchel you're always carryin'?" + +"No," smiled Mr. Bowman. "That's my purse. I take no chances on robbers, +like your express agent spoke of. I don't mind telling you that I have +fifteen thousand dollars in that bag--and I intend to keep it there." + +"Do tell!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Wa-al, you know your business. Now, +then, if you want to drive over six mile with me to-morrer, well git us +that money and I'll take the stock." + +"Good," said Mr. Bowman. "An early start. Can I take a train from there? +I'll be through here, I think." + +"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Mighty funny thing about that gold, now +wa'n't it? Three bars. Wuth fifty thousand! Mighty slick work--to spirit +it off and nobody never find a trace." + +"The criminal classes," said Mr. Bowman, "have produced some remarkable +intellects. Good night, Mr. Baines." + +"See you early in the mornin'," replied Scattergood. + +After a breakfast which Mr. Bowman watched Scattergood dispose of with +admiration and astonishment, the pair entered the old buggy and started +across the hills. In addition to his small bag Mr. Bowman brought a +large suitcase containing his apparel, so it was apparent he was leaving +the county seat for good. The morning came off hot and humid. +Scattergood kept his eyes open for a spring, but it was not until they +had driven some miles that an opportunity to find water appeared. + +"Calculate we kin git a drink there," said Scattergood, pointing to a +little shanty in a clearing by the roadside. He stopped his horse, and +they alighted and knocked. There was no reply. Scattergood pushed open +the door and then stepped back suddenly, for within were three +individuals of disreputable appearance, and one of them regarded +Scattergood over the leveled barrels of a shotgun. + +"Come right in and set," invited this individual, and Scattergood, +followed by Mr. Bowman, entered. On a table of pine wood, unconcealed, +lay three enormous bars of gold. + +"Um!..." said Scattergood, faintly, and leaned against the wall. "You +would come rammin' in," said the gentleman with the shotgun. "Now I +calc'late you got to stay." + +Scattergood grinned amiably. "Vallyble loaves of bread you got there," +he said. + +"Gold," said the man, succinctly. + +"Hain't no mines around here, be there?" + +"We hain't sayin'. But that there gold come from a mine, all +right--sometime." + +"Calc'late you been robbin' a train or somethin'," said Scattergood, +mildly. "Now don't git het up. 'Tain't none of my business. Doin' +robbin' for a reg'lar livin'?" he asked, innocently. + +"Hain't never done none before--" began one of the men, but his +companion directed him to "shut up and stay shut." + +"No harm talkin' 's I kin see. We got these fellers here and here they +stay till we git clean off. Kind of like to tell somebody the joke." + +"I'm doggone int'rested," said Scattergood. + +The rough individual with the gun laughed loudly. "May's well tell you," +he said, raucously. "Me and the boys was in town yestiddy, calc'latin' +to ship some ferns by express. Went into the office. Agent wa'n't there. +Safe was. Open. Ya-as, wide open. We seen three gold chunks inside, and +nobody around watchin'. Looked full better 'n ferns, so we jest took a +notion to carry 'em out to the wagin and drive off.... Now we got it, +I'm dummed if I know what to do with it. Hear tell it's wuth fifty +thousand dollars." + +Mr. Bowman spoke. "You'll find it mighty hard to dispose of." + +"Don't need to worry you." + +"Suppose you could sell it for a fair price, cash, and get away with the +money?" + +"That's our aim." + +"Mr. Baines," said Bowman, "there's money in this if you aren't too +particular." + +"Hain't p'tic'lar a-tall. How you mean?" + +"What would you say to buying this gold--at a reasonable price? I can +dispose of it--through channels I am acquainted with. You can put in the +money we were going for, and I'll put in some more. Ought to show a +handsome profit." + +"Might nigh double my money, maybe, eh? Figger that? Gimme twict as much +to buy stock with." + +"Yes, indeed." + +"Let's dicker." + +"What will you men take to walk away and leave that gold?" + +"Forty thousand." + +"Fiddlesticks. I'll give you ten--and you're clear of the whole mess." + +There was a wrangle. For half an hour the dicker went on, and finally a +price of fifteen thousand dollars was agreed upon. Mr. Bowman was to pay +over the money, and Scattergood was to contribute his five thousand +dollars as soon as they got it. For one third of the profits. + +The money was paid over; the three robbers disappeared with alacrity, +leaving Scattergood and Bowman with the stolen gold. + +"We can take it along in the buggy, covered with ferns," said Bowman. +"Nobody'll suspect _you_." + +"Be safe as a church," said Scattergood, boldly. "Lug her out." + +So they carried the gold to the buggy, covered it snugly with ferns, and +drove toward the next town, Scattergood talking excitedly of profits and +of how much mining stock he could purchase with the money received, and +of ample wealth from the transaction. Mr. Bowman smiled with the faint, +quiet smile of one whose soul is at peace. Just before they got to town +Scattergood suggested that they stop to make sure the gold was +completely concealed. + +They drove into the woods a few rods and uncovered the treasure. +Scattergood gloated over it. + +"I've heard tell you kin cut real gold like cheese," he said, and opened +his jackknife. With it he hacked off a shaving and held it up to the +light. + +"Is all gold this here way?" he asked. "Don't look to me to be the same +color all the way through. Looks like silver or suthin' inside." + +Mr. Bowman snatched the shaving, scrutinized it, and uttered language in +a loud voice. He snatched Scattergood's knife and tested all three +ingots. + +"Lead!" he said, savagely. "Nothing but lead! We've been swindled!" + +"You mean it hain't gold a-tall?" + +"It's lead, I tell you." + +"I vum!... Them fellers stole lead! And they got off with all your +money. Gosh! I'm glad I didn't have none along." His eyes were mirthless +and his face vacuous. "Beats all. Never heard tell of nothin' sim'lar." + +They got into the buggy and drove silently into town. Mr. Bowman tried +to recover his spirits, but they were at low ebb. He did manage to hint +that Scattergood should stand his share of the loss, but in his heart he +knew that to be vain. Still, he could get that five thousand dollars for +the mining stock. It would be five thousand dollars. + +"Anyhow," he said, "you're fortunate. You still can buy the stock and +make your pile." + +"This here deal," said Scattergood, "has kind of made me figger. 'Tain't +safe to buy gold chunks till you _know_ they're gold. Likewise 'tain't +safe to buy mine stock till you know there's a mine. Calc'late I'll do a +mite of investigatin' 'fore I pungle over that five thousand.... Where +kin I leave you, Mr. Bowman? I'm calc'latin' to drive home from here. +Maybe I'll see you later. But I got to investigate." + +Mr. Bowman made himself unpleasant for a brief time, but Scattergood was +vacuously stubborn. Presently he drove away, leaving Mr. Bowman on the +veranda of the hotel, scowling and uttering words of strength and +meaning. Mr. Bowman was very unhappy. + +Scattergood drove as rapidly as his horse could travel, arriving at +Coldriver just after the supper hour. He went directly to his store, +which had been left in charge of Mr. Spackles. Three men were waiting +there for him. They handed him a leather bag and he satisfied himself +that it contained fifteen thousand dollars. + +"Much 'bleeged, boys," he said. "Do as much f'r you, some day. G'-by." + +"Mr. Spackles," he said, "kin you fetch Grandmother Penny over +here--right now?" + +"Calculate I kin," said Mr. Spackles, and he proved himself able to keep +his word. + +"Grandmother Penny," said Scattergood, when she arrived, "you and Mr. +Spackles up and made a investment. I been a-lookin' after that +investment f'r you--and f'r these other dum fools in town. Best I could +do f'r them others was to git their money back--every cent of it. But I +took keer to do a mite more f'r you and Mr. Spackles. I got your five +hunderd f'r you--and then I seen a way to git ten thousand more. Here +she be. Count it.... I don't guess there's any way this here money could +be put to better use." + +"F'r us? Ten thousand--" + +"I'll handle it f'r you. Give you int'rest of six hunderd a year. You +kin marry like you planned, and if your childern objects you kin tell +'em to go to blazes.... You'll want a place to live. Wa-al, I got twenty +acre back of town and a leetle house and furniture. Took it on a deal. +You kin move in and work it on shares. Ought to be able to live blamed +well." + +Grandmother Penny was crying. + +"You done all this f'r us, f'r James and me! There hain't no reason f'r +it. 'Tain't believable.... There hain't no way to say thankee." + +"I hain't wantin' you to say thankee, Grandmother Penny. Jest mog along +and marry this old coot, and git what joy you kin out of livin'." + +Mr. Spackles was inquisitive in addition to being grateful. + +"What I want to know," he demanded, "is how you managed it?" + +"Oh," said Scattergood, "jest made use of the sayin' about curin' with +the hair of the dog that bit you. Figgered a swindler wouldn't never +suspect nobody of swindlin' him with one of his own tricks. This here +Mr. Baxter, or Mr. Bowman, or whatever his name is, used to make a +livin' sellin' gold bricks. When I found that there fact out I jest +calc'lated he was ripe to do a mite of gold-brick buyin' himself.... +Which he done." + +"Scattergood," said Grandmother Penny, "I'm a-goin' to kiss you." + +Scattergood presented his cheek, and Grandmother Penny threw her arms +around his neck and pressed her lips to his weather-beaten face. He +smiled, but as if he were smiling at somebody not present. When they had +gone their way to find marriage license and parson he went out on to his +piazza and looked up at the moonlit sky. + +"Grandma Baines," he said, after a moment, "if you kin see down from +where you be, I hope you hain't missin' that I done this f'r you. I was +pertendin' all the time that you was Grandmother Penny...." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON + + +Scattergood Baines sat on the piazza of his hardware store and twiddled +his bare toes reflectively. He was not thinking of to-day nor of +to-morrow, but of days a score of years distant and of plans not to come +to maturity for twenty years. That was Scattergood's way. From his +history, as it is to be gathered from the ancient gossips of Coldriver, +one is forced to the conclusion that few of his acts were performed with +reference to the immediate time. If he set on foot some scheme, one +learns to study it and to endeavor to see to what outcome it may lead +ten years after its inception. He looked always to the future, and more +than once one may see where he has forgone immediate profit in order to +derive that profit a hundredfold a generation later. + +So, as Scattergood twiddled his reflective toes, he looked far ahead +into the future of Coldriver Valley; he saw that valley as his own, +developed as few mountain valleys are ever developed. Its stage line, +already his property, was replaced by a railroad. The waters of its +river and tributaries were dammed to give a cheap and constant power +which should be connected in some way to this electricity of which he +heard so much and about which he always desired to hear more. He saw +factories springing up. In short, he saw his valley as the center of the +state's commercial life, and himself as the center of the valley. + +Scattergood was well aware that there always will exist those who will +clog the road of progress and attempt to stem any tide arising for the +public good--unless they can see for themselves an individual benefit. +He knew that it is not uncommon for those whose business is the common +good--such individuals as legislators and governors and judges--to +assume some such attitude, and he knew that it was regarded as expensive +to win their favor. He did not grow especially angry at this condition, +but accepted it as a condition and studied to see what he could do about +it--for he knew he must do something about it. + +He must take it into consideration, because one does not build railroads +without legislative sanction, nor does one dam streams nor carry out +wide commercial programs. The consent of the _people_ must be had, and +the people had handed over their consent in trust to their elected +representatives. Scattergood saw at once that it was preferable to be +one from whom governors and legislators and judges asked favors and +looked to for guidance, than to be one to come a suppliant before those +personages, and as soon as he saw that clearly he reached his +determination. + +"Calculate," said he, to the shoes which he held in his hand, "that I +got to git up and stir around in politics some." + +From that moment Scattergood scrutinized the bowl of politics to +discover when and where he could dip in his spoon. + +The opportunity to dip, it soon became apparent, would be at the time of +the fall town meetings, for there was a fight on in the state and its +preliminary rumblings were already making themselves audible. Hitherto +the state had been held securely by certain political gentlemen, who in +turn had been held securely by a certain other and greater political +gentleman--Lafe Siggins. Other non-political gentlemen who represented +_money_ and _business_ had seen, as Scattergood did, the necessity for +becoming political, and had chosen their moment to endeavor to take the +state away from Messrs. Siggins & Co. and to hold it thereafter for +their own benefit and behoof. They were, therefore, laying their plans +to win the legislature by winning the town meetings of the fall, and to +win they had decided to make their fight upon the total prohibition of +liquor in the state. It was not that they cared ethically whether drinks +of a spirituous nature were dispensed or not, but it was the best +available issue. If it did not work out to their satisfaction they could +reverse themselves when they came into power. + +So they made an issue of prohibition, and planned astutely to go to the +town meetings on that platform, for a majority of the towns voted local +option with regularity. The new powers would first sweep the town +meetings for local option, and in the wave of enthusiasm put into office +at the same time legislators chosen by themselves. + +Scattergood saw the trend of affairs early and gave them his earnest +consideration. That his ancient ill wishers, Messrs. Crane & Keith, were +identified with the new and rising power may not have been the least of +the considerations which determined him to dip in his spoon on the side +of Siggins and the old order. But there was one obstacle. Scattergood +desired local option, for he was now the employer of many men, both in +the woods and in other enterprises, and he knew well that labor and hard +liquor are disturbing bedfellows.... He considered and reached the +conclusion that for this one time, perhaps, he could both have his cake +and eat it. + +He could have his cake and still eat it only by the results of an +election which should not be a victory for the new powers nor for the +old, but for another minor power differing from each. In other words, +Scattergood saw the wisdom of defeating both the contenders locally, and +then of throwing in with Siggins as to the fight for state control.... +But of this determination he notified not a soul. Judging from his +actions, it may be safely said that he was at some pains to conceal the +fact that he was interested in politics in any manner or degree +whatever. + +But Scattergood was a chatty body, and Coldriver would have been +surprised if he did not talk politics, as did all its other male +inhabitants. It came about that more politics than hardware was +discussed on Scattergood's piazza, but to the casual listener it seemed +only purposeless discussion. But Scattergood was a master of purposeless +discussion. His methods were his own and worthy of notice. + +Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle sauntered past and paused to mention the +weather. + +"Goin' to be lots of politics this year," said Scattergood. "Jest got in +a line of gardenin' tools, Bogle." + +"Town's goin' to be het up for certain," said Mr. Bogle, waggling his +ancient head. "Calc'late to have all the tools I need." + +"Who's figgerin' on runnin' for legislature, Marvin?" + +"Guess Will Pratt's puttin' up Pazzy Cox ag'in." Pratt was postmaster +and local party leader. + +"Anybody calc'latin' to run ag'in' him, Marvin? Any opposition +appearin'?" + +"Goin' to be a fight, Scattergood. Big doin's in the state. Tryin' to +upset Lafe Siggins. Uh-huh! Wuth watchin', says I." + +"I hear tell the lawless elements is puttin' up Jim Allen on a whisky +platform," said Old Man Bogle, acidly. + +"Them all the candidates, Bogle? Hain't no others?" + +"Nary." + +"Coldriver's got to take whatever candidates them outsiders chooses, eh? +Coldriver hain't got no say who'll represent her in the legislature?" + +"Don't 'pear so. All done by party machinery, Scattergood. We got +nothin' to do but pick between parties." + +"Looks so.... Looks that way," said Scattergood. "Too bad there hain't +one more party that hain't controlled so folks could git a chance.... +What's this here Prohibition party I been hearin' some of in other +parts?" + +"'S fur's I know it's all right, only it hain't got no votes, and votes +is necessary in politics." + +"Licker enters into this here campaign, don't it?" + +"Backbone of it." + +"Seems like these Prohibition fellers ought to take a hand. Any of 'em +in Coldriver?" + +"Don't seem like I ever heard speak of one." + +"Could be, couldn't there? 'Tain't impossible?" + +"S'pose one could be got up--if anybody was int'rested." + +"Need a strong candidate, wouldn't they? Have to have a man to head it +up that would command respect?" + +"Wouldn't git fur with it. Parties too well organized." + +"Um!... Lemme show you a new hand seeder I jest got in. Labor savin'. +Calc'late it's a bargain." + +"Don't hold with them newfangled notions, Scattergood." + +"S'prised at you, Marvin. Folks expects progress of you. Look up to you, +kind of. Take their idees from you." + +"I dunno," said Marvin, visibly pleased, but deprecatory. + +"Careful, cautious--but most gen'ally right, that's what I hear folks +say. Quite a bit of talk goin' around about you. Politics. Uh-huh! Heard +several say it was a pity Marvin Towne couldn't be got to go to the +legislature. Heard that, hain't you, Bogle?" + +"Don't call it to mind, but maybe I have. Maybe I have. Anyhow, I +calc'late it's true." + +"There you be, Marvin. Now it behooves a man that's looked up to for to +keep in the lead. Ought to look into that seeder, Marvin. Folks'll say: +'Marvin Towne's got him one of them seeders. Darn progressive farmer. +Gits him all the modern improvements.'" + +"Suthin' in what you say, Scattergood. Calculate I might examine into +that tool one of these days." + +"Hain't much choice between Pazzy Cox and Jim Allen, eh? Hain't neither +of 'em desirable lawmakers, eh? That what you was sayin'?" + +"Them's my idees," said Marvin. + +"Too bad we're forced to take one or t'other. Now if they was some way +for you to step in and run." + +"Hain't." + +"Sh'u'd think you'd look over them Prohibitionists. Draw all the best +citizens after you. Set a example to the state.... Step back and look at +that there seeder, Marvin." + +Marvin looked at the seeder judicially. "Calc'late to guarantee it, +Scattergood?" + +"Put it in writin'," said Scattergood. + +"Calc'late I'll have to have it. Considerin' everything, guess I'll take +it along." + +"Knowed you would, Marvin. Sich men as you is to be depended on. Folks +realizes it." + +"If I thought they was a call for me to go to the legislature--" + +"Call?" said Scattergood. "Marvin, I'm tellin' you it's dum near a +shout." + +"Huh!... Where could I git to find out about this here Prohibitionist +party?" + +Presently Marvin Towne and Old Man Bogle went along. Scattergood gazed +after them speculatively, and as he gazed his hands went automatically +to his shoes, which he removed to give play to his reflective toes. +"Um!..." he grunted. "If nothin' more comes of it I made a profit of +three dollar forty on that seeder." + +Pliny Pickett, stage driver, was a frequent caller at Scattergood's +store, first as an employee, but more importantly as a dependable +representative who could carry out an order without asking questions, +especially when no definite order had been given. + +"Pliny," said Scattergood, "know Marvin Towne, don't you? Brought up +with him, wasn't you?" + +"Know him like the palm of my hand." + +"Um!... Strange he hain't never been talked up for the legislature, +Pliny. Strange there hain't talk about him on the stagecoach. Ever hear +any?" + +"Some, lately." + +"Could hear more, couldn't you? If you listened.... Set around the post +office, evenin's, don't you?" + +"Some." + +"Discussin' topics? Ever discuss this Prohibition party?" + +"I _could_," said Pliny. + +"Seems like a shame folks here can't run the man they want for office. +Strike you that way?" + +"Certain sure. Calc'late they want Marvin bad?" + +"They _could_," said Scattergood. "G'-by, Pliny." + +Ten days later a third party made its appearance in the politics of +Coldriver, and Marvin Towne was announced as its candidate for the +legislature. It seemed a spontaneous excrescence, but, nevertheless, it +caused a visit from that great man and citizen, Lafe Siggins, as well as +a call from Mr. Crane, of Crane & Keith. Both astute gentlemen viewed +the situation, and their alarm subsided. Indeed, both perceived where it +could be turned to advantage. A canvass of the situation showed them +that the new Prohibitionists, though they talked loud and long, were +made up mainly of the discontented and of a few men always ready to +join any novel movement, and promised at best to poll not to exceed +forty votes of Coldriver's registered three hundred and eighty. It +really simplified the situation to Lafe and to Crane, for it removed +from circulation forty doubtful votes and left the real battle to be +fought between the regulars. Wherefore Messrs. Siggins and Crane +departed from the village in satisfied mood. + +Scattergood sat on his piazza as usual, the morning after the portentous +visit, and called a greeting to Wade Lumley, dry-goods merchant, as that +prominent citizen passed to his place of business. + +"How's the geldin' this mornin', Wade?" he asked. + +"Feelin' his oats. Got to take him out on the road this evenin'. Time to +begin shapin' him up for the county fair." + +"Three-year-old, hain't he?" + +"Best in the state." + +"Always figgered that till I heard Ren Green talkin'. Ren calculates +he's got a three-year-old that'll make any other hoss in these parts +look like it was built of pine." + +Wade was eager in a moment. "Willin' to back them statements with money, +is he?" + +"Said somethin' about havin' a hunderd dollars that wasn't workin' +otherwise, seems as though," said Scattergood. "Jest half a mile from +Pettybone's house to the dam," he continued, with apparent irrelevance. +"Level road." + +"And my geldin' kin travel that same road spryer 'n Green's hoss--for a +hunderd dollars," said Wade, eagerly. + +"Dunno," said Scattergood. "Hoss races is uncertain. G'-by, Wade. See +you later." + +A similar conversation with Ren Green during the day resulted in a +meeting between the horsemen, an argument, loud words, and a heated +offer to wager money, which was accepted with like heat. + +"From Pettybone's to the dam--half a mile," shouted Wade. + +"Suits me to a T," bellowed Ren; "and now you kin step across with me +and deposit that there hunderd dollars ag'in' mine with Briggs of the +hotel." + +So, terms and conditions having been arranged, the bets were made, and +the money locked in the hotel safe. News of the matter swept through +Coldriver, and for the evening politics were forgotten and excitement +ran high. Next day it arose to a higher pitch, for Town-marshal Pease +had forbidden the race to be run through the public streets of +Coldriver, viewing it as a menace to life, limb, and the public peace. +Scattergood had conversed sagely with Pease on the duties of a town +marshal. + +Marvin Towne had formed the habit of stopping to chat with Scattergood +daily, totally unconscious that to all intents and purposes he had been +ordered by Scattergood to make daily reports to him. He seemed depressed +as he leaned against a post of the piazza. + +"Lookin' peaked, Marvin. Hain't all goin' well? Gittin' uneasy?" + +"It's this dum hoss race," said Marvin. "Everybody's het up over it so's +nobody'll talk politics. How's a feller goin' to win votes if he can't +git nobody to talk to him, that's what I want to know? Seems like there +hain't nothin' in the world but Wade Lumley's geldin' and that hoss of +Green's." + +"Um!... Sort of distressing hain't it? Know Kent Pilkinton perty well, +Marvin?" + +"Brother-in-law." + +"Holds public office, don't he?" + +"Chairman of the Board of Selectmen's what he is." + +"Good man fur't," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "Calculate to be +on good terms with him, Marvin? Perty good terms?" + +"Good enough so's he kin ask me to loan him two thousand dollars he's +needin' a'mighty bad." + +"Give it to him, Marvin?" + +"Huh!" said Marvin, eloquently. + +"If I was to indorse his note, think you could see your way clear?" + +"Certain sure." + +"See him ag'in, won't you? Perty soon?" + +"Yes." + +"What d'you calc'late to tell him?" + +"What you said?" + +"Didn't say nothin', did I? Jest asked a question. It was you _said_ +something Marvin, wa'n't it? Said you'd lend on my indorsement." + +"That what you want me to tell him?" + +"Didn't say so, did I? Jest asked a question. G'-by, Marvin. Lemme know +what he says." + +It was unnecessary for Marvin to report, for early next morning Kent +Pilkinton, owner of a hill farm on the out-skirts of a village--a farm +on which he succeeded in raising the most ample crop of whiskers in +Coldriver, and little else, came diffidently up to Scattergood as he sat +in front of his hardware store. + +"Morning Kent," said Scattergood. "Come to look at mowin' machines, I +calc'late." + +"Might _look_ at one," said Kent. + +"Need one, don't you?" + +"Bad." + +"Need quite a mess of implements, don't you?" + +"Could do with 'em if I had 'em.... 'Tain't what I come fur, though, +Scattergood. Been tryin' to borrow money off of my brother-in-law, but +he don't calclate to lend without I git an indorser, and seems like he +sets store by your name on a note." + +"Does, eh? Any reason I should indorse for you? Know any reason?" + +"Nary," said Kent, and started to move off. + +"Hold your bosses. What you need the money for?" + +"Pay off a thousand-dollar mortgage and another thousand to git the farm +in shape to run." + +"Calculate you kin run it, then?" + +"If I git the tools." + +"I figger maybe you kin. Like to see you git ahead. Where d'you +calculate to buy them implements?" + +"Off of you." + +"I got 'em to sell. When you got to have the money?" + +"Two weeks to-morrow." + +This was the day after the town meeting. + +"Come in and pick out your implements," said Scattergood. + +"Meanin' you'll indorse?" + +"Meanin' that--pervidin' nothin' unforeseen comes up between now and +then." + +Half a day was spent selecting tools and implements for the farm, and +though Pilkinton did not know it, it was Scattergood's selection that +was purchased. Scattergood knew what was necessary and what would be +economical, and that was what Pilkinton got, and nothing more. It netted +Scattergood a pleasant profit, and Kent got the full equivalent of his +money. + +"Preside at town meetin', don't you?" + +"My duty," said Kent. + +"Calc'late to _do_ your duty?" + +"Always done so." + +"Comin' to see you do it," said Scattergood. He paused. "Next mornin' +we'll fix up the note. G'-by, Kent." During the fourteen days that +followed Coldriver was happy; between politics and the forbidden horse +race, it had such food for conversation that even cribbage under the +barber shop languished, and one had to walk into the road to pass the +crowd at the post office of evenings. As to the horse race, it resembled +a boil. Daily it grew more painful. Like a boil, such a horse race as +this must burst some day, and it was reaching the acute stage. But +Town-marshal Pease was vigilant and spoke sternly of the majesty of the +law. + +As to the election, it grew even more dubious. Scattergood privately +took stock of the situation. Marvin Towne and the Prohibitionists might +count now on a vote or two more than fifty. Postmaster Pratt appeared +certain of better than a hundred, and so did the opposing party. One or +the other of them was certain to win as matters lay, and Marvin's case +seemed hopeless. Marvin conceived it so and was for withdrawing, but +Scattergood saw to it that he did not withdraw. + +"Keep your votes together," he said. "Stiffen 'em." It was his first +direct order. "Fetch 'em to the meetin' and be sure of every one." + +On town-meeting day Coldriver filled with rigs from the surrounding +township. Every rail and post was utilized for hitching, and +Town-marshal Pease, his star displayed, patrolled the town to avert +disorder. He patrolled until the meeting went into session, and then he +took his chair just under the platform, and, as was his duty, guarded +the sacredness of the ballot. + +Scattergood was present, sitting in a corner under the overhang of the +balcony, watching, but discouraging conversation. If one had studied his +face during the early proceedings he would have read nothing except a +genial interest, which was the thing Coldriver expected to see on +Scattergood's face. Town questions were decided, matters of sidewalks, +of road building, of schools, and every instance Marvin Towne's +fifty-two voted as a unit, swinging from one side to the other as their +peculiar interest dictated. On all minor questions it was Marvin Towne's +Prohibitionists who decided, because they carried the volume of votes +necessary to control. But when it came to major affairs, such as the +election of officers, there would be a different story. Then they could +join with neither party, but must stand alone as a unit, far outvoted. + +So the regulars disregarded them, or if they gave them any attention it +was jocular. Even Marvin viewed the day as lost, but Scattergood held +him to the mark with a word passed now and then. It came three o'clock +of the afternoon before nominations for the high office of legislator +were the order of proceeding. Jim Allen and Pazzy Cox were placed before +the meeting as candidates amid the stimulated applause of their +adherents. Marvin Towne's name was received with laughter and such jeers +as the New England breed of farmer and townsman has rendered his own, +and at which he is a genius surpassed by none. + +Chairman Pilkinton arose, as befitted the moment. + +"Feller townsmen, we will now proceed to cast our ballots for the office +of representative in the legislature. The polls is open, and overlooked +by Town-marshal Pease. The ballotin' will begin." + +And then.... + +At that instant there was an uproar on the stairs. Pliny Pickett burst +into the room, his hat missing, his eyes gleaming with excitement. + +"It's a-comin' off. They've stole a march. Hoss race!... Hoss race!... +Ren Green and Wade Lumley's got their hosses up to Deacon Pettybone's +and they're goin' to race to the dam. Everybody out. Hoss race!... Hoss +race!..." He turned and ran frantically down the stairs, and on his +heels followed the voters of Coldriver. But one or two remained; men too +rheumatic to chance rapid movement, or those whose positions compelled +them to consider as non-existent such a matter as a race between +quadrupeds. + +But no sooner had the hall cleared than men began to return, in couples, +in squads, and to take their seats. Scattergood was standing up now, +counting. Fifty-two he counted, and remained standing. + +"Polls is open, Mr. Chairman," says he. + +"They was declared so, but--er--the voters has gone. I hain't clear how +to perceed." + +"Do your duty, chairman, like you said. Town meetings don't calculate to +take account of hoss races, do they? Eh?... None of your affair, is it?" + +Pilkinton looked at Scattergood, who smiled genially and said: "Duty's +duty, Pilkinton. If you was to fail in your duty as a public officer, +folks might git to think you wasn't the sort of citizen that could be +trusted. Might even affect sich things as credit and promissory notes." + +Mr. Pilkinton no longer hesitated. + +"The polls is open," he said. + +The fifty-two, ballots ready in their hands, started for the box, but +Town-marshal Pease, awakened from his astonishment, lifted his voice. + +"I got to stop that hoss race. Stop the votin' till I git back. That +hoss race has got to be stopped." + +"Seems to me like votes was more important than hoss races," said +Scattergood. + +"The town marshal will stay right where he is, and guard the ballot +box," said the chairman. + +The voters moved to the front, and as they deposited their ballots, +sounds from without, indicating excitement and delight, were carried +through the windows to their ears. The fifty-two voted and returned to +their seats. + +"If everybody present and desirin' to vote has done so," said +Scattergood, "I move you them polls be closed." + +Mr. Pilkinton put the motion, and it was carried with enthusiasm. + +"Tellers," suggested Scattergood. + +As was the custom, the votes were counted immediately. The result stood, +Marvin Towne: fifty-three votes; Jim Allen, two votes; Pazzy Cox, four +votes. + +"I declare Marvin Towne elected our representative to the legislature," +said Chairman Pilkinton, weakly, and sat down, mopping his brow. + +"That bein' the final business of this meetin'," said Scattergood, "I +move we adjourn." + +The story swept the state. Twenty-four hours later Lafe Siggins visited +Coldriver and was driven to Scattergood Baines's hardware store. +Scattergood sat on the piazza, and as soon as the visitor was identified +the male inhabitants of the village began to gather. + +"Kin we talk in private?" said Mr. Siggins. + +"Hain't got no need for privacy. Folks is welcome to listen to all I got +to say." + +Mr. Siggins frowned, but, being a politician and partially estimating +the quality of his man, he did not protest. + +"You beat us clever," said he. + +"Calculated to," said Scattergood. + +"In politics for good?" + +"Calculate to be." + +"What you aim to do?" + +"Kind of look after the politics in Coldriver." + +"Be you fur me or ag'in' me?" + +"I'm fur you till my mind changes." + +"How about this here Prohibition party?" + +"Don't figger it's necessary after this." + +"Guess we kin agree," said Siggins. "You can figger the party +machinery's behind you. So fur's _we're_ concerned, _you're_ Coldriver." + +"Calc'lated to be," said Scattergood. + +"Some day," said Siggins, in not willing admiration, "you're goin' to +run the state." + +"Calc'late to," said Scattergood, and thereby rather took Mr. Siggins's +breath. "Figger on makin' politics kind of a side issue to the hardware +business. Find it mighty stimilatin'. Politics took in moderation, +follerin' a meal of business, makes an all-fired tasty dessert.... +G'-by, Siggins, g'-by." + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP + + +"Calc'late both them young folks was guilty of an error of jedgment when +they up and married each other," said Will Pratt, postmaster of +Coldriver, in the judicial tone which he had affected since his +elevation to office. + +"Mean Marthy Norton and Jed Lewis, Will? Referrin' to them especial?" +Scattergood peered after the young couple who had the moment before +passed his hardware store, not walking jovially in the enjoyment of each +other's presence as young married folks should walk, but sullenly and in +silence. + +"They be the _i_-dentical ones," Will declared. "Naggin' and quarrelin' +and bickerin' from sunup to milkin' time. Used to do it private like, +but it's been gittin' so lately you can't pass the house without hearin' +'em referrin' to each other mighty sharp and searchin'." + +"Um!... Difficulty appears to be what, Will? Got any idee where lies the +seat of the trouble?" + +"They jest hain't habitually suited to one another," said Will. +"Whatever one of 'em is fur the tother's ag'in'. Looks like they go to +bed spiteful and wake up acr'monious. 'Tain't like as if Jed was the +breed of feller that beats his wife, or that Marthy was the kind that +looks out of the corner of her eye at drummers stoppin' to the hotel." + +"Jest kind of irritate one another, eh?" said Scattergood, thoughtfully. +"Kind of git on each other's nerves, you might say. Um!... I call to +mind when they was married, five year ago. 'Twan't indicated them days. +Jed he couldn't set easy if Marthy wasn't nigh, and Marthy went around +lookin' as if she'd swallered a pin and it hurt if Jed was more 'n forty +rod off. If ever two young folks was all het up over each other, Jed and +Marthy was them young folks.... And 'twan't but five year ago...." + +"End by separating" said the postmaster. + +"There's the stage a-rattlin' in," Scattergood said, suddenly. "Better +git ready f'r distributin' the mail, Will. G'-by, Will; and, Will, if +'twas me I dunno but what I'd kind of keep my mouth shet about Marthy +and Jed. Outside gabblin' hain't calc'lated to help matters none. G'-by, +Will." + +The postmaster recognized his dismissal; he knew that the manner which +had fallen upon Scattergood portended that something was on his mind and +that he wanted to be alone and think, so he withdrew hastily and plodded +across the dusty road to the office of which he was the executive head. + +As for Scattergood, he pressed his double chin down upon his bulging +chest, closed his eyes, and gave himself up enthusiastically to looking +like a gigantic figure of discouragement. He waggled his head dubiously. + +"Wonder if it kin be laid to my door," he said to himself. "I figgered +they was about made f'r each other, and I brung 'em together.... +Somethin's got crossways. Um!... Take them young folks separate, and +you couldn't ask for nothin' better.... Don't understand it a mite.... +Anyhow, things has turned out as they be, and what kin I do about it?" + +His reinforced chair creaked under the shifting of his great weight as +he bent mechanically to remove his shoes. With his toes imprisoned in +leather, Scattergood's brain refused to function, a characteristic +which greatly chagrined his wife, Mandy--so much so that she had +considered sewing him up in his footwear, as certain mothers in the +community sewed their children in their underwear for the winter. + +Scattergood had amassed a fortune that might be called handsome, but it +had not made him effete. His income had never warranted him in +purchasing a pair of socks, so now, upon the removal of his shoepacs, +his toes were fully at liberty to squirm and wriggle in the most +soul-satisfying manner. He sat thus, battling with his problem, until +Pliny Pickett, driver of the stage, and Scattergood's man, rattled up to +the store in his dust-whitened conveyance. + +"Afternoon, Scattergood," he said, in a manner which he endeavored to +make as like his employer's as possible. + +"Afternoon, Pliny. Successful trip, Pliny? Plenty of passengers? Eh? Any +news down the valley?" + +"Done middlin' well. Hain't much news, 'ceptin' that young Widder Conroy +down to Tupper Falls died of somethin' the matter with her stummick and +folks is wonderin' what'll become of her baby." + +"Baby? What kind of a baby did she calc'late to have?" + +"A he one--nigh onto two year old. Neighbors is lookin' after him." + +"Got relatives?" + +"Not that anybody knows of." + +"Um!... Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's house, was you?" + +"Didn't figger to." + +"Wasn't passin' Jed Lewis's, was you?" Scattergood repeated, +insistently. + +"I could." + +"Um!... If you was to, and if you seen Jed, what was you figgerin' on +sayin' to him?" + +Pliny scratched his head and pondered. + +"Calculate I'd mention the heat some, and maybe I might say suthin' +about national politics." + +"Wouldn't mention me, would you, Pliny? Don't figger my name might come +up?" + +"It might." + +"If it did, what 'u'd you say, eh? Hain't no reason for mentionin' that +I might want to talk to him, is there? Hain't said so, have I?" + +"You hain't," said Pliny, at last enlightened as to Scattergood's desire +in the matter. + +"G'-by, Pliny." + +"G'-by, Scattergood." + +An hour later Jed Lewis sauntered past the store and stopped. "Pliny +Pickett says you want to see me, Scattergood." + +"Said that, did he? Told you I said I wanted to see you?" + +"Wa-al, maybe not exactly. Not in so many words. But he kind of hinted +around and pecked around till I figgered that was what the ol' coot was +gittin' at." + +"Um!... Didn't tell him nothin' of the kind, but as long's you're here +you might as well set. Hain't seen much of you lately. How's the +hayin'?" + +"Too much rain. Got her cocked twice and had to spread her ag'in to +dry." + +"Hear any politics talked around, Jed?" + +"Nothin' special." + +Jed was brief in his answers. He seemed depressed, and conducted himself +like a man who had something on his mind. + +"Any fresh news from anywheres?" + +"Hain't heard none." + +"Hear about the Packinses down to Bailey?" + +"Never heard tell of 'em." There was excellent reason for this, because +no such family as the Packinses existed in Bailey or anywhere else, to +Scattergood's knowledge. + +"Goin' to separate," said Scattergood. + +Jed looked up quickly, bit his lip, and looked down again. + +"What fur?" he asked. + +"Nobody kin figger out. Jest agreein' to disagree. Can't git along, +nohow. Always naggin' at each other and squabblin' and hectorin'.... +Nice young folks, too. Used to set a heap of store by one another. Can't +figger how they come to disagree like they do!" + +"Nobody kin figger it out," said Jed, with sudden vehemence. "All to +once you wake up and things is that way, and you dunno how they come to +be. It jest drifts along. Fust you know things has went all to smash." + +"Um!... You talk like you knowed somethin' about it." + +"Nobody knows more," said the young man, bitterly. He was suddenly +conscious that he wanted to talk about his domestic affairs; that he +wanted to loose the story of his troubles and dwell upon them in all +their ramifications. + +"Do tell," said Scattergood, with an inflection of astonishment. + +"Marthy and me has about come to the partin' of our roads," said Jed. +"It's come gradual, without our noticin' it, but it's here at last. +Seems like we can't bear the sight of each other--when we git together. +And yit--sounds mighty funny, too--I calc'late to be as fond of Marthy +as ever I was. But the minute we git together we bicker and quarrel till +there hain't no pleasure into life at all." + +"All Marthy's fault, hain't it? Kind of a mean disposition, hain't she?" + +"No sich thing, Scattergood, and you know it dum well. There didn't use +to be a sweeter-dispositioned girl in the state than Marthy.... +Somethin's jest went wrong. They's times when I git mad and it all +looks to be her fault, and then I ketch my own self startin' some +hectorin' meanness. 'Tain't all her fault, and 'tain't all my fault. The +whole sum and substance of it is that we can't git along with each other +no more." + +"So you calc'late to separate?" + +"Been talkin' it up some." + +"Marthy willin'?" + +"Hain't neither of us willin'. We fix it up and agree to try over ag'in, +and then, fust thing we know, we're right into the middle of another +squabble. I want Marthy, and I guess Marthy wants me, but we want each +other like we was five year back and not like we be now." + +"Been married five year, hain't you?" + +"Five year last April." + +"Um!... Wa-al, I hope nothin' comes of it, Jed. But if it has to it +will. Better live happy separate than unhappy together.... G'-by, Jed." + +Scattergood did not discuss this problem with Mandy, his wife, as it was +his custom to discuss business problems. He did not mention the young +Lewises because the first rule of Mandy's life was "Mind your own +business," and it irritated her beyond measure to see Scattergood poking +his finger into every dish that offered. He did talk the matter over +with Deacon Pettybone, but got little enlightenment for his pains. + +"Don't seem natteral," Scattergood said, "f'r young folks to git to +quarrelin' and bickerin' ontil life hain't endurable no longer. 'Tain't +natteral a-tall. Somethin' must be all-fired wrong somewheres." + +"It's human nature to quarrel," said the deacon, gloomily. "Nothin' +onusual about it." + +"Human nature," said Scattergood, "gits blamed f'r a heap of things that +ought to be laid at the door of human cussedness." + +"Same thing," said the deacon. "If you're human you're cussed. Used to +be so in the Garden of Eden, and it'll keep on bein' so till Gabriel +blows his final trump." + +"'Tain't no more natteral to bicker than 'tis to have dispepsy. +Quarrelin' and hectorin' hain't nothin' but a kind of dispepsy that +attacks families instid of stummicks. In both cases it means somethin' +is wrong." + +"Can't cure a unhappy family with a dose of calomel," said the deacon, +acidly. + +"Hain't so sure. Bet that identical remedy' u'd fix up three out of ten. +But somethin' else is wrong with them young Lewises. A dose of somethin' +'u'd cure 'em, if only a feller could figger out what 'twas." + +"Might try soothin' syrup," said the deacon, with an ironic grin. +"Sounds like it ought to git results.... Soothin' syrup--eh? Have to +tell the boys that one. Soothin' syrup. Perty good f'r an old man. Don't +call to mind makin' no joke like that f'r twenty year." + +"Do it often, Deacon," said Scattergood, gravely. "You won't have to +take so much sody followin' meals to sweeten you up.... G'-by, +Deacon.... Soothin' syrup. Um!... I swanny...." + +He looked across the square and saw that Pliny Pickett was delighting an +audience with apochryphal reminiscences, doubtless of a gallant and +spicy character. It is characteristic of Scattergood that he waited +until Pliny had reached his climax, shot it off, and was doubled up with +laughter at his own narration, before he lifted up his voice and +summoned the stage driver. + +"Hey, Pliny! Step over here a minute." + +"Comin'," said Pliny, with alacrity. Then in an aside to his audience: +"See that? Can't let an evenin' pass without a conference with me. Sets +a heap of store by my judgment." + +"Sets more store by your laigs," said Old Man Bogle. "They kin run +errants, anyhow." + +Pliny hastened across the square, and in careful imitation of +Scattergood said, "Evening Scattergood." + +"Evening Pliny. Flow of language good as usual to-night? Didn't meet +with no trouble sayin' what you had to say?" + +"Not a mite, Scattergood." + +"Come through Bailey to-day?" + +"Calculated to." + +"Any news?" + +"Nary." + +"What's become of that What's-his-name baby you was a-tellin' about? The +one that lost his ma and was bein' cared for by neighbors?" + +"Nothin' hain't become of him. Calc'late he'll be took to a +institution." + +"Um! Likely-lookin' two-year-old, was he? Take note of any blemishes?" + +"I hear tell by them that knows as how he was sound in wind and limb." + +"Who's keepin' him, Pliny?" + +"Mis' Patterson's sort of shuffled him in with her seven. Says she don't +notice no difference to speak of. Claims 'tain't possible f'r eight +childern to be no noisier 'n what seven be." + +"Um!... G'-by, Pliny. Ever deal in facts over there to the post office? +Ever have occasion to mention facts?" + +"Er--not _reg'lar_ facts, Scattergood. You needn't to worry about my +talkin' too free." + +"Seems like a feller that talks as much as you do would _have_ to +mention a fact once in a while. G'-by, Pliny." + +It was two or three days later that Postmaster Pratt alluded again to +Martha and Jed Lewis. + +"They're gittin' wuss and wuss," he said, with some gratification. +"Last night they was a rumpus you could 'a' heard forty mile. Ended up +by him threatenin' to leave her, and by her tellin' him that if he +didn't she'd lock him out of the house. Looks to me like that family +fracas was about ripe to bust." + +"Signs all p'int that way, Will. Too bad, hain't it? There's a reason +f'r it, I calculate. Ever look f'r the reason, Will? Ever think about it +at all?" + +"Hain't had no time. Post office keeps me thinkin' night and day." + +"Well, I _have_. Figgered a heap." + +"Any results, Scattergood?" + +"Some--_some_." + +"What be they?" + +Scattergood's eyes twinkled in the darkness. "I got it all figgered +out," he said, "that them young folks needs a dose of soothin' syrup." + +"I want to know," said the postmaster, breathlessly and with +bewilderment. "Soothin' syrup! I swan to man!... Hain't been out in the +heat, have you, Scattergood?" + +Scattergood made no reply to this question. He merely waggled his head +and said: "G'-by, Will. G'-by." + +Next morning Scattergood walked past the Lewis place. He passed it three +times before he made up his mind whether to go in or not, but finally he +turned through the gate and walked around to the kitchen door. Inside he +saw Martha ridding up the kitchen, not with a morning song on her lips, +but wearing a sullen expression which sat ill on her fine New England +face. + +"Mornin', Marthy," he called. + +She looked up and smiled suddenly. The change in her face was +astonishing. + +"Mornin', Mr. Baines. Set right down on the porch. ... Let me fetch you +a hot cup of coffee. 'Twon't take but a minute to make." + +"Can't stop," said Scattergood. "I was lookin' for Jed." + +"Jed's gone," she replied, shortly, the sullen expression returning to +her face. "'He won't be back 'fore noon." + +"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I calc'late I kin keep on drawin' my breath till +then--if you kin. I call to mind the time when you was all-fired oneasy +if Jed got away from you for six hours in a stretch." + +"Them times is gone," she said, shortly. + +"Shucks!" said Scattergood. + +"They be," she said, fiercely. "Hain't no use tryin' to hide it. Jed and +me is about through. Nothin' but fussin' and backbitin' and +maneuvering'. He don't care f'r me no more like he used to, and--" + +"You don't set sich a heap of store by him," Scattergood interrupted. + +Martha hesitated. "I do," she said, slowly. "But I can't put up with it +no more." + +"Jed's fault--mostly," said Scattergood, as one speaks who utters an +accepted fact. + +"No more 'n mine," she said, with a sudden flash. "I dunno what's got +into us, Mr. Baines, but we no sooner git into the same room than it +commences. 'Tain't no-body's fault--it jest _is_." + +"Um!... Kinder like to have things the way they used to be?" + +"Oh, Mr. Baines!" Her eyes filled. "Them first two-three years! Jed was +the best man a woman ever had." + +"Hain't drinkin', is he?" + +"Never touches a drop." + +"Jest his nasty temper," said Scattergood, casually. + +"No sich thing.... It's jest happened so. We can't git on, and I'm +through tryin'. One of us is gain' to git out of this house. I've made +up my mind." She started untying her apron. "I'm a-goin' right now. +It'll be off'n my mind then, and I kin sort of git a fresh start. I'm +goin' right now and pack." + +"Kind of hasty, hain't you?... Now, Marthy, as a special favor to me I +wish you'd stay, maybe two days more. I got a special reason. If you was +to go this mornin' it 'u'd upset my plans. After Sattidy you kin do as +you like, and maybe it's best you should part. But I do wisht you could +see your way to stayin' till Sattidy." + +"I don't see why, Mr. Baines, but if it'll be any good to _you_, I'll +do it. But not a minute after Sattidy--now mind that!" + +"Much 'bleeged, Marthy. G'-by, Marthy. G'-by." + +On Friday Scattergood was invisible in Coldriver village, for he had +started away before dawn, driving his sway-backed horse over the +mountain roads to the southward. He notified nobody of his going, unless +it was Mandy, his wife, and even to her he did not make apparent his +errand. + +Before noon he was in Bailey and stopping before the small white house +in which Mrs. Patterson managed by ingenuity to fit in a husband, a +mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy +orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done +it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes +containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once +removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some one +who knows the secret. + +Scattergood entered the house, remained upward of an hour, and then +reappeared, followed by Mrs. Patterson, seven children, an old man, and +an old woman--and in his arms was a baby whose lungs gave promise of a +healthy manhood. + +"Do this much, does he?" Scattergood asked, uneasily. + +"Not more 'n most," said Mrs. Patterson. + +"Um!... If he lets on to be hungry, what's the best thing to feed him +up on? I got a bag of doughnuts and five-six sandriches and nigh on to +half a apple pie in the buggy." + +"Feed him them," said Mrs. Patterson, "and you'll be like to hear some +real yellin'. What he's doin' now hain't nothin' but his objectin' to +you a-carryin' him like he was a horse blanket.... You wait right there +till I git a bottle of milk. And I'll fix you some sugar in a rag that +you kin put into his mouth if he acts uneasy. It'll quiet him right +off." + +"Much 'bleeged. Hain't had much experience with young uns. Might's well +start now. Bet me 'n this here one gits well acquainted 'fore we reach +Coldriver." + +"'Twouldn't s'prise me a mite," replied Mrs. Patterson, with something +that might have been a twinkle in her tired eyes. "I almost feel I +should go along with you." + +"G'-by, Mrs. Patterson," said Scattergood, hastily, and he climbed into +his buggy clumsily, placing the baby on the seat beside him, and holding +it in place with his left arm. "G'-by." + +The buggy rattled off. The baby hushed suddenly and began to look at the +horse. + +"Kind of come to your senses, eh?" said Scattergood. "Now you and me's +goin' to git on fine if you jest keep your mouth shet. If you behave +yourself proper I dunno but what I kin find a stick of candy f'r you +when we git there." + +Presently Scattergood looked down to find the baby asleep. He drove +slowly and cautiously, whispering what commands he felt were +indispensable to his horse. This delightful situation continued for +upward of two hours, and Scattergood said to himself that folks who +bothered about traveling with infants must be very easily worried. + +"Jest as soon ride with this one clean to the Pacific coast," he said. + +And then the baby awoke. It blinked and looked about it; it rubbed its +eyes; it stared severely up at Scattergood; it opened its mouth +tentatively, closed it again, and then--and then it uttered such an +ear-piercing, long-drawn shriek that the old horse jumped with fright. + +"Hey, there!" said the startled Scattergood. "Hey! what's ailin' you +now?" + +The baby closed his eyes, clenched his fists, kicked out with his legs, +and gave himself up whole-heartedly to the exercise of his voice. + +"Quit that," said Scattergood. "Now listen here; that hain't no way to +behave. You won't git that candy--" + +Louder and more piercing arose the baby's cries. Scattergood dropped the +reins, lifted the baby to his knee, and jounced it up and down +furiously, performing an act which he imagined to be singing, a thing he +had heard was interesting and soothing to babies. It did not even +attract this one's attention. + +"Sufferin' heathen!" Scattergood said. "What in tunket was it that woman +said I sh'u'd do? Hain't they no way of shuttin' him off? Look-ee here, +young feller, you jest quit it.... B'jing! here's my watch. You kin +listen to it tick." + +The baby tried the watch on his toothless gums, found it not to his +taste, and flung it from him with such vehemence that it would have +suffered permanent injury but for the size and strength of the silver +chain which attached it to Scattergood. The cries became more maddening. +Scattergood was not hungry, so it did not occur to him that the infant +might be thinking of food. He dandled it, he whistled, he sang, he +pointed out the interesting attributes of his horse, and promised to +direct attention to a rabbit or even a deer in a moment, but nothing +availed. Perspiration was pouring down Scattergood's face, and his +expression was that of a man who devoutly wishes he were far otherwise +than he is. + +Half an hour of this seemed to Scattergood like the length of a sizable +day--and then he remembered the milk. Frantically he fished it out of +the basket and thrust it toward the young person, who did with it what +seemed right to him, and, with a gurgle of satisfaction, settled down to +business. Scattergood sighed, wiped his forehead, and revised his +opinion of folks who were worried at the prospect of travel with an +infant. + +The rest of that drive was a nightmare to Scattergood. When the baby +yelled he was in torment. When the baby slept he was in torment lest he +wake it, so that it would commence again to cry. He sweat cold and he +sweat hot, and he wished wishes in his secret heart and blamed himself +for many things--chief of which was that he had not brought Mandy along +to bear the brunt of the adventure. + +But at last, long after nightfall, with baby fast asleep, Scattergood +drove into Coldriver by deserted and circuitous roads. He stopped his +horse in a dark spot on the edge of the village, and, with the baby +cautiously held in his arms, he slunk through back ways and short cuts +to the house where Jed and Martha Lewis made their home. With meticulous +stealth he passed through the gate, laid the baby on the doorstep, rang +the bell long and determinedly, and then, with astonishing quiet and +agility, hid himself in the midst of a clump of lilacs. + +The door opened, and a light shone through upon the squirming bundle +that lay upon the step. A tentative cry issued from the baby; a bass +exclamation issued from Jed Lewis. "My Gawd! Marthy, somebody's left a +baby here!" + +Martha pushed past her husband and lifted the baby in her arms. She said +no word, but Scattergood could see her press it close, and, in the +light that came through the door, could see the expression of her face. +It satisfied him. + +"What we goin' to do with the doggone thing?" Jed demanded. + +Martha pushed past him into the house, and he followed, wordless, +closing the door after them.... Scattergood remained for some time, and +then slunk away.... + +Postmaster Pratt gave the news to Scattergood in the morning. + +"Somebody went and left a baby on to Jed Lewis's stoop last night," he +declared. "Hain't nobody been able to identify it. Nary a mark nor a +sign on to it no place. ... Whatever possessed anybody to leave a baby +_there_ of all places?" + +"I want to know!" exclaimed Scattergood. "Girl er boy?" + +"Boy, I'm told." + +"What's Jed say?" + +"Hain't sayin' much. Jest sets and kind of hangs on to his head, and +every once in a while he gits up and looks at the baby and then goes +back to holdin' his head." + +"How about Marthy?" + +"Marthy," said Postmaster Pratt. "I can't make out about Marthy, but I +heard her a-singin' this mornin' 'fore breakfast. Fust time I heard her +sing for more 'n a year." + +"Might 'a' been singin' to the baby," Scattergood suggested. + +"Naw, it was while she was gittin' breakfast. Jest the time she and Jed +quarrels most powerful." + +During the day all of Coldriver called to see the mysterious infant. +Nobody could give a clue to its identity, and it was decided unanimously +that it had been brought from a distance. As to the intentions of the +Lewises regarding its disposition, they were noncommittal. It was +universally accepted as fact, however, that the baby would be sent to +an institution. + +Thereupon Scattergood called upon the First Selectman. + +"What's the town goin' to do about that baby?" he demanded. +"Taxpayers'll be wantin' to know. Seems like the town's liable f'r its +support." + +"Calculate we be.... Calculate we be. I been figgerin' on what steps to +take." + +"Better go across to Jed's and notify 'em," said Scattergood. "They'll +be expectin' you to take action prompt. I'll go 'long with you." + +They walked down the street and rapped at the Lewises' door. + +"Come on official business," said the First Selectman, pompously, to +Jed, "connected with that there foundlin'." + +Martha came hastily into the room. "What you want?" she demanded, in a +dangerous voice. + +"Come to tell you we would take that baby off'n your hands and send it +to a institution. Git it ready, and we'll take it to-morrer." + +"Take that baby!... Did you hear him, Jed Lewis? Did you hear that man +say as how he was goin' to take away my baby?" She stumbled across the +room to Jed and clutched the lapels of his coat. Scattergood noticed +with some pleasure that Jed's arm went automatically about her waist. +"Make 'em git out, Jed. Tell 'em they can't take this baby.... You want +we should keep it, don't you, Jed?... We wanted one. You know how we +wanted one.... You're goin' to let us keep it, hain't you, Jed?" + +Jed put Martha aside gently and walked over to a makeshift crib in the +corner, where the baby was asleep, where he stood for a moment looking +down at it with a curious expression. Then he turned suddenly, strode to +the door, opened it, and pointed. "Git!" he said to the First Selectman +and Scattergood. + +"Jed ... Jed ... darlin'," Martha cried, and as Scattergood passed out +he saw from the corner of his eye that she was sobbing on her husband's +hickory shirt and that he was patting her back with awkward gentleness. + +"Looked a mite like Jed wanted we should go," said Scattergood. + +"I'll have the law on to him. He'll be showed that he can't stand up to +the First Selectman of this here town, I'll--" + +"You'll go home and set down in the shade and cool off," said +Scattergood, merrily, "and while you're a-coolin' you might sort of +thank Gawd that there's sich things as human bein's with human feelin's, +and that there's sich things as babies ...that sometimes gits themselves +left on the right doorstep.... G'-by, Selectman. G'-by." + +A week later Scattergood was passing the Lewis home early in the +evening. In the side yard was a hammock under the trees which had been +unoccupied this year past, but to-night it was occupied again. Martha +was there with the baby against her breast, and Jed was there, his arm +tightly about his wife, and one of the baby's hands lying on his +calloused palm.... As Scattergood watched he saw Jed bend clumsily and +kiss the tiny fingers ... and Martha turned a trifle and smiled up into +her husband's eyes. + +Scattergood passed on, blinking, perhaps because dust had gotten in his +eyes. He stopped at the post office and spoke to Postmaster Pratt. + +"Call to mind my speakin' of soothin' syrup and Jed Lewis and his wife?" +he asked. + +"Seems like I mind it, Scattergood." + +"Jest walk past their house, Postmaster. Calc'late you'll see I figgered +clost to right.... Marthy's a-sittin' there with Jed in the hammick, +and they're a-holdin' on their lap the doggondest best soothin' syrup +f'r man and wife that any doctor c'u'd perscribe.... Calculate it's one +of them nature's remedies.... Go take a look, Postmaster.... G'-by." + + + +CHAPTER X + +HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK + + +Scattergood Baines, as he sat with shirt open at the throat, his huge +body sagged down in the chair that had been especially reinforced to +sustain his weight, seemed to passing Coldriver village to be drowsing. +Many people suspected Scattergood of drowsing when he was exceedingly +wide awake and observant of events. It was part of his stock in trade. + +At this moment he was looking across the square toward the post office. +A large, broad-shouldered young man, with hair sun-bleached to a ruddy +yellow, had alighted from a buggy and entered the office. He was a fine, +bulky, upstanding farmer, built for enduring much hard labor in times of +peace and for performing feats of arms in time of war. He looked like a +fighter; he was a fighter--a willing fighter, and folks up and down the +valley stepped aside if it was noised about that Abner Levens had broken +loose. It was not that Abner delighted in the fruit of the vine nor the +essence of the maize; he was a teetotaler. But it did seem as if nature +had overdone the matter of providing him with the machinery for creating +energy and had overlooked the safety valve. Wherefore Abner, once or +twice a year, lost his temper. + +Now, losing his temper was not for Abner a matter of uttering a couple +of oaths and of wrapping a hoe handle around a tree. He lost his temper +thoroughly and seemed unable to locate it again for days. He rampaged. +He roared up and down the valley, inviting one and all to step up and +be demolished, which the inhabitants were very reluctant to do, for +Abner worked upon his victims with thoroughness and enthusiasm. + +When Abner was in his normal humor he was a jovial, noisily jovial young +man, who would dance with the girls until the cock tired of crowing; who +would give a day's work to a friend; who performed his civic and +religious duties punctiliously, if gayly; who was honest to the fraction +of a penny; and who would have been the most popular and admired youth +in the valley among the maidens of the valley had it not been for their +constant, uneasy fear that he might suddenly turn Berserk. + +It was this young man whom Scattergood eyed thoughtfully, and, one might +say, apprehensively, for Scattergood liked the youth and feared the +germs of disaster that lay quiescent in his powerful body. + +Pliny Pickett lounged past, stopped, eyed Scattergood, and seated +himself on the step. + +"Abner Levens 's in town," he said. + +"Seen him," answered Scattergood. + +"Calc'late Asa'll be in?" + +"Bein' 's it's Sattidy night, 'most likely he'll come." + +"Hope Abner's feelin' friendly, then," said Pliny with an anticipatory +twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction +to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be +wrastlin' all over town and pushin' down houses." + +"They hain't never fit yet," said Scattergood. + +"Nor won't if Asa has the say of it.... He's full as big as Abner, too. +Otherwise they don't resemble twins none." + +"Hain't much brotherly feelin' betwixt 'em." + +"I hain't clear as to the rights of the matter," said Pliny, "but they +hain't nothin' like a will dispute to make bad blood betwixt +relatives.... Asa got the best of _that_ argument, anyhow. Don't seem +fair, exactly, is my opinion, that Old Man Levens should up and +discriminate betwixt them boys like he did--givin' Asa a hog's share." + +"Dunno's I'd worry sich a heap about that," said Scattergood, "if they +hadn't both got het up about the same gal. Looks to me like one or +tother of 'em took up with that gal jest to make mischief.... Seems like +Abner was settin' out with her fust." + +"Some says both ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner +he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to +the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate betwixt them boys." + +"And trouble'll come of it.... Wonder which of 'em Mary Ware favors? If +she favors either of 'em, and trouble comes, it'll mix her in." + +"Hope Abner gits him. Better for her, says I, to take up with a man like +Ab, that's a good feller fifty weeks out of the year, and goes on a tear +two weeks, than to be married to a cuss like Asa that jest goes along +sort of gloomy and _still_ and seekin'. I hain't never heard Asa laugh +with no real enjoyment into it yet. He grins and shows his teeth. He's +too dum quiet, and always acts like a feller that's afraid you'll find +out what he's got in mind." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood. + +"Mary's about the pertiest girl in Coldriver," said Pliny. "Dunno but +what she could handle Abner all right, too. Call to mind the firemen's +picnic last year when she went with Abner, and he busted loose on that +feller with the three shells and the leetle ball?" + +"When the feller had robbed Half-wit Stenens of nigh on to twenty +dollars? I call to mind." + +"Abner was jest on the p'int of separatin' that feller into chunks and +dispersin' the chunks over the county when Mary she steps up and puts +her hand en his arm, and says, 'Abner!' ... Jest like that she said it, +quiet and gentle, but firm. Abner he let loose of the feller and turned +to look at her, and in a minute all the fight went out of his face and +his eyes like somebody had drained it off. He kind of blushed and hung +his head, and walked away with her.... She didn't tongue-lash him, +neither, jest kept a-touchin' his arm so's he wouldn't forgit she was +there." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Here comes Asa." He lifted himself from his +creaking chair and started across the bridge. "If it's a-comin' off," he +said to Pliny, "I want to git where I kin git a good view." + +In the post office the twin brothers came face to face. Scattergood saw +Abner's thin lips twist in a provocative sneer. Abner halted suddenly, +at arm's length from his brother, and eyed him from head to foot, and +Asa returned an insolent stare. + +"You sneakin' hound," said Abner, without heat, as was his way in the +beginning, always. "You're lower'n I thought, and I thought you was +low." Scattergood took in these words and pondered them. Did they mean +some new cause for enmity between the brothers? Suddenly Abner's eyes +began to kindle and to blaze. Asa crouched and his teeth showed in a +saturnine, crooked smile. No man could look upon him and accuse him of +being afraid of Abner or of avoiding the issue. + +"I know what you've been up to, you slinkin' varmint ... I know where +you was Tuesday." Scattergood took possession of this sentence and +placed it in the safety-deposit box of his memory. Where had Asa been +Tuesday, he wondered, and what had Asa been doing there? + +"I've put up with a heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I +hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But +now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's nobody kin put you +together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake." +With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm struck Asa +across the mouth. + +Asa licked his lips and continued to smile his crooked, saturnine smile. + +"Hain't scarcely room in here," he said, softly. + +"Git outside and take off your coat," said Abner, "for I'm goin' to fix +you so's nobody kin ever accuse flesh and blood of mine of doin' agin +what I've ketched you doin'." + +"What's gnawin' you," said Asa, softly, "is that I got the best farm and +that I'm a-goin' to git your girl." + +There was a stark pause. Abner stiffened, grew tense, as one becomes at +the moment of bursting into dynamic action, but he did not stir. +Scattergood was surprised, but he was more surprised by Abner's next +words. "I hain't goin' to half kill you on account of your lyin' to +father, nor on account of her--it's on account of _her_." The sentence +seemed without sense or meaning, but Scattergood placed it with his +other collected sentences; he did not perceive its meaning, but he did +perceive that the first 'her' and the second 'her' were pronounced so +that they became different words, like names, indicating, identifying, +different persons. That was Scattergood's notion. + +Asa turned on his heel and walked into the square, removing his coat as +he went; Abner followed. They faced each other, crouching. Abner's face +depicting wrath, Asa's depicting hatred.... Before a blow was struck, a +girl, tall, slender, deep-bosomed, fit mate for a man of might, pushed +through the circle of spectators. Her face was pale and distressed, but +very lovely. Her brown eyes were dark with the emotion of the moment, +and a wisp of wavy brown hair lay unnoticed upon her broad forehead.... +She walked to Abner's side and touched his arm. + +"Abner!" she said, gently. + +He turned his blazing eyes upon her. "Not this time" he said. "Go away, +Mary." Even in his rage he spoke to her in a voice of reverence. + +"Abner!" she repeated. + +He turned to his brother. "You get off this time," he said, evenly, "but +there will be another time.... Asa, I think I am going to kill you...." + +Asa laughed mockingly, and Abner took a threatening step toward him, but +Mary touched his arm again. "Abner!" she said once more; and obediently +as some well-trained mastiff he followed her through the gaping ring, +she still touching his arm, and together they walked slowly up the road. + +Two days later, about eight o'clock in the morning, Sheriff Ulysses +Watts bustled down the street wearing his official, rather than his +common, or meat-wagon, air. He paused, to speak excitedly to +Scattergood, who sat as usual on the piazza of his hardware store. + +"They've jest found Asa Levens's body," he ejaculated. "A-layin' clost +to the road it was, with a bullet through the head. Clear case of +murder.... I'm gatherin' a posse to fetch in the murderer." + +"Murderer's known, is he?" said Scattergood, leaning forward, and eying +the sheriff. + +"Abner, of course. Who else would 'a' done it? Hain't he been +a-threatenin' right along?" + +"Anybody see him fire the shot, Sheriff? Any witnesses?" + +"Nary witness. Nothin' but the body a-layin' where it fell." + +"What was the manner of this shootin', Sheriff?" + +"All I know's what I've told you." + +"Gatherin' a posse, Ulysses? Who be you selectin'?" + +"Various and sundry," said the sheriff. + +"Any objection to deputizin' me?" said Scattergood. "Any notion I might +help some?" + +"Glad to have you, Scattergood.... Got to hustle. Most likely the +murderer's escapin' this minute." + +"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Need any catridges or anythin' in the +hardware line, Sheriff? Figgerin' on goin' armed, hain't you?" + +"Dunno but what the boys'll need somethin'. You keep open till I gather +'em here." + +"I carry the most reliable line of catridges in the state," said +Scattergood. "Prices low.... I'll be waitin', Sheriff." + +In twenty minutes a dozen citizens of the vicinage gathered at +Scattergood's store, each armed with his favorite weapon, rifle or +double-barreled shotgun, and each wearing what he fancied to be the air +of a dangerous and resolute citizen. + +"Calc'late he'll be desprit," said Jed Lewis. "He won't be took without +a fight." + +It was characteristic of Scattergood that he delayed the setting out of +the posse until, by his peculiar methods of salesmanship, he had pressed +upon various members lethal merchandise to a value of upward of twenty +dollars. This being done, they entered a big picnic wagon with parallel +seats and set out for the scene of the crime. Coroner Bogle demanded +that the body should be viewed officially before the man-hunt should +begin. Scattergood threw the weight of his opinion with the coroner. + +The body was found lying beside a narrow path leading from the road +through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with +arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun +shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and +insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields +themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready +for the harvest. Scattergood looked about him at the trappings of the +day, and the thought came unbidden that it was a pleasant spot in which +to die ... perhaps more pleasant than the dead man deserved. + +"Shot from behind." said the sheriff. + +"By somebody a-layin' in wait," said Jed Lewis. + +"It was murder--cold-blooded murder," said the sheriff. + +Scattergood stepped forward as the coroner turned the face up to the +light of the sun. + +"It was a death by violence," said Scattergood. "It may be murder.... +Asa Levens wears, as he lies, the face of a man who troubled God...." + +There was none in that little group to comprehend his meaning. + +"There was no struggle," said the coroner. + +"He never knowed he was shot," said Jed Lewis. + +"Be you still a-goin' to arrest Abner Levens?" Scattergood asked. + +"To be sure. He done it, didn't he? Who else would 'a' killed Asa?" + +"Who else?" said Scattergood, solemnly. + +They raised Asa Levens and carried him to his house. Having left him in +proper custody, the posse re-entered its picnic van and drove with no +small trepidation toward Abner Levens's farm, a mile away. Abner Levens +was perceived from a distance, hoeing in a field. + +"He's goin' to face it out," said the sheriff; "or maybe he wasn't +expectin' Asa to be found yet." + +The picnic van stopped beside the field and the armed posse scrambled +out, holding its weapons threateningly; but as Abner was armed with +nothing more lethal than a hoe there was some appearance of +embarrassment among them, and more than one man endeavored to make his +shooting iron invisible by dropping it in the long grass. + +"Come on," said the sheriff, and in a body the posse advanced across the +field toward Abner, who leaned upon his hoe and waited for them. "Abner +Levens," said the sheriff, in a voice which was not of the steadiest, "I +arrest you for murder." + +Abner looked at the sheriff; Abner looked from one to another of the +posse in silence. It seemed as if he were not going to speak, but at +last he did speak. + +"Then Asa Levens is dead," he said. + +It was not a question; it was a statement, made with conviction. +Scattergood Baines noted that Abner called his brother by name as if +desiring to avoid the matter of blood kindred; that he made no denial. + +"You know it better than anybody," said the sheriff. + +Abner looked past the sheriff, over the uneven fields, with their rock +fences, and beyond to the green slopes of the mountains as they upreared +distinct, majestic, imposing in their serene permanence against the +undimmed summer sky. + +"Asa Levens is dead," said Abner, presently. "Now I know that God is not +infinite in everything.... His patience is not infinite." + +"It's my duty to warn you that anythin' you say kin be used ag'in' you," +said the sheriff. "Be you comin' along peaceable?" + +"I'm comin' peaceable," said Abner. "If God's satisfied--I be." + +Abner Levens was locked in the unreliable jail of Coldriver village, and +a watch placed over him. Those who saw him marveled at his demeanor; +Scattergood Baines marveled at it, for it was not the demeanor of a +man--even of an innocent man--accused of a crime for which the penalty +was death. Abner sat upon the hard bench and looked quietly, even +placidly, out at the brightness of day, as it was apparent beyond flimsy +iron bars, and his expression was the expression of _contentment_. + +He had not demanded the benefit of legal guidance; he had neither +affirmed nor denied his guilt; indeed, he had uttered no word since the +door of the jail had closed behind him. + +Mary Ware spoke to the young man through the window of the jail in full +view of all Coldriver. + +"You didn't do it, Abner. I know you didn't do it," she said, so that +all might hear, "and if you still want me, Abner, like you said, I'll +stick by you through thick and thin." + +"Thank ye, Mary," Abner replied. "Now I guess you better go away." + +"What shall I do, Abner--to help you?" + +"Nothing Mary. Looks like God's took aholt of matters. Better let him +finish 'em in his own way." + +That was all; neither Mary Ware nor any other could get more out of him, +and it was said by many to be a confession of guilt. + +"Realizes there hain't no use makin' a defense. Calc'lates on takin' his +medicine like a man," said Postmaster Pratt.... There were those in town +who voiced the wish that it had been some other than Abner who had +killed Asa Levens. "His gun's been shot recent," said the sheriff. It +was the final gram of evidence necessary to complete assurance of +Abner's guilt. + +Mary Ware was observed by many to walk directly from the jail window to +Scattergood Baines's hardware store, and there to stop and address +Scattergood, who sat barefooted, and therefore in deep thought, before +the door of his place of business. + +"Mr. Baines," said Mary, "you've helped other folks. Will you help me?" + +"Help you how, Mary? What kin I do for you?" + +"Abner isn't guilty, Mr. Baines" + +"Tell you so?... Abner tell you so?" + +"No." + +"Um!... 'F he was innocent, wouldn't he deny it, Mary?" He did not +permit her to reply, but asked another question. "What makes you say he +hain't guilty, Mary?" + +"Because I know it," she replied, simply. + +"How do you know it, Mary? It's mighty hard to _know_ anythin' on earth. +How d'you _know_?" + +"Because I know," said Mary. + +"'Twon't convince no jury." + +Mary stood in silence for a moment, and then turned away, not tearful, +not despairing. + +"Hold your hosses," said Scattergood. "Kin you think of anythin' that +might convince a _stranger_ that Abner is innocent?" + +Mary considered. "Asa was shot," she said. + +Scattergood nodded. + +"From behind," said Mary. + +Scattergood nodded again. + +"Asa never knew who shot him," said Mary, and again Scattergood moved +his head. "If Abner had killed Asa," she went on, "he would have done it +with his hands. He would have wanted Asa to know who was killing him." + +"Might convince them that knows Abner," said Scattergood, "but the +jury'll be strangers." He paused, and asked, suddenly, "Why did you let +Asa Levens come to court you?" + +"Because I hated him," said Mary. + +"Um!... Abner say anythin' to you?" + +"He said God had taken hold of matters and we'd better let him finish +them." + +"When God takes holt of human affairs he mostly uses human bein's to do +the rough work," said Scattergood. + +"Abner's innocent," said Mary, stubbornly. + +"Mebby so.... Mebby so." + +"Will you help me clear him, Mr. Baines?" + +"I'll help you find out the truth, Mary, if that'll keep you +satisfied. Calculate I'd like to know the truth myself. Had a look at +Asa's face a-layin' there by the road, and it interested me." + +"Did you see that?" Mary asked, with sudden excitement. + +"What?" asked Scattergood, curiously. + +"The mark.... Sometimes it showed plain. It was a mark put on Asa +Levens's face as a warning to folks that God mistrusted him." + +"When he was dead it was different," said Scattergood, with solemnity. +"It said he had r'iled God past endurance." + +Mary nodded. She comprehended. "The truth will do," she said, +confidently. + +"Did Abner mention last Tuesday to you?" Scattergood asked. + +"No." + +"Where was Asa Levens last Tuesday? Do you know, Mary?" + +"No." + +"Why did Abner say to Asa yesterday, 'It's not on account of her, it's +on account of _her_'?" + +"I don't know." + +"G'-by, Mary. G'-by." It was so Scattergood always ended a conversation, +abruptly, but as one became accustomed to it it was neither abrupt nor +discourteous. + +"Thank you," said Mary, and she went away obediently. + +As the afternoon was stretching toward evening, Scattergood sauntered +into Sheriff Ulysses Watts's barn. + +"Who's feedin' and waterin' Asa Levens's stock?" he asked. + +"Dummed if I didn't clean forgit 'em," confessed the sheriff. + +"Any objection if I look after 'em, Sheriff? Any logical objection? Hoss +might need exercisin'. Can't never tell. Want I should drive up and do +what's needed to be done?" + +"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts. + +Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the +stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare. +He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap," +he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out +of the gate and turned toward town. Scattergood let the reins lie, +attempting no guidance. At the next four corners the mare hesitated, +slowed, and, feeling no direction from her driver, turned to the left. +Scattergood nodded his head. + +The mare trotted on, following the slowly lifting mountain road for a +matter of two miles, and then turned again down a highway that was +little more than a tote road. Half a mile later she stopped with her +nose against the fence of a shabby farmhouse, and sagged down, as is the +custom of horses when they realize they are at their destination and +have a rest of duration before them. Scattergood alighted and fastened +her to the fence. + +As he swung open the gate a middle-aged man appeared in the door of the +house, and over his shoulder Scattergood could see the white face of a +woman--staring. + +"Evening Jed," said Scattergood. "Evening Mis' Briggs." + +"Howdy, Mr. Baines? Wa'n't expectin' to see _you_. What fetches you this +fur off'n the road?" + +"Sort of got here by accident, you might say. Didn't come of my own free +will, seems as though. Kind of tired, Jed. Mind if I set a spell?... +How's the cannin', Mis' Briggs?" + +"Done up thutty quarts to-day, Mr. Baines," said the young woman, who +was Jed Briggs's wife, a woman fifteen years his junior, comely, +desirable, vivid. + +"Um!... Got a hoss out here. Want you should both come and look her +over." He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and +his wife to the fence. + +"Likely mare," said Scattergood, blandly. + +Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman +laughs in great fear. + +"Gawd!" said Jed Briggs, "it's--" + +"Yes," said Scattergood, gently. "It's Asa Levens's mare. Was she here +last Tuesday?" + +"She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines," said Jed Briggs. "What's the +meanin' of this?" + +"I knowed she was somewheres Tuesday," Scattergood said, impersonally. +"Didn't know where, but I mistrusted she'd been to that place frequent. +Jest got in and give her her head. She brought me.... Asa Levens is +dead." + +"Dead!" said Jed Briggs in a hushed voice. + +"He deserved to die.... He deserved to die.... He deserved to die ..." +the young woman repeated shrilly, hysterically. + +"Was you in town to lodge Tuesday night, Jed?" + +"Yes." + +"Asa come every lodge night, Mis' Briggs?" + +"He always came--when Jed was here and when Jed was away.... When Jed +was here he'd jest set eyin' me and eyin' me ... and when Jed was gone +he--he talked...." + +"Asa owned the mortgage on the place," said Jed, as if that explained +something. Scattergood nodded comprehension. + +"Keep up your int'rest, Jed?" + +"Year behind. Asa was threatenin' foreclosure." + +"Threatened to throw us offn the place ... ag'in and ag'in he +threatened--and we'd 'a' starved, 'cause Jed hain't strong. It's me does +most of the work.... What we got into this place is all we got on +earth ... and he threatened to take it." + +"He come Tuesday night," said Scattergood, as a prompter speaks. + +"Hush, Lindy," said Jed. + +"I calculate you'd best both of you talk," said Scattergood. "You'd +better tell me, Jed, jest why you shot Asa Levens." + +Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs +stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes. + +"It'll be best for you to tell. I'm standin' your friend, Jed +Briggs.... Better tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here +Tuesday night...." + +"He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too, +laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come +home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly, +pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home, +and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I +coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me--and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause +he wa'n't fit to live." + +Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But +what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What +about Abner?" + +"Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday +when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his +hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and +then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he +was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one +of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin...." + +Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed. +That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix +up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and +there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin' +God's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you +punished f'r it...." + +Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest +over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy, +his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of +their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken. +The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words: + +"We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of God, and that there +are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter." + +And so it stands in the imperishable records of the township; legal +authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his +rougher sort of work. + +"I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and +unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself." + +Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by +accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated God meant to destroy +us Levenses, root and branch.... It was his business, not mine." + +"I've took note," said Scattergood, "that them that was most strict +about mindin' their own business was gen'ally most diligent about doin' +God's--all unbeknownst to themselves." + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HE INVESTS IN SALVATION + + +From Scattergood Baines's seat on the piazza of his hardware store he +could look across the river and through a side window of the bank. +Scattergood was availing himself of this privilege. As a member of the +finance committee of the bank Scattergood was naturally interested in +that enterprise, so important to the thrifty community, but his interest +at the moment was not exactly official. He was regarding, speculatively, +the back of young Ovid Nixon, the assistant cashier. + +His concern for young Ovid was sartorial. It is true that a shiny alpaca +office coat covered the excellent shoulders of the boy, but below that +alpaca and under Scattergood's line of vision were trousers--and +carefully stretched over a hanger on a closet hook was a coat! There was +also a waistcoat, recognized only by the name of _vest_ in Coldriver, +and that very morning Scattergood had seen the three, to say nothing of +a certain shirt and a necktie of sorts, making brave young Ovid's +figure. + +Ovid passed Scattergood's store on the way to his work. Baines had +regarded him with interest. + +"Mornin', Ovid" he said. + +"Morning, Mr. Baines." + +"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?" + +Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head. + +"Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said +Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?" + +"Got 'em in the city," said Ovid. + +"I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured +special fer you?" + +"Best tailor there was," said Ovid. + +"Must 'a' come to quite a figger, includin' the shirt and necktie." + +"Forty dollars for the suit," Ovid said, proudly, "and it busted a +five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie." + +Scattergood waggled his head admiringly. "Must be a satisfaction," he +said, "to be able to afford sich clothes." + +Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood's voice was so interested, +so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed. + +"How's your ma?" Scattergood asked. + +"Pert," answered Ovid. "Ma's spry. Barrin' a siege of neuralgy in the +face off and on, ma hain't complainin' of nothin'." + +"Has she took to patronizin' a city tailor, too?" Scattergood asked. + +"Mostly," said Ovid, "ma makes her own." + +Scattergood nodded. + +"Still does sewin' for other folks?" + +"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it passes the time." + +"Passes consid'able of it, don't it? Passes the time right up till she +gits into bed?" + +"Ma's industrious." + +"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to +Coldriver; credit to the bank." + +Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them. + +"Been spendin' Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, +hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around." + +"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently. + +"Girl?" said Scattergood--one might have noticed that it was hopefully. + +"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse +ourselves Sundays." + +"Um!... G'-by, Ovid." + +"Good-by, Mr. Baines." + +Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and +visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one +personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had +been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to +be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be +devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor +organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This denouement +had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those +who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you +could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and +hear all the organ music a body needed to hear. + +So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, +setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars +a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly +trips down the line on the "three-o'clock." + +Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver. +Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial +concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the +bank after Ovid's graduation from high school--and had watched him, with +some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position +which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a +young man to hold. To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings +Bank was to have achieved both social and business success. + +Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated +on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had +attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer. But latterly he had done a +deal of thinking. In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon +to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in +the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more +engrossed by himself and by interests "down the line." + +It was Scattergood's opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was +suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its +run ... if no serious complication set in. Scattergood was watching for +symptoms of the complication. + +Three weeks later Ovid took the "three-o'clock" down the line of a +Saturday afternoon and failed to return Sunday night. Indeed, he did not +appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him. Mrs. Nixon +could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of +a spell of neuralgia, was distracted. + +Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, +recalling in time that he was seated in a lady's parlor, restrained his +impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his +thoughts by wriggling his toes. + +"Likely," he said, "it's nothin' serious. Then, ag'in, you can't +tell.... You do two things, Mis' Nixon: go out to the farm and stay with +my wife--Mandy'll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet." + +"You'll find him, Mr. Baines?... You'll fetch him back to me?" + +"If I figger he's wuth it," said Scattergood. + +He went from Mrs. Nixon's to the bank, where the finance committee were +gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid's +disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable assets of +the institution. There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, +Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne--Scattergood made up the full committee. + +"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its +protest at the burden. + +"What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin' +suspicious?" + +"Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some +acidity. + +"You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood. + +"Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it--not yit. +Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the +cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault +an overhaulin'." + +Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of +the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be +discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by +an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a +caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his +progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination +that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he +had looted clumsily--and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose +the vault for his peculiar task. + +It is a comparatively easy task to count the cash reserve in the vault +of so small a bank. Even a matter of thirty-odd thousand dollars can be +checked by one man alone in half an hour, for the small silver is packed +away in rolls, each roll containing a stated sum; the larger silver is +bagged, each bag bearing a label stating the amount of its contents, and +the currency is wrapped in packages containing even sums.... +Scattergood went to work. He went over the cash carefully, and totaled +the sums he set down on a bit of paper.... He found the amount to be +inadequate by exactly three thousand dollars. + +"Huh!" said Scattergood to himself. "Ovid hain't no hawg." + +One might have thought the young man had dropped in Scattergood's +estimation. It would have been as easy to make away with twenty thousand +dollars as with three thousand, and the penalty would not have been +greater. + +"Kind of a childish sum," said Scattergood to himself. "'Tain't wuth +bustin' up a life over--not three thousand.... Calc'late Ovid hain't +_bad_--not at a figger of three thousand. Jest a dum fool--him and his +tailor-made clothes...." + +In the silence of the vault Scattergood removed his shoes and sat on a +pile of bagged silver. His pudgy toes worked busily while he reflected +upon the sum of three thousand dollars and what the theft of that amount +might indicate. "Looked big to Ovid," he said to himself. Then, "Jest a +dum young eediot...." + +He replaced the cash and, carrying his shoes in his hand, left the vault +and closed it behind him. His four fellow committeemen were sweating +over the books, but all looked up anxiously as Scattergood appeared. He +stood looking at them an instant, as if in doubt. + +"What d'you find?" asked Atwell. + +"She checks," said Scattergood. + +The four drew a breath of relief. Scattergood wished that he might have +joined them in the breath, but there was no relief for him. He had +joined his fortunes to those of Ovid Nixon--and to those of Ovid's +mother; had become _particeps criminis_, and the requirements of the +situation rested heavily upon him. + +It was past midnight before the laborious four finished their review of +the books and joined with Scattergood in giving Ovid a clean bill of +health. + +"Didn't think Ovid had it in him to steal," said Kettleman. + +"Hain't got no business stirrin' us up like this for nothin'," said +Atwell, acrimoniously. + +"Maybe," suggested Scattergood, "Ovid's come down with a fit of +suthin'." + +"Hope it's painful," said Lafe, "I'm a-goin' home to bed." + +"What'll we do?" asked Deacon Pettybone. + +"Nothin'," said Scattergood, "till some doin' is called fur. Calc'late I +better slip on my shoes. Might meet my wife." Mandy Scattergood was +doing her able best to break Scattergood of his shoeless ways. + +"Guess we'll let Ovid git through when he comes back," said Deacon +Pettybone, harshly, making use of the mountain term to denote discharge. +There no one is ever discharged, no one ever resigns. The single phrase +covers both actions--the individual "gets through." + +"I always figgered," said Scattergood, urbanely, "that it was allus +premature to git ahead of time.... I'm calc'latin' on runnin' down to +see what kind of a fit of ailment Ovid's come down with." + +Next morning, having in the meantime industriously allowed the rumor to +go abroad that Ovid was suddenly ill, Scattergood took the seven-o'clock +for points south. He did not know where he was going, but expected to +pick up information on that question en route. His method of reaching +for it was to take a seat on a trunk in the baggage car. + +The railroad, Scattergood's individual property and his greatest step +forward in his dream for the development of the Coldriver Valley, was +but a year old now. It was twenty-four miles long, but he regarded it +with an affection only second to his love for his hardware store--and +he dealt with it as an indulgent parent.... Pliny Pickett once stage +driver, was now conductor, and wore with ostentation a uniform suitable +to the dignity, speaking of "my railroad" largely. + +"Hear Ovid Nixon's sick down to town" said Pliny. + +"Sich a rumor's come to me." + +"Likely at the Mountain House?" ventured Pliny. + +"Shouldn't be s'prised." + +"That's where he mostly stopped," said Pliny. + +"Um!... Wonder what ailment Ovid was most open to git?" + +Scattergood and Pliny talked politics for the rest of the journey, and, +as usual, Pliny received directions to "talk up" certain matters to his +passengers. Pliny was one of Scattergood's main channels to public +opinion. At the junction Scattergood changed for the short ride to town, +and there he carried his ancient valise up to the Mountain House, where +he registered. + +"Young feller named Nixon--Ovid Nixon--stoppin' here?" he asked the +clerk. + +"Checked out Monday night." + +"Um!... Monday night, eh? Expect him back? I was calc'latin' on meetin' +him here to-day." + +"He usually gets in Saturday night.... You might ask Mr. Pillows, over +there by the cigar case. He and Nixon hang out together." + +Scattergood scrutinized Mr. Pillows and did not like the appearance of +that young man; not that he looked especially vicious, but there was a +sort of useless, lazy, sponging look to him. Baines set him down as the +sort of young man who would play Kelly pool with money his mother earned +by doing laundry, and, in addition, catalogued him as a "saphead." He +acted accordingly. + +Walking lightly across the lobby, he stopped just behind Pillows, and +then said, with startling sharpness, "Where's Ovid Nixon?" + +The agility with which Mr. Pillows leaped into the air and descended, +facing Scattergood, did some little to raise him in the estimation of +Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One +might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and +was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to +snatch at him. Scattergood grinned. + +"Figgered he'd be a mite skittish," he said to the girl behind the cigar +counter. + +"I _thought_ something sneaking was going on," said the young woman, as +if to herself. + +Scattergood gave her his attention. She had red hair, and his respect +for red hair was a notable characteristic. There was a freckle or two on +her nose, her eyes were steady, and her mouth was firm--but she was +pretty. Scattergood continued to regard her in silence, and she, not +disconcerted, studied him. + +"You and me is goin' to eat dinner together this noon," he said, +presently. + +"Business or pleasure?" Her rejoinder was tart. + +"Why?" + +"If it's business, we eat. If it's pleasure, you've stopped at the wrong +cigar counter." + +"I knowed I was goin' to take to you," said Scattergood. "You got +capable hair.... This here was to be business." + +"Twelve o'clock sharp, then," she said. + +He looked at the clock. It lacked half an hour of noon. + +"G'-by," he said, and went to a distant corner, where he seated himself +and stared out of the window, trying to imagine what he would do if he +were Ovid Nixon, and what would make him appropriate three thousand +dollars.... At twelve o'clock he lumbered over to the cigar case. "C'm +on," he said. "Hain't got no time to waste." + +The girl put on her hat and they walked out together. + +"What's your name?" Scattergood asked. + +"Pansy O'Toole.... You're Scattergood Baines--that's why I'm here.... I +don't eat with every man that oozes out of the woods." + +Scattergood said nothing. It was a fixed principle of his to let other +folks do the talking if they would. If not he talked himself--deviously. +Seldom did he ask a direct question regarding any matter of importance, +and so strong was habit that it was rare for him to put any query +directly. If he wanted to know what time it was he would lead up to the +subject by mentioning sun dials, or calendars, or lunar eclipses, and so +approach circuitously and by degrees, until his victim was led to +exhibit his watch. Pansy did not talk. + +"See lots of folks, standin' back of that counter like you do?" he +began. + +"Lots." + +"Um!... From lots of towns?... From Boston?" + +"Yes." + +"From Tupper Falls?" + +"Some." + +"From Coldriver?" + +"If you want to know if I know Ovid Nixon, why don't you ask right out?" + +Scattergood looked at her admiringly. + +"I know him," she said. + +"Like him?" + +"He's a nice boy." Scattergood liked the way she said "nice." It +conveyed a fine shade of meaning, and he thought more of Ovid in +consequence. "But he's awful young--and green." + +"Calc'late he is--calc'late he is." + +"He needs somebody to look after him," she said, sharply. + +"Thinkin' of undertakin' the work?... Favor undertakin' it?" + +She looked at him a moment speculatively. "I might do worse. He'd be +decent and kind--and I've got brains. I could make something of him...." + +"Um!... Ovid's up and made somethin' of himself." + +"What?" She spoke quickly, sharply. + +"A thief." + +Scattergood glanced sidewise to study the effect of this curt +announcement, but her face was expressionless, rather too +expressionless. + +"That's why you're looking for him?" + +"Yes." + +"To put him in jail?" + +"What would _you_ calc'late on doin' if you was me?" + +"Before I did anything," she said, slowly, "I'd make up my mind if he +was a thief, or if he just happened to take whatever it was he has +taken.... I'd be sure he was _bad_. If I made up my mind he'd just been +green and a fool--well, I'd see to it he never was that kind of a fool +again.... But not by jailing him." + +"Um!... Three thousand's a lot of money." + +"Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar +counter--and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon _could_ be is worth more than +that." + +"Mebby so.... Mebby so. But if I was investin' in Ovid, I'd want some +sort of a guarantee with him. Would you be willin' to furnish the +guarantee? And see it was kept good?" + +"If you mean what I think you do--yes," she said, steadily. "I'd marry +Ovid to-morrow." + +"Him bein' a thief?" + +"Girls that sell cigars aren't so select," she said, a trifle bitterly. + +"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that +was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and +married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've +kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein' +crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any +other woman you ever see. I call to mind a number.... Ovid some attached +to you, is he?" + +"He's never made love to me, if that's what you mean." + +"Think you could land him--for his good and yourn?" + +"I--why, I think I could," she said. + +"Is it a bargain?" + +"What?" + +"For, and in consideration of one dollar to you in hand paid, and the +further consideration of you undertakin' to keep an eye on him till +death do you part, I agree to keep him out of jail--and without nobody +knowin' he was ever anythin' but honest--and a dum fool." + +She held out her hand and Scattergood took it. + +"What's got Ovid into this here mess?" + +"Bucket shop," she said. + +"Um!... They been lettin' him make a mite of money--up to now, eh? So he +calc'lated on gittin' rich at one wallop. Kind of led him along, I +calc'late, till they got him to swaller hook, line, and sinker ... and +then they up and jerked him floppin' on to the bank.... Who owns this +here bucket shop?" + +"Tim Peaney." + +"Perty slick, is he?" + +"Slick enough to take care of Ovid and sheep like him--but I can't help +thinking he's a sheep himself." + +"He got Ovid's three thousand, or Ovid 'u'd 'a' come back Sunday +night.... Got to find Ovid--and got to git that money back." + +"I've an idea Ovid's right in town. If you're suspicious, and keep your +eyes open, you can tell when something's going on. That Pillows man you +scared knows, and Peaney acts like the man of mystery in one of the kind +of plays we get around here. It's breaking out all over them.... I'll +bet they've fleeced Ovid, and now they're hiding him--to save themselves +more than him." + +"And Ovid's the kind that would let himself be hid," said Scattergood. +"Do you and me work together on this job?" + +"If I can help--" + +"You bet you kin.... We'll jest let Ovid lie hid while we kind of +maneuver around Peaney some--commencin' right soon. Peaney ever aspire +to take you to dinner?" + +"Yes," she said, shortly. + +"Git organized to go with him to-night...." + + * * * * * + +It was in the neighborhood of five o'clock when Mr. Peaney came into the +Mountain House and stopped at the cigar counter for cigarettes. + +"Any more friendly to-day, sister?" he asked. + +Pansy smiled and leaned across the case. "The trouble with you," she +said, in a low tone, "is that you're a piker." + +"Piker--me?" + +"Always after small change." + +"Just show me some real money once," he said, flamboyantly. + +"It would scare you," she said. + +"Show me some--you'd see how it would scare me." + +"I wonder," she said, musingly, "if you have the nerve?" + +"For what?" he said, with quickened interest. + +"To go after a wad that I know of?" + +"Say," he said, his eyes narrowing, his face assuming a look of cupidity +and cunning, "do you know something? If you do, come on out where we can +eat and talk. If there's anything in it I'll split with you." + +"I know you will," she said, promptly. "Fifty-fifty.... In an hour, at +Case's restaurant." + +At the hour set Pansy and Mr. Peaney found a corner table in the little +restaurant, and when they had ordered Peaney asked, "Well, what you got +on your mind?" + +"A big farmer from the backwoods--with a trunkful of money. Don't know +how he got it. Must have sold the family wood lot, but he's got it with +him ... and he came down to invest it." + +"No." + +"Honest Injun." + +"How much?" + +"From what he said it's more than ten thousand dollars." + +"Lead me to him." + +"He'll need some playing with--thinks he's sharp.... But I've been +talking to him. Guess he took a liking to me. Wanted to take me to +dinner--and he did." + +"Say!" exclaimed Mr. Peaney, in admiration, "I had you sized all wrong." + +"It'll take nerve," Pansy said. + +"It's what I've got most of." + +"He's no Ovid Nixon." + +"Eh?... What d'you know about Ovid Nixon?" + +"I know he was too green to burn and that you and he were together a +lot.... Isn't that enough?" + +He smiled complacently, seeing a compliment. "He was easy--but he got to +be a nuisance." + +"Making trouble?" + +"No.... Scared." + +"I _see_," she nodded, wisely. "Lost more than he had, was that it? And +then helped himself to what he didn't have?" + +"I'm not supposed to know where it came from. None of my business." + +"Of course not"--her tone was rank flattery. "Wants you to take care of +him. Threatens to squeal. I know.... So you've got to hide him out." + +"You are a wise one. Where'd you get it?" + +"I didn't always sell cigars for a living.... He isn't apt to break +loose and spoil this thing, is he?" + +"Too scared to show his face.... If we can pull this across he can show +it whenever he wants to--I'll be gone." + +So Ovid Nixon was here--in town. It was as she had reasoned. If here, he +was somewhere in the building Mr. Peaney occupied as a bucket shop. + +"It's understood we divide--if I introduce my farmer to you--and show +you how to get it." + +"You bet, sister." + +"Have you any money? Nothing makes people so confident and trustful as +the sight of money?" + +"I've got it," he said, complacently. + +"Then you come to the hotel this evening.... Just do as I say. I'll +manage it. In a couple of days--if you have the nerve and do exactly +what I say--you can forget Ovid Nixon and take a long journey." + +Two hours later, when Peaney entered the lobby of the Mountain House, he +saw a very fat, uncouthly dressed backwoodsman talking to Pansy. She +signaled him and he walked over nonchalantly. + +"Mr. Baines," said Pansy, "here's the gentleman I was speaking about. He +can advise you. He's a broker, and everybody trusts him." She lowered +her voice. "He's very rich, himself. Made it in stocks. I guess he +knows what's going on right in Mr. Rockefeller's private office.... You +couldn't do better than to talk business with him.... Mr. Peaney, Mr. +Baines." + +"Very glad to meet you, sir," said Peaney, in his grandest manner. + +"Much obleeged, and the same to you," said Scattergood, beaming his +admiration. "Hear tell you're one of them stock brokers." + +"Yes, sir. That's my business." + +"Guess you and me had better talk some. I'm a-lookin' for somebody to +gimme advice about investin'. I got a sight of money to invest +some'eres--a sight of it. Railroad stocks, or suthin'. Calc'late on +makin' myself well off." + +"I'm not taking any new clients, Mr. Baines. I'm very busy indeed." He +glanced at Pansy. "But if you are a friend of Miss O'Toole's possibly I +can break my rule.... About how much do you wish to invest?" + +"Oh, say fifteen to twenty thousand. Figger on doublin' it up, or mebby +better 'n that. Folks does it. I've read about 'em." + +"To be sure they do--if they are properly advised. But one has to know +the stock market--like a book." + +"And Mr. Peaney knows it like a book," said Pansy. + +Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents--men in the offices of great +corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock +manipulation is coming off--and my clients profit by it." + +"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?" + +Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice. +"My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities +Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the +stock up five points." + +"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?" + +"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock +went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand +dollars besides." + +"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no +fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I +don't know this here girl very well--though I kinder took to her at the +first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is +to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust.... +Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree. +Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, +then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger +I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars." + +"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney. +"Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, +to-morrow--say for a thousand dollars?... If you--come out right, then +you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real +information you can jump right in and make a fortune." + +"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand--charge it up +to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars +jest by settin' down and takin' it." + +"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney. + +"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt. + +"Why, you'd _see_ it," said Pansy, with another grimace at Peaney. "You +put your thousand dollars on the counter, and Mr. Peaney puts five +thousand right beside it. You see it all the time. If you come out +right, you just pick up the money and walk off." + +"No!... _Say_! That's slick, hain't it? Wisht you'd come along when we +try, Miss O'Toole. Somehow I'd feel easier in my mind if you was +along.... See you early in the mornin'.... Got to git to bed, now. +Always aim to be in bed by nine.... G' night." + +"Say," expostulated Mr. Peaney, "do you expect me to hand over five +thousand to that hick? He might walk off with it." + +"He might walk off with the hotel.... I told you you hadn't any +nerve.... Why, give that fat man a taste of easy money and you couldn't +drive him away. Let him sleep all night with five thousand dollars that +came as easy as that, and you couldn't drive him away from your office +with a gun.... Besides, I'm here to take care of him ...or are you a +quitter?" + +"Twenty thousand dollars," Mr. Peaney said to himself. "Then I'll show +you how good my nerve is. Bring on your fat man...." + +Scattergood was up at his accustomed early hour, and before breakfast +had examined Mr. Peaney's premises from front and rear. The bucket shop +was in a small wooden building. The ground floor consisted of a large +office where was visible the big blackboard upon which stock quotations +were posted, and of a back room whose interior was invisible from the +street. A corner of the main office had been partitioned off as a +private retreat for Mr. Peaney. What was upstairs Scattergood could not +tell with accuracy, but he judged it to be a single room or perhaps two +small rooms.... It was here, he felt certain, Ovid was secreting +himself, and, with a certain grimness, he hoped the young man was not +happy in his surroundings. + +"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that Ovid, bein' shet up with his +own figgerin's and imaginin's, hain't in no jubilant frame of mind.... +Meanest punishment you kin give a feller is to lock him in for a spell +with himself, callin' himself names...." When the office opened, +Scattergood and Pansy were at the door, where Mr. Peaney welcomed them, +not without a certain uneasiness at the prospect of intrusting his money +to Scattergood. + +"Let's git started right off," Scattergood said. "I'd like to tell it to +the folks how I gained five thousand dollars in one mornin'--jest doin' +nothin' but settin'." + +"Very well," said Mr. Peaney. "You buy a thousand shares of +International Utilities on a one-point margin.... Sign this order slip." + +"And you set out five thousand dollars right where I kinn see it," said +Scattergood, with anxious fatuity. + +"Certainly.... Certainly." + +Mr. Peaney deposited on his desk a bundle of currency which Scattergood +counted meticulously, and then laid his own thousand beside it. + +"It's as good as yours, right now," said Pansy. + +"We'll stay right here in my private room," said Peaney. "We can watch +the board from here, and nobody will disturb us." + +"I'd kinder like to have folks see me makin' all this money," complained +Scattergood, but he acquiesced, and presently quotations commenced to be +posted on the board. International Utilities opened at seventy-six. +Presently they advanced half a point, lingered, and returned to their +original position. + +"Kind of slow, hain't it?" Scattergood said, a worried look beginning to +appear on his face. "Maybe them folks hain't goin' to do what you said." + +Mr. Peaney went out into the back room, and presently the ticker began +to click furiously. International Utilities leaped a whole point. In ten +minutes they ascended a half point, and at every advance Scattergood +figured his profit, and hesitated as to whether or not it would be best +to close the transaction then and there, but Pansy cajoled him +skillfully, making evident to Mr. Peaney the power of her influence over +the old fellow. + +Scattergood was the picture of the fatuous countryman. He was childlike +in his ignorance and in his delight. He exclaimed, he slapped his thigh, +he laughed aloud at each advance. "It's a-comin'. Next time she h'ists, +the money's mine.... And 'tain't been two hours. What'll the folks say +to that, eh? Me doin' nothin' but settin' here and makin' five thousand +dollars in two hours.... Nothin' short of a million's goin' to satisfy +me--and when I get that million, Mr. Peaney, I'm a-goin' to show you how +much obleeged I be. I'm a-goin' to git you a whole box of them cigars. +Pansy knows which ones. They come at a nickel apiece...." + +Then ...then International Utilities touched eighty-one. Scattergood +slapped Peaney on the back. He laughed. He acted like a boy with a new +jackknife. + +"It's all mine now, hain't it? Mine? Fair and square? It's my +money--every penny of it?" + +"It's yours, Mr. Baines. And I congratulate you. I myself have made a +matter of fifty thousand dollars." + +"Wisht I'd put up every cent I got.... But there'll be other chances, +won't they? I kin git in ag'in?" + +"Of course. To-morrow. Possibly this afternoon." + +"And I kin take this now?" Scattergood had his hands on the six thousand +dollars; was handling it greedily. + +"It's yours," said Mr. Peaney. + +"Calc'lated it was," said Scattergood. "Calc'lated it was.... Now +where's Ovid?" + +Mr. Peaney stared. Something had happened suddenly to this countryman. +He was no longer fatuous, futile. His face was no longer foolish and +good-natured; it was; granite--it was the face of a man with force, and +the skill to use that force. + +"Where's Ovid?" he demanded again. + +"Ovid ... Ovid who? I don't know any Ovid." + +He became suddenly alarmed and blocked the way to the door. +Scattergood's eyes twinkled. "If I was you I wouldn't git in the way to +any extent. Feelin' the way I do I sh'u'dn't be s'prised if I got a +certain amount of satisfaction out of tramplin' over you." + +"Hey, you put that money back ..." + +"Mine, hain't it? Gained it lawful, didn't I?" + +He walked slowly toward the door, and Mr. Peaney, still barring the way, +found himself sitting suddenly in an adjacent corner. Scattergood walked +calmly past and made for the back room. + +"Stop him!" shouted Mr. Peaney. "Don't let him go in there." + +But Scattergood proceeded methodically, leaving no less than three of +Mr. Peaney's employees in recumbent postures along his line of march.... +Pansy followed him closely, pale, but resolute. He ascended the stairs, +and, finding the door at the top fastened from within, he removed it +bodily by the application of a calk-studded boot.... Ovid Nixon was +disclosed cowering against the wall, pale, terrified. + +"Howdy, Ovid?" said Scattergood, as if he had met the young man casually +on the street. "How d'you find yourself?" + +Ovid remained mute. + +"Fetched a friend to see you, Ovid," said Scattergood. "This is her." He +pushed Pansy forward. "Find her better comp'ny than you been havin' +recent," he said. "She's got suthin' fer you.... When she gits through +visitin' with you, I calculate to have a word to say.... Here, Pansy, +you kin give this here to Ovid." He counted off three thousand dollars +before the young man's staring eyes. + +"I--I'm glad I'm found," Ovid said, tremulously. "I was making up my +mind to give myself up...." + +"What fer?" said Scattergood. + +"You know--you know I took three thousand dollars out of the vault." + +"Vault don't show nothin' short," said Scattergood, waggling his head. +"Counted it myself. Did look for a minute like they was three thousand +short, but I kind of put that amount in, and then counted ag'in, and, +sure enough, it was all there...." + +Ovid stared, took a step forward. "You mean.... What do you mean, Mr. +Baines?" + +"I'm goin' to step outside of what used to be the door," said +Scattergood, "and let Pansy do the explainin'.... What I do after that +depends a heap on ... Pansy...." + +Scattergood went outside and waited, his eyes on the stairs, but nobody +offered to ascend. He could hear the conversation within, but it was +only toward the end that it interested him. + +"Ovid," said Pansy, "you've been hanging around my counter a good +deal--and asking me to dinners, and to go driving on Sunday. What for?" + +"Because--because I liked you awful well, Pansy, but now--now that I've +done this--" + +"If you hadn't done this? If you had made money instead of losing it?" + +"I--oh, what's the use of talking about it? I wanted you should marry +me, Pansy." + +"But you don't want me any more?" + +"Nobody'd marry me--knowing what you know." + +"Ovid," said Pansy, sharply, "there's nothing wrong with you except +that--you haven't enough brains all by yourself. You need to be looked +after ...and I'm going to do it." + +"Looked after?" + +"Ovid Nixon, do you like me well enough to marry me?" + +"I--" + +"Do you? Yes or no ... quick!" + +"Yes." + +"Then ask me," said Pansy. + +Presently the three emerged into the street from the deserted offices of +Mr. Peaney. Scattergood Baines held in his hands two thousand dollars in +bills, representing net profit on the transaction. He regarded the money +with a frown. + +"Somethings got to be done to you to make you fit to tetch," he said to +it. + +Out of an adjoining store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a +tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. +"Salvation Army, hain't you?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Hold it out," he said, motioning to the tambourine. + +She obeyed, and he dropped into it the package of bills, and, looking +into her startled, almost frightened eyes, he said: "It come from fools +to sharpers.... I calculate nothin' but a leetle salvation'll kill the +cussedness in it.... Make it do all the salvagin' it kin...." + +Whereupon he passed on, leaving a bewildered woman to stare after him. + +Next morning, Scattergood, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Ovid Nixon, +alighted from the train in Coldriver. Deacon Pettybone happened to be +standing on the depot platform. + +"Make you acquainted with Mis' Nixon," said Scattergood, with gravity. +"She's what Ovid come down with.... Can't blame a young feller for +forgittin' work a day or two when he's got him sich a wife.... Deacon, +this here girl's performed a service for Coldriver. Increased our +population by two--her and Ovid. And, Deacon, Ovid hain't the fust man +that ever was made so's he was wuth countin' in the census by marryin' +him a wife...." + +"Dummed if she hain't got red hair," was the deacon's astonished +contribution. It was as near to congratulations as the deacon ever came. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SON THAT WAS DEAD + + +"The ox is dressed and hung," said Pliny Pickett, with the air of a man +announcing that the country has been saved from destruction. + +"Uh!... How much 'd he dress?" asked Scattergood Baines, moving in his +especially reinforced armchair until it creaked its protest. + +"Eight hunderd and forty-three--accordin' to Newt Patterson's scales." + +"Which hain't never been knowed to err on the side of overweight," said +Scattergood, dryly. + +"The boys has got the oven fixed for roastin' him, and the band gits in +on the mornin' train, failin' accidents, and the dec'rations is up in +the taown hall--'n' now we kin git ready for a week of stiddy rain." + +"They's wuss things than rain," said Scattergood, "though at the minnit +I don't call to mind what they be." + +"Deacon Pettybone's north mowin' is turned into a baseball grounds, and +everybody in town is buyin' buntin' to wrap their harnesses, and +Kittleman's fetched in more 'n five bushels of peanuts, and every young +un in taown'll be sick with the stummick ache." + +"Feelin' extry cheerful this mornin', hain't ye? Kind of more +hopeful-like than I call to mind seein' you fer some time." + +"Never knowed no big celebration to come off like it was planned, or +'thout somebody gittin' a leg busted, or the big speaker fergittin' what +day it was, or suthin'. Seems like the hull weight of this here falls +right on to me." + +"Responsibility," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in his eye, "is a +turrible thing to bear up under. But nothin' hain't happened yit, and +folks is dependin' on you, Pliny, to see 't nothin' mars the party." + +"It'll rain on to the _pe_-rade, and the ball game'll bust up in a +fight, and pickpockets'll most likely git wind of sich a big gatherin' +and come swarmin' in.... Scattergood," he lowered his voice +impressively, "it's rumored Mavin Newton's a-comin' back for this here +Old Home Week." + +"Um!... Mavin Newton.... Um!... Who up and la'nched that rumor?" + +"Everybody's a-talkin' it up. Folks says he's sure to come, and then +what in tunket'll we do? The sheriff's goin' to be busy handlin' the +crowds and the traffic and sich, and he won't have no time fer extry +miscreants, seems as though.... Folks is a-comin' from as fur 's Denver, +and we don't want no town criminal brought to justice in the middle of +it all. Though Mavin's father 'd be glad to see his son ketched, I +calc'late." + +"Hain't interviewed Mattie Strong as ree-gards _her_ feelin's, have ye?" + +"I wonder," said Pliny, with intense interest, "if Mattie's ever heard +from him? But she's that close-mouthed." + +"'Tain't a common failin' hereabouts," said Scattergood. "How long since +Mavin run off?" + +"Eight year come November." + +"The night before him and Mattie was goin' to be married." + +"Uh-huh! Takin' with him that there fund the Congo church raised fer a +new organ, and it's took them eight year to raise it over ag'in." + +"And in the meantime," said Scattergood, "I calc'late the tunes off of +the old organ has riz about as pleasin' to heaven as if 'twas new. +Squeaks some, I'm told, but I figger the squeaks gits kind of filtered +out, and nothin' but the true meanin' of the tunes ever gits up to Him." +Scattergood jerked a pudgy thumb skyward. + +"More 'n two hunderd dollars, it was--and Mavin treasurer of the church. +Old Man Newton he resigned as elder, and hain't never set foot in church +from that day to this." + +"Bein' moved," said Scattergood, "more by cantankerousness than grief." + +"I'll venture," said Pliny, "that there'll be more'n five hunderd old +residents a-comin' back, and where in tunket we're goin' to sleep 'em +all the committee don't know." + +"Um!... G'-by, Pliny," said Scattergood, suddenly, and Pliny, +recognizing the old hardware merchant's customary and inescapable +dismissal, got up off the step and cut across diagonally to the post +office, where he could air his importance as a committeeman before an +assemblage as ready to discuss the events of the week as he was himself. + +It was a momentous occasion in the life of Coldriver; a gathering of +prodigals and wanderers under home roofs; a week set aside for the +return of sons and daughters and grandchildren of Coldriver who had +ventured forth into the world to woo fortune and to seek adventure. +Preparations had been in the making for months, and the village was +resolved that its collateral relatives to the remotest generation should +be made aware that Coldriver was not deficient in the necessary "git up +and git" to wear down its visitors to the last point of exhaustion. +Pliny Pickett, chairman of numerous committees and marshal of the +parade, predicted it would "lay over" the Centennial in Philadelphia. + +The greased pig was to be greasier; the barbecued ox was to be larger; +the band was to be noisier; the speeches were to be longer and more +tiresome; the firemen's races and the ball games, and the fat men's +race, and the frog race, and the grand ball with its quadrilles and +Virginia reels and "Hull's Victory" and "Lady Washington's Reel" and its +"Portland Fancy," were all to be just a little superior to anything of +the sort ever attempted in the state. Numerous septuagenarians were +resorting to St. Jacob's oil and surreptitious prancing in the barn, to +"soople" up their legs for the dance. It was to be one of those +wholesome, generous, splendid outpourings of neighborliness and good +feeling and wonderful simplicity and kindliness, such as one can meet +with nowhere but in the remoter mountain communities of old New England, +where customs do not grow stale and no innovation mars. If any man would +discover the deep meaning of the word "welcome," let him attend such a +Home-coming! + +Though Coldriver did not realize it, the impetus toward the Home-coming +Week had been given by Scattergood Baines. He had seen in it a +subsidence of old grudges and the birth of universal better feeling. He +had set the idea in motion, and then, by methods of indirection, of +which he was a master, he had urged it on to fulfillment. + +Scattergood went inside the store and leaned upon the counter, taking no +small pleasure in a mental inventory of his heterogeneous stock. He had +completed one side, and arrived at the rear, given over to stoves and +garden tools, when a customer entered. Scattergood turned. + +"Mornin', Mattie," he said. "What kin I help ye to this time?" + +"I--I need a tack hammer, Mr. Baines." + +"Got three kinds: plain, with claws, and them patent ones that picks up +tacks by electricity. I hold by them and kin recommend 'em high." + +"I'll take one, then," said Mattie; but after Scattergood wrapped it up +and gave her change for her dollar bill, she remained, hesitating, +uncertain, embarrassed. + +"Was they suthin' besides a tack hammer you wanted, Mattie." Scattergood +asked, gently. + +"I--No, nothing." Her courage had failed her, and she moved toward the +door. + +"Mattie!" + +She stopped. + +"Jest a minute," said Scattergood. "Never walk off with suthin' on your +mind. Apt to give ye mental cramps. What was that there tack hammer an +excuse for comin' here fer?" + +"Is it true that _he's_ coming back, like the talk's goin' around?" + +"I calc'late ye mean Mavin. Mean Mavin Newton?" + +"Yes," she said, faintly. + +"What if he did?" said Scattergood. + +"I don't know.... Oh, I don't know." + +"Want he should come back?" + +"He--If he should come--" + +"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Calc'late I kin appreciate your feelin's. +Treated you mighty bad, didn't he?" + +"He treated himself worse," said Mattie, with a little awakening of +sharpness. + +"So he done. So he done.... Um!... Eight year he's been gone, and you +was twenty when he went, wa'n't ye? Twenty?" + +"Yes." + +"Hain't never had a feller since?" + +She shook her head. "I'm an old maid, Mr. Baines." + +"I've heard tell of older," he said, dryly. "Wisht you'd tell me why you +let sich a scalawag up and ruin your life fer ye?" + +"He wasn't a scalawag--till _then_." + +"You hain't thinkin' he was accused of suthin' he didn't do?" + +"He told me he took the money. He came to see me before he ran away." + +"Do tell!" This was news to Scattergood. Neither he nor any other was +aware that Mavin Newton had seen or been seen by a soul after the +commission of his crime. + +"He told me," she repeated, "and he said good-by.... But he never told +me why. That's what's been hurtin' me and troublin' me all these years. +He didn't tell me why he done it, and I hain't ever been able to figger +it out." + +"Um!... _Why_ he done it? Never occurred to me." + +"It never occurred to anybody. All they saw was that he took their organ +money and robbed the church. But why did he do it? Folks don't do them +things without reason, Mr. Baines." + +"He wouldn't tell you?" + +"I asked him--and I asked him to take me along with him. I'd 'a' gone +gladly, and folks could 'a' thought what they liked. But he wouldn't +tell, and he wouldn't have me, and I hain't heard a word from him from +that day to this.... But I've thought and figgered and figgered and +thought--and I jest can't see no reason at all." + +"Took it to run away with--fer expenses," said Scattergood. + +"There wasn't anything to run away from until _after_ he took it. I +_know_. Whatever 'twas, it come on him suddin. The night before we was +together--and--and he didn't have nothin' on his mind but plans for him +and me ... and he was that happy, Mr. Baines!... I wisht I could make +out what turned a good man into a thief--all in a minute, as you might +say. It's suthin', Mr. Baines, suthin' out of the ordinary, and always I +got a feelin' like I got a right to know." + +"Yes," said Scattergood, "seems as though you had a right to know." + +"Folks is passin' it about that he's comin' home. Is there any truth +into it?" + +"I calc'late it's jest talk," said Scattergood. "Nobody knows where he +is." + +"He'll come sometime," she said. + +"And you calc'late to keep on waitin' fer him to come?" + +"Until I'm dead--and after that, if it's allowed." + +"I wisht," said Scattergood, "there was suthin' I could do to mend it +all." + +"Nobody kin ever do anythin'," she said.... "But if he should venture +back, calc'latin' it had all blown over and been forgot!... His father'd +see him put in prison--and I--I couldn't bear that, it seems as though." + +"There's a bad thing about borrowin' trouble," said Scattergood. "No +matter how hard you try, you can't ever pay it back. Wait till he +croaks, and then do your worryin'." + +"I've got a feelin' he's goin' to come," she said, and turned away +wearily. "I thought maybe you'd know. That's why I came in, Mr. Baines." + +"G'-by, Mattie. G'-by. Come ag'in when you feel that way, and you +needn't to buy no tack hammer for an excuse." + +Scattergood slumped down in his chair on the store's piazza, and began +pulling his round cheeks as if he had taken up with some new method of +massage. It was a sign of inward disturbance. Presently a hand stole +downward to the laces of his shoes--a gesture purely automatic--and in a +moment, to the accompaniment of a sigh of relief, his broad feet were +released from bondage and his liberty-loving toes were wriggling with +delight. Any resident of Coldriver passing at that moment could have +told you Scattergood Baines was wrestling with some grave difficulty. + +"It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that ever'body has a reason +for ever'thing, except lunatics, and lunatics think they got a reason. +Now, Mavin he wa'n't no lunatic. He wouldn't have stole church money and +run off the night before his weddin' jest to exercise his feet. They +hain't no reason, as I recall it, why he needed two hunderd dollars. +Unless it was to git married on.... And instid of that, it busted up the +weddin'. I calc'late that matter wa'n't looked into sharp enough ... and +eight years has gone by. Lots of grass grows up to cover old paths in +eight year." + +A small boy was passing at the moment, giving an imitation of a cowboy +pursuing Indians. Scattergood called to him. + +"Hey, bub! Scurry around and see if ye kin find Marvin Preston. Uh-huh! +'F ye see him, tell him I'm a-settin' here on the piazza." + +The small boy dug his toes into the dust and disappeared up the street. +Presently Marvin Preston appeared in answer to the indirect summons. + +"How be ye, Marvin? Stock doin' well?" + +"Fust class. See the critter they're figgerin' on barbecuin'? He's a +sample." + +"Um!... Lived here quite a spell, hain't you, Marvin? Quite a spell?" + +"Born here, Scattergood." + +"Know lots of folks, don't ye? Got acquainted consid'able in town and +the surroundin' country?" + +"A feller 'u'd be apt to in fifty-five year." + +"Call to mind the Meggses that used to live here?" + +"Place next to the Newton farm. Recollect 'em well." + +"Lived next to Ol' Man Newton, eh? Forgot that." Scattergood had not +forgotten it, but quite the contrary. His interest in the Meggses was +negligible; his purpose in mentioning them was to approach the Newtons +circuitously and by stealth, as he always approached affairs of +importance to him. + +"Know 'em well? Know 'em as well's you knowed the Newtons?" + +"Not by no means. I've knowed Ol' Man Newton better 'n 'most anybody, +seems as though." + +"Um!... Le's see.... Had a son, didn't he?" + +"Run off with the organ money," said Marvin, shortly. + +"Remembered suthin' about him. Quite a while back." + +"Eight year. Allus recall the date on account of sellin' a Holstein +heifer to Avery Sutphin the mornin' follerin' ... fer cash." + +"Him that was dep'ty sheriff?" + +"That's the feller." + +"Um!... Ever git a notion what young Mavin up and stole that money fer?" + +"Inborn cussedness, I calc'late." + +"Allus seemed to me like Ol' Man Newton might 'a' made restitution of +that there money," said Scattergood, tentatively. + +"H'm!" Marvin cleared his throat and glanced up the street. "Seein's how +it's you, I dunno but what I kin tell you suthin' you hain't heard, nor +nobody else. Young Mavin sent that there money back to his father in a +letter to be give to the church--and the ol' man _burned_ it. That's +what he up and done. Two hunderd good dollars went up in smoke. Said +they was crimes that was beyond restitution or forgiveness, and robbin' +the House of God was one of 'em." + +"Um!... Now, Marvin, I'd be mighty curious to learn if the ol' man got +that information from God himself or if it come out of his own head.... +No matter, I calc'late. 'Twan't credit with the church young Mavin was +after when he sent back the money, and the Lord _he_ knows the money +come, if the organ fund never did find it out." + +"Guess I'll take a walk down to Spackles's and look over the steer. They +tell me he dressed clost to nine hunderd. Hope they contrive to cook him +through and through. Never see a barbecued critter yit that was done.... +Folks is beginnin' to git here. Guess they won't be a spare bedroom in +town that hain't full up." + +Scattergood pulled on his shoes and, leaving his store to take care of +itself, walked up the road, turned across the mowing which had been +metamorphosed into an athletic field, trusted his weight to the +temporary bridge across the brook, and scrambled up the bank to the +great oven where the steer was to be baked, and where the potato hole +was ready to receive twenty bushels of potatoes and the arch was ready +to receive the sugar vat in which two thousand ears of corn were to be +steamed. Pliny Pickett was in charge, with Ulysses Watts, sheriff, and +Coroner Bogle as assistants. They had fired up already, and were sitting +blissfully by in the blistering heat, bragging about the sort of meal +they were going to purvey, and speculating on whether the imported band +would play enough, and how the ball games would come out, and naming +over the folks who were expected to arrive from distant parts. + +"This here town team hain't what it was ten year ago," said the sheriff. +"In them days the boys knowed how to play ball. There was me 'n' Will +Pratt and Pliny here 'n' Avery Sutphin, that was sheriff 'fore I +was...." + +"What ever become of Avery?" Pliny asked. + +"Went West. Heard suthin' about him a spell back, but don't call to mind +what it was. Wonder if he'll be comin' back with the rest?" + +"Dunno. Think there's anythin' in the rumor that Mavin Newton's comin'?" +"Hope not," said the sheriff, assuming an official look and feeling of +the suspender to which was affixed his badge of office. "Don't want to +have no arrestin' to do durin' Old Home Week." + +"Calc'late to take him in if he comes?" + +"Duty," said Sheriff Watts, "is duty." + +"When it hain't a pleasure," said Scattergood. "Recall what place Avery +Sutphin went to?" + +"Seems like it was Oswego. Some'eres out West like that." + +"Wisht all the town 'u'd quit traipsin' over here," said Pliny. "Never +see sich curiosity. They needn't to think they're goin' to git a look at +the critter while he's a-cookin'. No, siree. Nobody but this here +committee sees him till he's took out final, ready fer eatin'." + +All that day visitors arrived in town. They drove in, came by train and +by stage--and walked. There was no house whose ready hospitality was not +taxed to its capacity, and the ladies in charge of the restaurant in +Masonic Hall became frantic and sent out hysterical messengers for more +food and more help. Every house was dressed in flags and bunting. Even +Deacon Pettybone, reputed to be the "nearest" inhabitant of the village, +flew one small cotton flag, reputed to have cost fifteen cents, from his +front stoop. The bridge was so covered with red, white, and blue as to +quite lose its identity as a bridge and to become one of the wonders of +the world, to be talked about for a decade. As one looked up the street +a similarity of motion, almost machinelike, was apparent. It was an +endless shaking of hands as old friend met old friend joyously. + +"Bet ye don't know who I be?" + +"I'd 'a' know'd you in Chiny. You're Mort Whittaker's wife--her that was +Ida Janes. Hair hain't so red as what it was." + +"You've took on flesh some, but otherwise--'Member the time you took me +to the dance at Tupper Falls--" + +"An' we got mired crossin'--" + +"An' Sam Kettleman come in a plug hat." + +This conversation, or its counterpart, was repeated wherever resident +and visitor met. Old days lived again. Ancient men became middle-aged, +and middle-aged women became girls. The past was brought to life and +lived again. Sometimes it was brought to life a bit tediously, as when +old Jethro Hammond, postmaster of Coldriver twenty years ago, made a +speech seventy minutes long, which consisted in naming and locating +every house that existed in his day, and describing with minute detail +who lived in it and what part they played in the affairs of the +community. But the audience forgave him, because it knew what a good +time he was having.... Houses were invaded by perfect strangers who +insisted in pointing out the rooms in which they were born and in which +they had been married, and in telling the present proprietors how +fortunate they were to live in dwellings thus blessed. + +The band arrived and met with universal satisfaction, though Lafe Atwell +complained that he hadn't ever see a snare drummer with whiskers. But +their coats were red, with gorgeous frogs, and their trousers were sky +blue, with gold stripes, and the drum major could whirl his baton in a +manner every boy in town would be imitating with the handle of the +ancestral broom for months to come.... Through it all Scattergood Baines +sat on the piazza and beamed upon the world, and rejoiced in the +goodness thereof. + +Only one resident took no part in the holiday making, and that was Old +Man Newton, who had closed his house, drawn the blinds, and refused to +make himself visible while the celebration lasted. He took a savage +pleasure in thus making himself conspicuous, knowing well how his +conduct would be discussed, and viewing himself as a righteous man +suffering for the sins of another. + +In the darkness of the evening street Mattie Strong accosted Scattergood +that evening, clinging to his arm tremulously. + +"Mr. Baines," she whispered, affrightedly, "he's come!" + +"Who's come?" + +"Mavin Newton--he's here, in town." + +Scattergood frowned. "See him?" + +"Hain't seen him, but he's here. I kin feel him. I knowed it the minute +he come." + +"Calc'late I've seen everybody here, and _I_ hain't seen him." + +"He's here, jest the same. I'm a-lookin' fer him. Whatever name he come +under, or however he looks, I'll know him. I couldn't make no mistake +about Mavin." + +"Mattie, I hope 'tain't so.... I hope you're mistook." + +"I--I don't know whether I hope so or not. I--Oh, Mr. Baines, I'd rather +be with him, a-comfortin' him and standin' by him, no matter what he +done--" + +Scattergood patted her arm. "I calc'late," he said, softly, "that God +hain't never invented no institution that beats the love of a good +woman.... I'll look around, Mattie.... I'll look around." + +It was the next morning, at the ball game, when Mattie spoke to +Scattergood again. + +"I've seen him," she whispered, and there was a note of happiness in her +voice and a look of renewed youth in her eyes. "He's here, like I said." + +"Where?" + +Mattie lowered her voice farther still. "Look at the band," she said. + +"Nobody resembles him there," said Scattergood, after a minute. + +"Wait till they stop playin'--and then see if they hain't somebody +there that takes holt of the fingers of his right hand, one after the +other, and kind of twists 'em.... Look sharp. Mavin he allus done that +when he was nervous--allus. I'd know him by it, anywheres." + +Scattergood watched. Presently the "piece" ended and the musicians laid +down their instruments and eased back in their chairs. + +"Look," said Mattie. + +The bearded snare drummer was performing a queer antic. It was as if his +fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he +drummed. No, he was tightening them so they wouldn't fall off. One +finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to +make certain they were secure. + +"I--knowed he'd come," Mattie said, happily. + +"Um!... This here's kind of untoward. You keep your mouth shet, Mattie +Strong. Don't you go near that feller till I tell you. We don't want a +rumpus to spoil this here week." + +"But he's here.... He's here." + +"So's trouble," said Scattergood, succinctly. + +The rest of that day Scattergood busied himself in searching out old +friends and neighbors of the Newtons. Nothing seemed to interest him +which happened later than eight years before, but no event of that +period was too slight or inconsequential to receive his attention and to +be filed away in his shrewd old brain. He was looking for the answer to +a question, and the answer was piled under the rubbish of eight years of +human activities--a hopeless quest to any but Scattergood. + +Comedy and tragedy were alike interesting to him. Just as he lost no +detail of the old man's conduct when his boy disappeared, so he listened +and laughed when Martin Banks recalled to a group how Old Man Newton had +fallen under the suspicion of bootlegging and how the town had seethed +with the downfall of an elder of the church--and all because the old man +had imported two cases, each of a dozen bottles of the Siwash Indian +Stomach Bitters recommended to cure his dyspepsia. There had been a +moment, said Banks, when the town expected to see Newton shut up in the +calaboose under the post office--until the true contents of those cases +was revealed. + +During the afternoon Scattergood sent six telegrams to as many different +cities. Late that night he received replies, and sent one long message +to an individual high in office in the state. It was an urgent message, +amounting to a command, for in his own commonwealth Scattergood Baines +was able to command when the need required. + +"It's an off chance," he said to himself, "but it's what might 'a' +happened, and if it might 'a' happened, maybe it did happen...." + +Wednesday afternoon the band was thrown into consternation, and the town +into a paroxysm of excitement and speculation, when Sheriff Watts +ascended the platform of the musicians and, placing a heavy hand on the +shoulder of the snare drummer, said, loudly, "Mavin Newton, I arrest ye +in the name of the law." + +Not a soul in that breathless crowd was there who failed to see Mattie +Strong point her finger in the face of Scattergood Baines, and to hear +her utter the one word, "_Shame!_" Nor did any fail to see her take her +place at the side of the bearded drummer, with her fingers clutching his +arm, and walk to the door of the jail under the post office with the +prisoner. + +Then the word was passed about that the hearing would take place before +Justice of the Peace Bender that very evening. So great was the public +clamor that the justice agreed to hold court in the town hall instead of +in his office; and it was rumored that Johnnie Bones, Scattergood +Baines's own lawyer, had been appointed special prosecutor by the +Governor of the state. + +Opinion ran against Scattergood. It was free and outspoken. Townsfolk +and visitors alike felt that Scattergood had done ill in bringing the +young man to justice--especially at such a time. He should have let +sleeping dogs lie.... And when it heard that Sheriff Watts had carried a +subpoena to Mavin Newton's father, compelling his presence as a witness +against his own son, there arose a wind of disapproval which quite swept +Scattergood from the esteem of the community. + +But the town came to the hearing. In the beginning it was a +cut-and-dried affair. The facts of the crime were established with dry +precision. Then Johnnie Bones called the name of a witness, and the +audience stiffened to attention. Even Old Man Newton, sitting with bowed +head and scowling brow, lifted his eyes to the face of the young lawyer. + +"Avery Sutphin," said Johnnie Bones, and the former sheriff, wearing +such a haircut as Coldriver seldom saw within its corporate limits, and +clothed in such clothing as it had never seen there, was brought through +the door by two strangers of official look. He seated himself in the +witness chair. + +"You are Avery Sutphin, former sheriff of this town?" + +"Yes." + +"Where do you reside?" + +"In the state penitentiary," said Avery, seeking to hide his face. + +"Do you know Mavin Newton?" + +"Yes." + +"When did you last see him?" + +"It was the night of June twelfth, eight year ago." + +"Where?" + +"In his father's barn." + +"What was he doing?" + +"Milkin'," said Avery. + +"You went to see him?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"To git some money out of him." + +"Did he owe you money?" + +"No." + +"How much money did you go to get?" + +"Two hunderd dollars." + +"Did you get it?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you know what money it was?" + +"Church-organ money. He told me." + +"Why did he give it to you?" + +"I made him." + +"How?" + +"Lemme tell it my own way--if I got to tell it.... He'd took my girl, +and I never liked him, anyhow.... There'd been rumors his old man was +bootleggin'. Nothin' to it, of course, and I knowed that. And I needed +some money. Bought a beef critter off'n Marvin Preston next day. So I +went to Mavin and says I was goin' to arrest his old man because I'd +ketched him sellin' liquor, and Mavin he begged me I shouldn't. I told +him the old man would git ten year, anyhow." + +"What did Mavin say to that?" + +"He jest bowed his head and kind of leaned against the stall." + +"Then what?" + +"I let on I needed money, and told him if he'd gimme two hunderd dollars +I'd destroy the evidence and let the old man go. He says he didn't have +the money, and I says he had the organ money. He didn't say nothin' for +a spell, and then he says, kind of low, and wonderin', 'Which 'u'd be +the worst? Which 'u'd be the worst?' Then I says, 'Worst what?' And he +says for his father to be ketched for a bootlegger or for him to be a +thief.... I jest let him think about it, and didn't say nothin', because +I knowed how he looked up to his old man. + +"Pretty soon he says: 'I'd be a thief, 'cause I couldn't explain. I'd +have to run off--and leave Mattie, that I'm a-goin' to marry +to-morrer.... I could pay it back, but that wouldn't do no good.... But +for father to be arrested, him an elder, and all, would kill him. I +couldn't bear for father to be shamed 'fore all the world or to be +thought guilty of sich a thing.... He's wuth a heap more 'n I be, and he +won't never do it ag'in.' Then he asks if I'll give a letter to his old +man, and I says yes. He walked up and down for maybe a quarter of an +hour, talkin' to himself, and kind of fightin' it out, but I knowed what +he'd do, right along. At the end he come over and says: 'This here means +ruinin' my life and breakin' Mattie's heart ... but I calc'late that's +better 'n holdin' father up to scorn and seein' him in jail.... If they +was only some other way!' His voice was stiddylike, but he was right +pale and his eyes was a-shinin'. I remember how they was a-shinin'. 'I +calc'late,' he says, 'that I kin bear it fer father's sake.' Then he +says to me, kind of fierce, 'If ever you let on to anybody why I done +this, if it's in a hunderd years, I'll come back and kill you.' For a +while he kept still again, and then he went in the house and got the +money, and wrote a letter to his old man, and I promised to give it to +him--but I tore it up." + +"What did the letter say?" + +"It just said somethin' to the effect that he was willin' to do what he +done if his old man would give over breakin' the law and go to livin' +upright like he always done, and that he hoped maybe God seen a +difference in stealin' on account of the reasons folks had for doin' +it--but if God didn't make no difference, why, he'd rather bear it than +have it fall on his old man." + +"And then?" + +"I took the money and come away. And he run away. And that's all." + +The town hall was very still. The stillness of it seemed to pierce and +hurt.... Then it was broken by a cry, a hoarse cry, wrenched from the +soul of a man. "My boy!... My boy!..." Old Elder Newton was on his +feet, tottering toward his son, and before his son he sank upon his +knees and buried his hard, weathered old face upon Mavin's knees. + +Justice of the Peace Bender cleared his throat. + +"This here," he said, "looks to me to be suthin' the folks of this town, +the friends and neighbors of this here father and son, ought to settle, +instid of the law. Maybe it hain't legal, but I dunno who's to +interfere.... Folks, what ought to be done to this here boy that done a +crime and suffered the consequences of it, jest to save his father from +another crime the old man never done a-tall?" + +Neither Mavin nor his father heard. The old elder was muttering over and +over, "My boy that was dead and is alive again...." + +Scattergood arose silently and pointed to the door, and the crowd +withdrew silently, withdrew to group about the entrance outside and to +wait. They were patient. It was an hour before Elder Newton descended, +his son on one side and Mattie Strong on the other.... The band, with a +volunteer drummer, lifted its joyous voice, and, looking up, the trio +faced a banner upon which Scattergood had caused to be painted, "Welcome +Home, Mavin Newton." + +Coldriver had taken judicial action and thus voiced its decision. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT + + +Jason Locker, who was Sam Kettleman's rival in Coldriver's grocery +industry, was a trifle too amenable to modern ideas at times. He took +notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could +do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and +make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade +he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two +parades. + +Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed +Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference +was as to when and exactly _how_ Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They +were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to +sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the +counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of +olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and +pronounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which +Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew +accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was +rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered. + +But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably +pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current +fashions, made her appearance in a space cleared in the middle of the +store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new +brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far. + +It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being +demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It +came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the +young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner +of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country +making coffee for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wearing a smile for +everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore +observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her +frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger +women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the +advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from +their midst. + +But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette +Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped +about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no +pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst. + +"Looks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon +Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' _as_ well _as_ proper +follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be +expected to ensue." + +"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say +it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette--that way. Looks like +French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for +seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask +her." + +"Names don't count," said Old Man Bogle, oracularly. "She hain't to +blame for pickin' her name. Her ma gave it to her out of a book, seems +as though. Nevertheless, 'tain't no fit name for a woman, and, so fur's +I kin see, she fits her name like Ovid Nixon's tailor pants fits his +laigs." + +"She's light," said the elder. + +"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she +was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly +wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't +nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her." + +"While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup," +said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to +me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders. + +"Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John +the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a +deacon of the church." + +"She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was +willin'." + +"I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes, +"that she hain't no stranger to wearin' _tights._" + +"Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the +deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty +satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite +different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a +clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em." + +"My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle, +tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly. + +"How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with +the wiles of it?" + +"He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the +path." + +"You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle, +waggling his head. + +"Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon. +"Look.... Comin' acrost the bridge. There's Locker's boy and that there +Wife-ette, and him lookin' like he'd enjoy divin' down her throat." + +"Poor Jason," said the elder, "he's reapin' the whirlwind." + +"Kin he be blind?" + +"Somebody ought to take Jason off to one side and give him warnin'." + +The deacon considered, puckering his thin lips and cocking a hard old +eye. "'Tain't fer us to meddle," he said, righteously. "They's a divine +plan in ever'thing, and we hain't able to see what's behind all this +here. We'll jest set and wait the outcome." + +That is what all Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with +ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or +gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went +undiscussed. Nobody in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the +coffee demonstrator--with the one exception of Homer's father, who was +too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice anything +else. + +On the fourth evening of Yvette's stay in Coldriver there was a dance in +the town hall. Especial interest immediately attached to this affair +because of the speculations as to whether Homer would be so rash as to +invite Yvette as his partner. The village refused to believe the young +man would fail them and remain away. That would be a calamity not easily +endured, so it set itself to plan its actions in case she made her +appearance. It wondered, how she would dress and how she would behave. + +Every girl in the village who possessed clear title to a young man knew +exactly how _she_ would deport herself. The night before the dance no +less than a score of young men were informed with finality that they +were not to dance with the stranger, nor to be seen in her vicinity. +Norma Grainger expressed the will of all when she told Will Peasley that +if he danced one dance with that coffee girl she would up and go home +alone. In the beginning there was no definite concerted action; it was +assured, however, that Yvette would have few partners. + +Homer did not disappoint his friends. During the first dance he entered +the hall with Yvette, and the music all but stopped to stare. Undeniably +she was pretty. It was not her prettiness the women resented, however, +but her air and her clothes. Actually she wore a dress cut low at the +neck, and sleeveless. Coldriver had heard of such garments, and there +were those who actually believed them to exist and to be worn by certain +women in European society among kings and dukes and other frightfully +immoral people. But that one should ever make its appearance in +Coldriver, under their very eyes, was a thing so startling, so +outrageous, as almost to demand the spontaneous formation of a vigilance +committee. + +Even yet there was no concerted action, but sentiment was crystallizing. +Homer and Yvette danced three dances, and Homer's face began to wear a +scowl. No less than five young men approached by him with the purpose of +securing them as partners for Yvette declined with brevity. + +"What's the matter with you??" he demanded, belligerently. "There hain't +no pertier girl nor no better dancer on the floor." + +"Mebby so. Hain't noticed. Got all _my_ dances took." + +"Me too. My girl she says--" + +"She says what?" snapped Homer. + +"She says she'll go home if I dance with yourn." + +"And _I_ say," said Homer, with set jaw, "that you fellers is goin' to +dance with Yvette, or there's goin' to be more fights in Coldriver 'n +Coldriver ever see before. That's _my_ say." + +He announced he would be back after the next dance, and that _somebody_ +would dance with Yvette. "The feller that refuses," said he, "goes +outside with me." + +He went back to Yvette, who, not lacking in shrewdness, sensed something +of the situation. + +"I wish I hadn't come," she said, uneasily. + +"I don't ... if you hain't got no objection to dancin' jest with me." + +"It'll look queer if I dance all of them with you." + +"Jest ask me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd +want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I +wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with +you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille." + +Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the +floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two +couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there. +All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in the middle." + +Homer and Yvette approached that square where three couples awaited the +fourth to complete their set. They took their places, to the manifest +embarrassment of the other six. Suddenly Norma Grainger whispered +something to her young man and tugged at his arm. He looked sidewise, +sheepishly, at Homer, and hung back. + +"You come right along," said Norma. "I hain't goin' to have it said of +me that I danced in no set with her." + +"Nor me," said Marion Towne, also tugging at her escort. + +The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast +glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and +walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left +standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes. + +Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then--for in his ungainly +body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without +which none may be called a gentleman--he offered his arm to Yvette. "I +guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful +shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood +Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from +the room. + +"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say." + +"It--it's not your fault," she said, tremulously. + +"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered. + +"I shouldn't have gone." + +"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the +pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with _me_, be you?" + +"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I--I ought to be used to it. I--" +She began to cry. + +It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but +he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a +pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to +press her to him none too gently. + +"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he +kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash +all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that +task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he +said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to +marry me, hain't you?" + +"I--I don't know.... You--you don't know anything about me." + +"Calc'late I know enough," he said. + +"Your folks wouldn't put up with it." + +"Huh!" + +There was a silence. Then she said, brokenly: "I must go away. I can't +ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and +talking about me.... I want to go away to-night." + +"You sha'n't. Nor no other time, neither." + +And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines's voice. +"Hain't calc'latin' to bust the gal, be you?... Jest happened along to +say the deacon's been talkin' to your pa about you 'n' her, and your +pa's het up consid'able. He's startin' out to look fer you. Lucky I come +along, wa'n't it?" + +"I'm of age," said Homer, aggressively. + +"Lots is," said Scattergood. "'Tain't nothin' to take special pride +in.... Homer, I've watched you raised from a colt, hain't I? Be you +willin' to kind of leave this here to me a spell? I sort of want to look +into things. You go along about your business and leave me talk to +Wife-ette here.... Made up your mind you want her?" + +"Yes." + +"She want you?" + +"I--What business is it of yours?" Yvette demanded, angrily. "Who are +you? What are you interfering for?" + +"Kind of a habit with me," said Scattergood, "and my wife hain't ever +been able to cure me, even puttin' things in my coffee on the sly.... +G'-by, Homer. And don't go lickin' nobody. G'-by." + +The habit of obedience to Scattergood's customary dismissal was strong +in Coldriver. For more than a generation the town had been trained to +heed it and to trust its affairs to the old hardware merchant. Homer +hesitated, coughed, mumbled good night to Yvette, and slouched away. + +"There," said Scattergood, "now you and me kin talk. We'll go up to your +room, where nobody kin disturb us." The conventions nor the tongue of +gossip was non-existent to Scattergood Baines, and Yvette, not reared in +a school where trust in men is easily learned, was shrewd enough to +recognize Scattergood's purpose and her own safety. + +"I s'pose you're the local Mr. Fix-it," she said, with sarcasm. + +"I s'pose," said Scattergood, "that I've knowed Homer sence he was knee +high to a mouse's kitten, and I don't know nothin' about you a-tall. I +gather you're calc'latin' on marryin' Homer.... Mebby you be and mebby +you hain't.... Depends. Come along." + +He led the way to the hotel and allowed Yvette to precede him up the +stairs to her room, which she unlocked and stood aside for him to enter. +He looked about him in the sharp-eyed way characteristic of him, not +omitting to include in his survey the toilet articles on the dresser. + +"Hain't you perty enough without them?" he asked, indicating the lip +stick and rice powder. "Us folks hain't used to 'em, much.... Wunst we +give a home-talent play here, and there come a feller from Boston to +help out. Mis' Blossom was into it, and he come around to paint her up. +She jest give him one look, and says, says she, 'I hain't never painted +my face yit, and I don't calc'late to start in now.' ... I got to admit +she looked kind of pale and peeked amongst the rest, but she stuck to +her principles." + +Yvette stared at Scattergood, nonplused for the first time. What did he +mean? How was she to take him? His face was serene and there was no +glint of humor in his eye.... Yet, somehow, she gathered the idea he was +chuckling inwardly and that there resided in him a broad and tender +toleration for the little antics and makeshifts of mankind. Possibly he +was holding Mrs. Blossom up to her as a model of rectitude; perhaps he +was asking her to laugh with him at a foible of one of his own people. +She wished she knew which. + +"Calc'late on marryin' Homer?" he asked. + +"I--" + +"Yes or no--quick." + +"Yes," she said, lifting her chin bravely. + +"Um!... Knowed him four days, hain't you? Think it's long enough? Plenty +of time to figger it all out?" + +She sat down on the bed, drooping wearily. "I'm tired," she said, "awful +tired. I can't stand this life any longer. I've got to have a place to +rest." + +"Hain't goin' to have Homer used for no sanitorium," said Scattergood. + +"I like him," said Yvette. + +"'Tain't enough. Up this way folks mostly loves when they git +married--or owns adjoinin' timber." + +Again she was at a loss. What did he mean? If he would only smile! + +"I--I've got a feeling I could _trust_ him," she said, "and he'd be good +to me." + +"_He_ would," said Scattergood. "I hain't worritin' about his dealin' +with you; it's your dealin' with him I'm questionin' into." + +"I'd--. He wouldn't be sorry." + +"Um!... Nate Weaver, back country a spell, is lookin' fer a wife. Hain't +young. Got lots of money, and the right woman could weasel it out of +him. Lots of it.... He'd like you fine. Homer won't have much, and if +his pa keeps on feelin' like he does, he won't have none.... If you're +lookin' fer a restin' place, you might consider Nate. I could fix it." +Her eyes flashed. "I haven't come to that yet," she said, sharply, and +then began to cry quietly. + +"Um!..." Scattergood gripped his pudgy hands together so that each might +restrain the other from patting her head comfortingly. "Um!... What's +your name?" + +"My name?" + +"Yes.... 'Tain't Wife-ette Hinchbrooke. They hain't no sich name. +'Tain't human.... What's your real one?" + +"Eva Hopkins." + +"How'd you come to change?" + +"A girl's got a right to call herself anything she wants to," she said, +defensively. + +"Except Mrs. Homer Locker," said Scattergood, dryly. "Now jest come +off'n your high hoss, and we'll talk. When we git through, we'll +_do_.... Either you'll take the mornin' train out of Coldriver, or +you'll stay and we'll see. Depends on what I hear." + +"I could lie," she said. + +"Folks don't gen'ally lie to _me_," said Scattergood, gently. "They +found out it didn't pay--and I hain't much give to believin' nothin' but +the truth. We deal in it a lot up this here way." + +"I hate your people and their dealings." + +"Don't wonder at it. I seen what they done to you to-night.... But you +don't know 'em like I do. They's times when they act cold and ha'sh and +nigh to cruel, but that hain't when they're real. Them times they're +jest makin' b'lieve, 'cause they hain't got no idee what they ought to +do.... I've knowed 'em these thirty year--right down _knowed_ 'em. Lemme +tell you they hain't a finer folks on earth, bar nobody. They don't show +much outside, but the insides is right. You kin find more kindness and +charity and long-sufferin' and tenderness and goodness right here +amongst the cantankerous-seemin' of Coldriver 'n you kin find anywheres +else on earth.... They're narrer, Eva, and they got sot notions, but +they got a power to do kindness, once you git 'em started at it, that +hain't to be beat.... I kind of calculate God hain't so disapp'inted +with the folks of Coldriver as a stranger might git the idee he is.... +Now we'll go ahead." + +When Scattergood had done asking questions and receiving answers, he sat +silent for a matter of moments. Automatically his hands strayed to the +lacing of his shoes, for his pudgy toes itched for freedom to wiggle. He +dealt with a problem whose complex elements were human emotions and +prejudices, and at such times he found his brain to act more clearly and +efficiently with shoes removed. He detected himself, however, in the act +of untying the laces, and sat upright with ludicrous suddenness. + +"Um!..." he said, in some confusion. "Mandy says I hain't never to do it +when wimmin is around. Dunno why.... Now they's some p'ints I got to +impress on you." + +"Yes, Mr. Baines," said Yvette, who had reached a condition of respect +and confidence in Scattergood--as most people did upon meeting him face +to face. + +"Fust, Homer hain't no sanitorium for weary wimmin. When you kin come +and say, meanin' it from your heart, 'I love Homer,' then we'll see." + +She nodded acquiescence. + +"Second, it won't never and noways be possible fer you and Homer to live +here onless the folks takes to you. You got to win yourself a welcome in +Coldriver." + +"That means," she said, dully, "that I'd better go." + +"Huh!... Hain't you got no backbone? You do like you're told. You stay +where you be. 'Tain't possible fer you to go back to Locker's store, and +that puts you out of a job, don't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Hard up?" + +"I can live a few days--but--" + +"Hain't no buts. You kin live as long as I say so. You stay hitched to +this here hitchin' post, and I'll 'tend to the money. Jest don't do +nothin' but be where you be--and be makin' up your mind if Homer's the +boy you kin love and cherish, or if he's nothin' but a sort of shady +restin' place.... G'-by." + +He got up abruptly and went out. On the bridge he encountered three dark +figures, which, upon inspection, resolved themselves into Old Man Bogle, +Deacon Pettybone, and Elder Hooper. + +"Scattergood," said the elder, "somethin's happened." + +"Somethin' 'most allus does." + +"This here's special and horrifyin'." + +"Havin' to do with what?" + +"That coffee gal, that baggage, that hussy!" + +"Um!... Sich as?" + +"Recall that show Bogle was took to in Boston?" + +"Where the wimmin wore tights--that's been on his mind ever since? +Calc'late I do. Kind of a high spot in Bogle's life. Come nigh bein' the +makin' of him." + +"He claims he recognizes this here gal as one of them dancin' wimmin +that stood in a row with less on to them than any woman ever ought to +have with the lights turned on." + +"No!" exclaimed Scattergood. + +"Yep!" said all three of them in chorus. + +"Stood right in front, as I recall it, a-makin' eyes and kickin' up her +heels that immodest you wouldn't b'lieve. Looked right at me, too. I +seen her." + +"Got your money's wuth, then, didn't ye? Wa-al?" + +"Suthin's got to be done." + +"Sich as?" + +"Riddin' the town of her." + +"Go ahead and rid it, then.... G'-by." + +"But we want you sh'u'd help us." + +"G'-by," said Scattergood again, as he moved off ponderously into the +darkness. + +The elder moved nearer Bogle and endeavored to peer into his face. "Be +you sure she's the same one?" he asked, in a confidential whisper. + +"Wa-al--they was about the same heft," said Bogle, "and if this hain't +her, it ought to be. I kin b'lieve it, can't I? Got a right to b'lieve +it, hain't I? Good fer the town to b'lieve it, hain't it?" + +"Calc'late 'tis." + +"All right, then. I aim to keep on b'lievin' it." + +Next day Homer Locker abandoned his work and with the utmost brazenness +hired a rig at the livery and drove to the hotel. A group of notables +assembled upon the bridge to watch the event. They saw him emerge from +the inn with Yvette, help her into the buggy with great solicitude, and +drive away. They did not return until supper time was long past. + +"I'm determined to git this settled one way or t'other," said Homer, +after a long pause. "Be you goin' to marry me?" + +"Why do you want me?" Yvette asked, fixing her eyes on his face. "Is it +just because you think I'm pretty?" + +He considered. It was a hard question for a young man not adept in the +use of words to answer. "'Tain't jest that," he said, finally. "I like +you bein' perty. But it's somethin' else. I hain't able to explain it, +exceptin' that I want you more'n I ever wanted anythin' in my life." + +"Maybe, when I tell you about myself, you won't want me at all." + +He paused again, while she studied his face anxiously. + +"I dunno.... I--. Tell ye what. I want you like I know you. I'm +satisfied. I don't want you to tell me nothin'. I don't want to know +nothin'." He turned and looked with clumsy gravity into her eyes, which +did not waver. "Besides," he said, "I don't believe you got anythin' +discreditable to tell." + +"I want to tell you." + +"I don't want to hear," he said, simply. "I'd rather take you, jest +trustin' you and knowin' in my heart that you're good. Somehow I _know_ +it." + +She bit her lip, her eyes were moist, and she sat very still for a long +time; then she said, softly: "I didn't know men like that lived.... I +didn't know." + +Then again, after the passage of minutes: "I was going to marry you, +Homer, just for a home and a good man and to get peace.... But I sha'n't +do it now. I can't come between you and all your folks--and they +wouldn't have me." + +"You're more to me than everybody else throwed together." + +"No, Homer. Before I didn't think I cared.... I do care, Homer. I--I +love you. I don't mind saying it now.... I'm going away in the morning." + +It was a point they argued all the day, but Yvette was not to be moved, +and Homer was in despair. As he drove into the village that evening, +glum and unhappy, Yvette said: "Stop at Mr. Baines's, please, Homer. I +want to speak to him." + +Scattergood was in his accustomed place before his store, shoes on the +piazza beside him, and his feet, guiltless of socks, reveling in their +liberty. + +"Mr. Baines," said Yvette, "I've made up my mind to go away to-morrow." + +"Um!... To-morrer, eh? Made up your mind you don't want Homer, have ye? +Don't blame ye. He's a mighty humble critter." + +"He's the best man in the world," said Yvette, softly, "and I love +him ... and that--that's why I'm going. I can't stay and make him +miserable." + +Scattergood studied her face a moment, and cleared his throat noisily. +"Hum!... I swan to man! Goin', be ye?... Mebby that's best.... But they +hain't no sich hurry. Be out of a job, won't ye? Uh-huh! Wa-al, you stay +till Thursday mornin' and kind of visit with Homer, and say good-by, and +then you kin go. Thursday mornin'.... Not a minute before." + +"But--" + +"Thursday mornin's the time, I said.... G'-by." + +Next morning Scattergood was absent. He had taken the early train out of +town, as Pliny Pickett reported, on a "whoppin' big deal that come up +suddin in the night." It appeared that for once Scattergood had allowed +business to distract him wholly from his favorite occupation of meddling +in other folks' affairs.... Nobody saw him return, for he drove into +town late Wednesday afternoon and went directly to his home. + +For forty-eight hours during his absence rumor had spread and increased +its girth to astounding dimensions. Old Man Bogle had released his +story. He now recollected Yvette perfectly, and when not restrained by +the modesty of some person of the opposite sex, he described her costume +in the play with minute detail. Hourly he remembered more and more, and +the mouth-to-ear repetitions of his tale embellished it with details +even Old Man Bogle's imagination could not have encompassed.... Before +Wednesday night Yvette had arisen in the estimation of the village to an +eminence of evil never before attained by any visitor to Coldriver. + +Jason Locker forbade his son his home if ever he were seen in the +hussy's company again, and Homer left by the front door.... He announced +his purpose of journeying to the South Seas or New York, or some other +equally strange and dangerous shore. The town seethed. It had been +years since any local sensation approached this high moment.... At half +past six Pliny Pickett, Scattergood's right-hand man and general errand +boy, was seen to approach Homer on the street and to whisper to him. +Pliny always enshrouded his most matter-of-fact errands with voluminous +mystery. "Scattergood wants you sh'u'd see him right off," he said, and +tiptoed away. + +Another sensation occurred that evening. Scattergood Baines went to +prayer meeting in the Methodist church. When word of this was passed +about, the Baptists and Congos deserted their places of worship in +whispering groups and invaded the rival edifice until it was crowded as +it had seldom been before. Scattergood in prayer meeting! Scattergood, +who had never been inside a church since the day of his arrival in +Coldriver, forty years before.... Even Yvette Hinchbrooke and her +affairs sank into insignificance. + +But the amazing presence of Scattergood in church was as nothing to the +epochal fact that, after the prayer and hymn, he was seen slowly to get +to his feet. Scattergood Baines was going to lift up his voice in +meeting! + +"Folks," he said, "I've knowed Coldriver for quite a spell. I've knowed +its good and its bad, but the good outweighs the bad by a darn sight." +The congregation gasped. + +"I run on to a case to-day," he said, and then paused, apparently +thinking better of what he was going to say and taking another course. +"They's one great way to reach folks's hearts and that's through their +sympathy. All of you give up to furrin missions to rescue naked fellers +with rings in their noses. That's sympathy, hain't it? Mebby they hain't +needin' sympathy and cast-off pants, but that's neither here nor there. +You _think_ they do.... Coldriver's great on sympathy, and it's a +doggone upstandin' quality." Again the audience sucked in its breath at +this approach to the language of everyday life. + +"If I was wantin' to stir up your sympathy, I'd tell you about a leetle +feller I seen yestiddy. Mebby I will. He wa'n't no naked heathen, and he +didn't have no ring into his nose. He was jest a boy. Uh-huh! Calculate +he might 'a' been ten year old. Couldn't walk a step. Suthin' ailed his +laigs, and he had to lay around in a chair in one of these here kind of +cheap horspittles. Alone he was. Didn't have no pa nor ma.... But he had +to be looked after by somebody, didn't he? Somebody had to pay them +bills." + +Scattergood blew his nose gustily. "Mebby he could 'a' been cured if +they was money to pay for costly doctorin', but they wa'n't. It took all +that could be got jest to pay for his food and keep.... Patient leetle +feller, too, and gentlelike and cheerful. Kind of took to him, I did." + +He paused, turned slowly, and surveyed the congregation, and frowned at +the door of the church. He coughed. He waited. The congregation turned, +following his eyes, and saw Mandy, Scattergood's ample-bosomed wife, +enter, bearing in her arms the form of a child. She walked to +Scattergood's pew and handed the boy to him. Scattergood held the child +high, so all could see. + +He was a red-haired little fellow, white and thin of face, with +pipe-stem legs that dangled pitifully. + +"I fetched him along," said Scattergood. "I wisht you'd look him over." + +The audience craned its neck, exclaiming, dropping tears. The heart of +Coldriver was well protected, it fancied, by an exterior of harshness +and suspicion, but Coldriver was wrong. Its heart lay near the surface, +easy of access, warm, tender, sympathetic. "This is him," said +Scattergood. + +He turned his face to the child. "Sonny," he said, kindly, "you hain't +got no pa nor ma?" "No, sir," said the little fellow. + +"And you live in one of them horspittles?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"It costs money?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"How do you git it, sonny? Tell the folks." + +"Sister," said the child. "She's awful good to me. When she kin, she +stays whole days with me, but she can't stay much on account of havin' +to earn money to pay for me. It takes 'most all she earns.... She's had +to do kinds of work she don't like, on account of it earnin' more money +than nice jobs. We're savin' to have me cured, and then I'm goin' to go +to work and keep _her._ I got it all planned out while I was layin' +there." + +"Is your sister a bad woman?" + +"Nobody dast say that, even if I hain't got legs. I'd grab somethin' and +throw it at 'em." + +"Was this here sister ever one of them actoresses?" + +"Once, when I was sicker 'n usual ... it was awful costly. That time she +was in a show, 'cause she got more money there. She got enough to pay +for what I needed." + +"Wear tights, sonny? Calc'late she wore tights?" + +"Sure. She told me. She said to me it wasn't wearin' tights that done +harm, and she could be jest as good in tights as wearin' a fur coat if +her heart wasn't bad. That's what she said. Yes, sir, she said she +wouldn't wear nothin' if it had to be done to git me medicine." + +"Um!... What's this here sister's name?" + +"Eva Hopkins." + +Scattergood turned again toward the door. "Homer," he called, and Homer +Locker entered, almost dragging Yvette by the arm.... The congregation +heard one sound. It was a glad, childish cry. "Eva!... Eva!... Here I +am." + +Then it saw Yvette Hinchbrooke wrench free from Homer and run down the +aisle to snatch the child from Scattergood's arms into her own. + +Scattergood stood erect, looking from face to face in silence. It was a +full minute before he spoke. + +"There ..." he said. "You kin see the evil of passin' jedgments. You kin +see the evil of old coots traffickin' in rumors.... What you've heard +the boy tell is all true.... That's the girl you was ready to tar and +feather and run out of town.... Now what you think of yourselves?" + +It was Deacon Pettybone, blinking a mist from his watery blue eyes, who +arose to the moment. "Folks," he said, huskily, "I'm goin' to pass among +you directly, carryin' the collection plate. 'Tain't fer furrin +missions. It's fer that child yonder--to git them legs fixed.... And +standin' here I want to acknowledge to sin in public. I been hard, and +lackin' in charity. I been passin' jedgments, contrairy to God's word. I +been stiff-backed and obdurate, and I calc'late they's others a-sittin' +here that needs prayers for forgiveness.... Now I'm a-comin' with the +plate. Them that hain't prepared to give to-night kin whisper to me what +they'll give to-morrer--and have no fear of my forgittin' the amounts +they pledge.... And I'm askin' forgiveness of the young woman and hopin' +she won't hold it ag'in' an old man--when she settles down here amongst +us, like I hope she'll do." + +"Like she's a-goin' to do," said Jason Locker, with a voice and air of +pride. "Why, folks, that there gal is goin' to be my daughter-in-law!" + +Scattergood patted Yvette on the back heavily, but jubilantly. "I've +diskivered," he said, "that if you can't crack a hick'ry nut with a pad +of butter, you better use a hammer.... Sometimes Coldriver's a nut +needin' a sledge--but when it cracks it's full of meat." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE + + +Scattergood Baines lounged back in his armchair, reinforced by iron +crosspieces to sustain his weight, and basked in the warmth from the +Round Oak stove, heated to redness by the clean, dry maple within. He +was drowsy. For the time he had ceased even to search for a scheme +whereby he could rid his hardware stock of one dozen sixteen-pound +sledge hammers acquired by him at a recent auction down in Tupper Falls. +His eyes were closed and his soul was at peace. + +Somebody rattled the door knob and then rapped on the door. This was so +unusual a method of seeking entrance to a hardware store that +Scattergood sat up abruptly, blinking. + +"Wa-al," he said, tartly, "be you comin' in, or be you goin' to stand +out there wagglin' that door knob all day?" + +"I'm coming in, Mr. Baines, as soon as I can contrive to open the door," +replied a male voice, a voice that appeared incapable of expressing +impatience; a gentle voice; the voice of a man who would dream dreams +but perform few actions. + +"Um!... It's you, hey? What d'you allus carry books under your arm for? +How d'you calculate to be able to open doors, with both hands full?" + +The knob turned at last, and Nahum Pound, long schoolmaster in the +little district school on Hiper Hill, came in hesitatingly, clutching +with each arm half a dozen books which struggled to escape with the +ingenuity of inanimate objects. Nahum's hair was white; his face was +vague--lovably vague.... A man of considerable, if confused, learning, +he was. + +"Well?" said Scattergood. "Got suthin' on to your mind? Commence +unloadin' it before it busts your back." + +"It's Sarah," said Nahum, helplessly. + +"Um!... Sairy, eh? What's Sairy up to?" + +"I don't seem to gather, Mr. Baines. She's--she's difficult. Something +seems to be working in her head." + +"Twenty-two, hain't she? Twenty-two?... Prob'ly a number of things +a-workin' in her head. Got any special symptoms?" + +"She--she wants to leave home, Mr. Baines." Nahum said this with mild +amazement. His amazement would have been no greater--and not a whit less +mild--had his daughter announced her intention to swim from New York to +Liverpool, or to marry the chef of the Czar of Russia. + +"Um!... Can't say's that's onnatural--so's to require callin' in a +doctor. Live five mile from town, don't you? Nearest neighbor nigh on to +a mile. Sairy gits to see company only about so often or not so seldom +as that, eh?" Scattergood shut his eyes until there appeared at the +corners of them a network of little wrinkles. "I'm a-goin' to astonish +you, Nahum. This here hain't the first girl that ever come down with the +complaint Sairy's got!... They's been sev'ral. Complaint's older 'n you +or me.... Dum near as old as Deacon Pettybone. Uh-huh!... She's got a +attack of life, Nahum, and the only cure for it ever discovered is to +let her live.... Sairy's woke up out of childhood, Nahum. She's jest +openin' her eyes. Perty soon she'll be stirrin' around brisk.... When +you goin' to drive her in, Nahum? To-morrer?" + +"You--you advise letting her do this thing?" + +"When you goin' to fetch her in, Nahum?" Scattergood repeated. + +"She said she was coming Monday." + +"Um!... G'-by, Nahum." This was Scattergood's invariable phrase of +dismissal, given to friend or enemy alike. It was characteristic of him +that when he was through with a conversation he ended it--and left no +doubt in anybody's mind that it _was_ ended. Nahum withdrew +apologetically. Scattergood called after him, "Fetch her here--to me," +he said, and, automatically, it seemed, reached for the laces of his +shoes. A problem had been presented to him which required a deal of +solving, and Scattergood could not concentrate with toes imprisoned in +leather. He even removed the white woolen socks which Mandy, his wife, +compelled him to wear in the winter season. Presently he was twiddling +his pudgy toes and concentrating on Sarah Pound. He waggled his head. +"After livin' out there," he said to himself, "she'll think Coldriver's +livin'--and so 'tis, so 'tis.... More sometimes 'n 'tis others. +Calculate this is like to be one of 'em...." + +Scattergood was just thinking about dinner on Monday when Nahum Pound +brought his daughter Sarah into the store. One glance at Sarah's face +taught Scattergood that she was in suspicious, if not defiant, mood. If +he had a doubt of the correctness of his observation, Sarah removed it +efficiently. + +"Scattergood Baines," she said, "if you think you're going to boss me +like you do father, and everybody else in this town, you're mistaken. I +won't have it.... Understand that, I won't have it." + +Scattergood rubbed his chin and puffed out his fat cheeks, and smiled +with deceiving mildness. "Sairy," he said, "you needn't to be scairt of +my interferin' with you in your goin's and comin's. I'd sooner stick my +hand into a kittle of b'ilin' pitch than to meddle with a young woman +in your state of mind.... I hain't hankerin' to raise no blisters." + +"I won't stay penned up 'way out there in the country another day. I've +got a right to live. I've got a right to see folks and to go places, +and--to--to live!" + +"To be sure.... To be sure. Jest itchin' to kick the top bar off'n the +pasture fence. Most certain you got a right to live, and nobody hain't +goin' to hender you ... least of all me. But there's jest one +observation I'd sort of like to let loose of, and that's this: Your +life's a whole lot like one of your arms and legs--easy busted. To be +sure, it kin be put in splints and mended up ag'in, but maybe you'll go +limpy or knit crooked so's nothin' kin keep the busted place from +showin'. Bearin' that in mind, if I was you, I wouldn't be too careless +about scramblin' up into places where you was apt to git a fall.... I +calc'late, Sairy, that it's better to miss the view than to fall out of +the tree...." + +"I'm going to see the view if I fall out of every tree I climb," Sarah +said, hotly. + +"Don't object if I find you a boardin' house?" + +"I'm going to board with Grandma Penny that was--Mrs. Spackles." + +Scattergood nodded. "G'-by, Sairy.... G'-by, Nahum." He watched father +and daughter leave the store with a twinkle in his eyes, not a twinkle +of humor, but the twinkle that always came when his interest in life, +always keen, was aroused to a point where it tingled. "Calc'late to be +kep' busy--more 'n ordinary busy," he offered as an opinion to be +digested by the Round Oak stove. Presently he added: "She's perty ... +and bein' perty is kind of a remarkable thing ... bein' perty and +young.... Don't seem like God ought to hold folks accountable fer bein' +young, nor yet fer bein' good to look at ... but they's times when it +seems like He does...." On his way back to the store after dinner, +Scattergood stopped at the bank corner, hesitated a moment, and then +mounted the stairs to the offices above. A door bearing the legend, +"Robert Allen, Attorney at Law," admitted him to a large, bare office, +such as one finds in such towns as Coldriver. + +"Howdy, Bob?" said Scattergood. + +"Good day, Mr. Baines," said the young man behind the desk, who had +suddenly pretended to be very much occupied with important matters as +his door opened. + +"Um!... Busy time, eh? Better come back later." + +"No. No, indeed. Take this chair right here, Mr. Baines. What can I do +for you?" + +"Depends. Uh-huh! Depends.... Calc'late to make a perty good livin', +Bob?" + +"No complaints." + +"Studied it yourself, didn't you--out of books? No college?" + +"Yes." + +"Hard work, wasn't it? Mighty hard work?" + +"It might have been easier," said Bob, wondering what Scattergood was +getting at. + +"Like to be prosecutin' attorney for this county, Bob?" + +Prosecuting attorney! With a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a +year--and the prestige! Bob strove valiantly to maintain a look of +dignified interest, but with ill success. + +"I--I might consider it. Yes, I would consider it." + +"Um!... Figgered you would," said Scattergood, dryly. "Hain't got no +help in the office," he observed. "Need some, don't you? Somebody to +write letters and sort of look after things, eh?" + +"Why--er--I've never thought about it." + +"If you was to think about it, you'd calc'late on payin' about six +dollars a week, wouldn't you?" Bob swallowed hard. Six dollars a week +was a great deal of money to this young man, just embarking on the +practice of his profession. "Guess that would be about right," he said. + +"Got anybody in mind, Bob? Thinkin' of anybody specific for the place?" + +Bob shook his head. + +"Um!... Nahum Pound's daughter's boardin' with Grandma Penny, that's now +Mis' Spackles. All-fired perty girl, Bob. Don't call to mind no pertier. +Sairy's her name.... G'-by, Bob. G'-by." + +He walked to the door, but paused. "About that six dollars, Bob--I was +figgerin' on payin' that out of my own pocket." + +Bob Allen was not accustomed to the oversight of employees--least of all +to an employee who was very satisfying to look at, who was winsomely +young, whose mere presence distracted his thoughts from that rigorous +concentration upon the logical principles of the law.... He did not know +what to do with Sarah once he had hired her, and it required so much of +his time and brain power to think up something for her to do that it is +fortunate his practice was neither large nor arduous. It is no mean +tribute to the young man that he kept Sarah so busy with apparently +necessary matters that she had no occasion to doubt the authenticity of +her employment. + +Bob faced a second difficulty, due to his inexperience, and that was +that he was at a loss how to comport himself toward Sarah, as to how +friendly he should be, and as to how much he should maintain a certain +grave dignity and reserve in his dealings with her. This was a matter +which need not have troubled him, for Nature has a way of taking into +her own keeping the bearing of young men toward young women when the two +are thrown much into each other's company. Propinquity is a tremendous +force in the life of humanity. It has caused as many love affairs as +the kicking of other men's dogs has caused street fights--which numbers +into infinity. Consequently, while Bob worried much and selected a +number of widely differing attitudes--a thing which caused Sarah some +uneasiness and no little speculation as to what sort of disposition her +employer possessed--the solution lay not with him at all. It took care +of itself. + +Scattergood noted the significance of symptoms. He made a mental +memorandum of the fact that Bob Allen was seldom to be seen among the +post-office loafers; that Bob preferred his office to any other spot; +that Bob had ordered a new suit from a city tailor; that Bob wore a +constant air of anxiety and excitement, and--most expressive symptom of +all for a Coldriver young man--he became interested in residence +property, in lots, and in the cost of erecting dwellings.... Scattergood +looked in vain for reciprocal symptoms to be shown by Sarah. But Sarah +was a woman. What symptoms she exhibited were meaningless even to +Scattergood. + +"Bob," said Scattergood, one auspicious day, "got any pref'rence for +prosecutin' attorneys--married or single?" + +"It depends," said Bob, cautiously. + +"Um!... How's Sairy behavin', Bob?" + +"She's--she's--" Bob became incoherent, and then speechless. + +"Calc'late I foller you, Bob.... Git your point of view exact.... About +prosecutin' attorneys, Bob, I prefer 'em married." + +"Mr. Baines," said Bob, "if I could get Sarah Pound to marry me, I +wouldn't give a tinker's dam who was prosecutor." + +"Mishandlin' of fact sim'lar to that," said Scattergood, dryly, "has +been done nigh on to a billion times.... Any idee how Sairy stands on +sich a proposition?" + +"She's about equally fond of me and the letter press," said Bob, +dolefully. + +"Good sign," said Scattergood. Then after a short pause: "Say, Bob, +still rent out drivin' hosses at the livery?... G'-by, Bob." + +Bob was astonished to find how easy it is to ask a girl to go driving +the second time--after you have spent an anxious, dubious, fearsome day +screwing up your courage to ask her the first time. He was delighted, +too, because he even fancied Sarah now discriminated between him and the +letter press--in his favor. Bob came fresh and unsophisticated to the +business in hand, which was courtship. Sarah had never before been +courted, but she recognized a courtship when she saw it at such close +range, and found it delightfully exciting. Bob did his clumsy, earnest, +honest best, and Sarah, somewhat to her surprise, became more satisfied +with the universe and with her share in its destinies.... In short, +matters were progressing as nature intended they should progress, and +Scattergood felt almost that they might be trusted to go forward to a +satisfactory denouement without his interference. + +Then old Solon Beatty died! + +This solved one of Bob Allen's problems; it furnished plenty of +authentic work for Sarah Pound--for Bob was retained as attorney for old +Solon's estate, which he found to be in an amazing state of confusion. +Old Solon left behind him, reluctantly, property of divers kinds, and in +numerous localities, valued at upward of a hundred thousand dollars, +split and invested into as many enterprises and mortgages and savings +accounts as there were dollars! This made work. There were papers to +sort and list, to file and to schedule--clerical work in abundance. It +interfered with the more important business of courtship, but even in +this respect it was not without a certain value. + +"Who's going to get all this money?" Sarah asked, one morning after she +had been listing mortgages until her head ached with the sight of +figures and descriptions. "Does Mary Beatty get it all?" + +"Not unless we find a will somewhere. Everybody thought Solon's +niece--which is Mary Beatty--would get the whole estate. Solon intended +it should go that way, and the Lord knows she's worked for him and +nursed him and coddled him enough to deserve it. Gave her whole life up +to the old codger ... But we can't find a will, and so she won't get but +half. The rest goes to Solon's nephew, Farley Curtis ... under the +statute of descent and distribution, you know," he finished, learnedly. + +"Farley Curtis.... I never heard of him." + +"He's never been here--at least not for years. But he'll be along now. +We're due to see him soon." + +"Correct," said a voice from the door, which had opened silently. In it +stood a young man of dress and demeanor not indigenous to Coldriver. +"You're due to see Farley Curtis--so you behold him. Look me over +carefully. I was due--therefore I arrive." The young man laughed +pleasantly, as if he intended his words to be regarded as whimsical, +yet, somehow, Bob felt the whimsicality to be surface deep; that Curtis +was a young man with much confidence in himself, who felt that if he +were due he would inevitably arrive. + +"Mr. Allen, I suppose," said Curtis, extending his hand. "I am told you +are handling the legal affairs of my late uncle's estate." + +Sarah Pound eyed the newcomer, and as the young men shook hands compared +them, to Bob Allen's disadvantage. To inexperience any comparison must +be to Bob's disadvantage, for Curtis was handsome, dressed with taste, +and gifted with a worldly certainty of manner and an undeniable charm. +Sarah had never encountered all these attributes in a single individual. +She drew on her reading of fiction and knew at once that she was in the +presence of that wonderful creature she had seen described so +frequently--a gentleman. As for Bob Allen, he was big, rugged, careless +of dress, kindly, without pretense of polish.... And besides, to +Curtis's advantage there attached to him a certain literary glamour--of +heirship--and a mystery due to his sudden appearance out of the great +unknown that lay beyond the confines of Coldriver. + +"I am in the dark," said Curtis. "All I know is that Uncle Solon is +dead. It is proper I should come to you for information, is it not? For +instance, there is no harm in asking if there is a will?" + +"None has been found," said Bob, not graciously. He had taken a dislike +to this stranger instinctively, a dislike which increased at an amazing +pace as he noted Curtis's eyes cast admiring glances upon Sarah Pound. + +"In which case," said the young man, "I suppose I may regard myself as +an interested party." + +"Yourself and Miss Beatty are the heirs--so far as has been determined." + +"You have searched all my uncle's papers?" + +"We have gone through them, but not so thoroughly as to reach a final +conclusion. He was a peculiar old man." + +"And no will has been found? No--other papers--" Curtis smiled +deprecatingly. "It is only natural I should be interested," he said, and +smiled at Sarah. + +"Was there anything special you wanted to ask?" + +"Only if there was a will--or other paper." There was a curious +hesitation in Farley Curtis's voice as he spoke the last two words. "I'm +glad, of course, there's not.... Thank you. Think I'll stay in town till +the thing is settled up. Probably see you often. Pleased to have met +you." He included Sarah in the bow with which he took his leave. + +For a few days Farley Curtis lived at the Coldriver House, then moved +to Grandmother Penny's, where Sarah Pound boarded. Secretly Bob Allen +was furious, without apparent cause. He had no reason to draw +conclusions, for boarding houses were scarce in Coldriver. What Sarah +thought of the event was not so easily discovered. + +Bob would naturally have discussed immediately the significance of +Farley Curtis's arrival in Coldriver, with Scattergood, for everybody in +Coldriver went to Scattergood with whatever important occurrence that +befell, but Scattergood was absent on a political mission. When he +returned Bob lost no time in laying the matter before him. + +"Um!... Calculated he'd turn up. Natural.... Acted kind of anxious, eh? +What was it he said about a will--or somethin'?" + +Bob repeated Curtis's conversation minutely. + +"Um!... That young man didn't suspect--he _knew_," said Scattergood, +reaching automatically for his shoes. "What he wanted to know was--has +it been found?... Um!... Not a will. Somethin'. Somethin' he's afraid of +bein' found.... Hain't the kind of feller I'd like to see spendin' old +Solon's money.... Guess you and me'll go through them papers ag'in." + +So with minute care Bob and Scattergood examined the documents and +memoranda and receipts and accounts of Solon Beatty, but no will, no +minute reference to Farley Curtis, was discovered. They went again to +Solon's house to question Mary and to rummage there with the hope of +falling upon some such hiding place as the queer old man might have +chosen as the safe depository of his will. Mary Beatty was not helpful; +middle-aged, with wasted youth behind her; she was even resentful that +her meticulous housekeeping should be disturbed. + +Scattergood and Bob sat down in the parlor, discouraged. It was evident +there was no will. Solon had neglected to attend to that matter until +it was too late.... Scattergood wiggled his feet uneasily and stared at +the motto over the door. + +"Solon didn't run much to religion," he observed. + +"No," said Mary Beatty. + +"Um!... Have a Bible, maybe? One of them big ones?" + +"Up in his room, Mr. Baines. It always laid on the table +there--unopened." + +"Opened it yourself lately, Mary? Been readin' the Scriptures out of +that p'tic'lar book?" + +"No." + +"Um!... Got a kind of a hankerin' to read a verse or two," said +Scattergood. "Come on, Bob. You 'n' me'll peruse Solon's Bible some." + +The huge Bible with its Dore illustrations lay on the marble-topped +table in old Solon's bedroom. Scattergood opened it--found it stiff with +lack of use, its pages clinging together as if their gilt edging had +never been broken.... Bob leaned over Scattergood while the old man +rapidly thumbed the pages.... He brought to light a pressed flower, and +shrugged his shoulders. What moment of softness in the life of a hard +old man did this flower commemorate?... A letter whose ink was faded to +illegibility! Even Solon Beatty had once known the rose-leaf scent of +romance. + +"Nothing there," said Bob. + +"The reason folks seldom find things," said Scattergood, "is that they +say 'Nothin' there' before they've half looked.... They might be any +quantity of things in this Bible that we hain't overhauled yet." The old +man stood a moment frowning down at the book. "Births and deaths," he +said to himself. "Births and deaths--and marryin's...." Rapidly he +turned to the illumined pages on which were set down the family records +of the Beattys. "Um!... Jest sich a place as he'd pick out.... What you +make of this, Bob?" + +Scattergood loosened a sheet of paper which had been lightly glued to +the page. "Hain't got my specs, Bob." + +The young lawyer read it, re-read it aloud. "I, Farley Curtis, one of +the two legal heirs of Solon Beatty, of Coldriver Township, do hereby +acknowledge the receipt of ten thousand dollars, the same to be +considered an advance of my share of the said Solon Beatty's estate. +For, and in consideration of the said ten thousand dollars I hereby +waive all claims to any further participation in the said estate, and +agree that I will not, whether the said Solon Beatty dies testate or +intestate, make any claim against the said estate, nor upon Mary Beatty, +who, by this advance to me, becomes sole heir to the said estate.'" + +Bob drew a long breath. Scattergood stared owlishly at Mary Beatty. + +"Now, what d'you think of that, eh? Shouldn't be s'prised if that was +the i-dentical paper that was weighin' on the mind of young Mr. Curtis. +Shouldn't be a mite s'prised if 'twas." + +"What is it, Mr. Baines?" asked Mary Beatty. "A will?" + +"Wa-al, offhand I'd say it was consid'able better 'n a will. Ya-as.... +Wills kin be busted, but this here docyment--I calc'late it would take +mighty powerful hammerin' to knock it apart." + +"And, Mary," said Bob, "if I were you I shouldn't mention the finding of +it." + +"Not to a soul," said Scattergood. "We'll take it mighty soft and spry +and shet it up in Bob's safe.... Anybody know the combination to it +besides you, Bob?" + +"Nobody but you, Mr. Baines." + +"Oh, me!... To be sure, me." + +"And Miss Pound." "Um!... Sairy, eh? Course.... Sairy." + +Within twenty-four hours everybody in Coldriver knew a paper of great +significance had been discovered affecting the heirs to Solon Beatty's +estate, and that the paper was locked in Bob Allen's safe. Bob had not +talked; Scattergood certainly had been silent, and Mary Beatty solemnly +averred that no word had passed her lips. Yet the fact was there for all +to contemplate.... Farley Curtis devoted an entire day to the +contemplation of it in his room at Grandmother Penny's.... That evening +he invited Sarah Pound to drive with him. She found him a delightful and +entertaining companion. + +Sunday was still two days away when Bob looked up from his desk to say +to Sarah: "This Beatty matter has kept us so busy there hasn't been any +time for pleasure. You must be tired out, Miss Pound. Wouldn't you like +to start early Sunday and drive over to White Pine for dinner--and come +back after the sun goes down? It's a beautiful drive." + +"I'm sorry," said Sarah, flushing with a feeling that was akin to guilt, +"but I am engaged Sunday." + +Bob turned again to his work, cast into sudden gloom, and wondering +jealously what was Sarah's engagement. Sarah, not altogether easy in her +mind, nor wholly pleased with herself, endeavored to justify herself for +being so lightly off with the old and on with the new.... She compared +Bob to Farley Curtis, and found the comparison not in Bob's favor. Not +that this was exactly a justification, but it was a salve. Sarah was in +the shopping period of her life--shopping for a husband, so to speak. +She was entitled to the best she could get ... and Bob did not seem to +be the best. Farley was sprightly, interesting, with the manners of a +more effete world than Coldriver; Bob was awkward, ofttimes silent, +lacking polish. Farley was solicitous in small matters that Bob failed +utterly to perceive; Farley was always skilled in minute points of +decorum, whose very existence was unknown to Bob. In short, Farley was +altogether fascinating, while Bob, at best, was commonplace. Yet, not in +her objective mind, but deep in her centers of intuition, she was +conscious of a hesitancy, conscious of something that urged her toward +Bob and warned her against Farley Curtis. + +On Sunday Bob saw Sarah drive away with Curtis--and spent a black day of +jealousy and heartburning. During the succeeding two weeks he spent many +black days and sleepless nights, for Curtis monopolized Sarah's leisure, +and Sarah seemed to have thrown discretion to the winds and clothed +herself against fear of Coldriver's gossip, for she seemed to give her +company almost eagerly to the stranger.... And Coldriver talked. + +Bob spoke bitterly of the matter to Scattergood. + +"Um!..." grunted Scattergood, "don't seem to recall any statute +forbiddin' any young feller to git him any gal he kin. Eh?" + +"No. But this Curtis--there's something wrong there. He isn't intending +to play fair.... I--He's got some kind of a purpose, Mr. Baines." + +"Think so, eh? What kind of a purpose?" Scattergood had his own ideas on +this subject, but did not disclose them. It was in his mind that Curtis +cultivated Sarah because of Sarah's propinquity of a certain paper which +the man had reason to believe was in Bob Allen's safe. + +Bob's face was set and stern, granite as the hills among which he had +been born and which had become a part of his nature. "If he doesn't play +fair ... if he should--hurt her ... I'd take him apart, Mr. Baines." + +"Calc'late you would," said Scattergood, tranquilly, "but there's a law +in sich case, made and pervided, callin' that kind of amusement +murder ..." + +It was not Scattergood's custom to publish his emotions; nevertheless +he was worried. He appreciated the state of mind which had brought Sarah +to Coldriver--the spirit of restless, resentful youth, demanding the +world for its plaything. He knew Sarah's high temper, her eagerness for +adventure.... He knew that thousands of girls before her had been +fascinated by well-told tales of the life to be lived out in the world +of cities, of wealth, of artificial gayeties ... the lure of travel, of +excitement.... And Scattergood did not covet the duty of carrying a +woeful story to old Nahum Pound, the gentle schoolmaster. + +His uneasiness was not decreased by a bit of unpremeditated +eavesdropping that fell in his way the next evening.... Farley Curtis +was talking, Sarah Pound was listening--eagerly. + +"You can't understand what living is," the man was saying, "How could +you? You haven't lived. Here in this backwater you will never live.... +You move around in a fog of monotony. Every day the same. But out +there.... Everything! Everything you want and can imagine is there for +the taking. A beautiful woman can take what she wants--that's what it's +all for--for her to help herself to. Life and excitement and +pleasure--and love ... they are all out there waiting." + +Sarah sighed. + +"Did you ever try to imagine Paris, London, Madrid, Rome?" he went on. +"You can't do it.... But you can see them. I--I would take you if you +would let me ... if things fall out right. I'm poor ...but with this +Beatty money I could take you anywhere. It would give us everything we +want.... Half of that money belongs to me rightfully, doesn't it?" + +"I suppose so." + +"But I may not get it." + +She was silent. + +"There is a paper," he said, "and that paper may stand between you and +me--and Paris and Rome and the world...." He paused, and then said, +carelessly: "Won't you go with me, Sarah--away from this? Won't you let +me take you, to love and to make happy?" + +Presently she spoke, so low her voice was scarcely audible to +Scattergood. "I don't know.... I don't know," she said. + +Scattergood had heard enough. He stole away silently. The time had come +to act, if he were going to act ... if no woeful story were to be +carried to old Nahum Pound concerning his daughter. He might even be too +late.... The lure of great cities and foreign shores might have done its +work, and Farley Curtis's eloquence have served its purpose. + +In the morning Bob Allen was early at his office. His first act was to +open the safe to take out a packet of papers he had been laboring over +the afternoon before.... The packet was not where he had placed it the +night before. He remembered distinctly how he had shoved it into a +certain pigeonhole.... It was not there. He found it in the compartment +below.... Bob was not easily startled or frightened, so now he paused +and took his memory to account. No.... The fault was not with his +memory. He had done exactly as he remembered doing.... Somebody had +opened that safe since he closed it; somebody had fingered its +contents.... He caught his breath, not at the fear of loss, but in +sudden terror of the means by which that loss had been brought about, +the person who might have been the instrument.... Furiously he began +going over the contents of the safe--money, securities, papers. +Everything seemed intact. But one thing remained--the little drawer. He +had put off opening that, because he dreaded to open it, for it +contained the paper that excluded Farley Curtis from a share in his +uncle's estate.... Bob compelled himself to turn the little key, to +open the drawer.... It was empty!... + +Bob walked slowly to his desk and sat down, his eyes fixed upon the safe +as if it fascinated him.... Facts, facts! His soul demanded facts. Those +at hand were few, simple. First, the safe had been opened by some one +who knew the combination. Three persons existed who might have opened +it--or betrayed its combination: Scattergood, himself, Sarah Pound.... +Second, he knew he had not opened it nor betrayed the combination. +Third, he was equally certain Scattergood had not done so.... Fourth--he +groaned!... + +Bob comprehended what had happened; why Farley Curtis had wooed so +persistently Sarah Pound. It was not out of love nor desire, but for a +more sordid purpose ... it was to win her love, to blind her to honor, +to make a tool of her, and through her to secure possession of that bit +of paper which stood between him and riches. + +Presently Sarah Pound entered. Bob could not force himself to look at +her; did not speak. She gazed at him curiously, and when she saw the +grayness of his face, the lines about his mouth, and eyes that advanced +his age by twenty years, she felt a little catch at her heart, a +breathlessness, a sudden alarm. + +"Miss Pound," he said, in a voice which he himself could not recognize +as his own, "you needn't take off your hat.... You--you actually came +back here! You were bold enough to come again to this office.... I +fancied you would be gone--from Coldriver." His voice broke queerly. "I +suppose you realize what you have done--and are satisfied with the +price--the price of forfeiting the respect of every honest man and woman +you know! That is a great deal to give up. It ought to command a high +price--treachery.... I hope you are getting a sufficient return.... It +means nothing to you, of course, but--I loved you. I thought about you +as a man thinks about the woman he hopes will be his wife ... and his +children's mother ... so it--pains--to find you despicable...." + +Sarah's little fists clenched, her eyes glinted. + +"How dare you?" she cried. "What affair is it of yours what I do?... +You're a silly, jealous idiot." With which childish invective she flung +out of the office. + +In an hour Bob Allen was calmer, and so the more unhappy. His mind +cleared, and, being cleared, it directed him to carry his trouble to +Scattergood Baines. + +"Um!... Gone, eh?" said Scattergood. "Sure it's gone?... Um!..." + +"Yes, and Sarah Pound will be gone, too. How dared she come back to my +office?... Now she'll go with Curtis." + +"Shouldn't be s'prised," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "I heard +Farley a-pointin' out to her the _dee_-sirability of Paris and Rome and +sich European p'ints last night.... You calculate Sairy took the paper?" + +"What else can I think?" + +"To be sure.... Um!... Paris, Rome, London--might be argued into +stealin' it myself, if I was a gal. Um!... Ever see a toad ketch flies, +Bob? Does it with his tongue. There's toad men, Bob, that goes huntin' +wimmin the same way--with their tongues. Su'prisin' the number and +quality they ketch, too. What was you plannin' on doin', Bob? Goin' back +to your office, wasn't you? And keepin' your mouth shet? Was that the +idee? Eh?" + +"I don't know what to do, Mr. Baines." + +"Didn't figger on droppin' around to Grandma Penny's boardin' house +about eight sharp, did you? Eight sharp.... And kind of settin' down +quiet on the front porch? Jest settin'? Eh?... G'-by, Bob." + +After Bob left the store Scattergood sat half an hour staring at the +stove; then he left the store to its own devices and wandered up the +street toward Grandmother Penny's. He encountered Sarah Pound as she +came out through the gate. + +"Howdy, Sairy?" he said, cheerfully. "Havin' consid'able amusement with +life--eh?" + +"I've been enjoying myself, Mr. Baines," Sarah said, making an effort at +coldness and dignity. + +"Bet you hain't enjoyin' yourself enough to warrant your doin' a favor +for an old feller like me, eh?... This evenin', for instance?" + +"I--I'm going away this evening." + +"Um!... Goin' away, eh? Alone? Or along with somebody?" + +"That's my own affair." + +"To be sure.... To be sure, but the train don't leave till nine, does +it? Couldn't manage to do me a favor at eight?" + +"What is the favor, Mr. Baines?" + +"'Tain't much. Sca'cely anythin' a-tall. I calc'late to be a-settin' in +Grandma Penny's parlor at eight sharp. I won't keep you waitin' more 'n +a second--unless somebody happens to be with me a-talkin' my arm off. If +they hain't nobody with me, why, you walk right in. If they is somebody, +why, you jest stand outside of the door a second, and they'll be gone. +Then you come in. But don't come rompin' in if you hear voices. It's a +mite of business, and 'twon't take but a second. Calc'late you kin +manage that, eh?" + +"Yes," she said, shortly. + +"Promise?" + +"Yes." + +"G'-by, Sairy." + +At five minutes before eight Scattergood Baines rapped at Grandmother +Penny's door and asked to speak to Farley Curtis, "Tell him it's +somethin' p'tic'lar reegardin' the Beatty estate," he said, and stepped +into the parlor. Farley appeared almost instantly; dapper, his usual +courteous, self-possessed self. Scattergood began a peculiar and +roundabout conversation after the manner of a man who fears to broach a +subject plainly. Farley showed his irritation. + +"Mr. Baines," he said, "suppose you get down to business. I'm going away +this evening." + +"To be sure.... To be sure. It's overlappin' eight now, hain't it?" +Scattergood paused, listening. He fancied he heard some one approach and +halt just outside the door. He was certain that a chair creaked on the +porch outside the window.... He cleared his throat and drew a big yellow +envelope from his pocket. + +"Calculate I'm ready for business, if you be.... Which d'you calc'late +is most desirable--havin' half a loaf, or no bread?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"You come to Coldriver on business, didn't you? Money business?" + +"Why I came is my own affair." + +"Certain.... Certain.... But things gets noised about. Things has got +noised about concernin' a paper that stands betwixt you and half of the +Beatty estate. Heard 'em myself." Scattergood waggled the envelope. "I +hain't exactly objectin' to makin' a leetle quick money +myself--supposin' it kin be done safe, and the blame, if they is any, +throwed somewheres else.... Now, Mr. Curtis, what kind of a course would +you foller if that paper we been talkin' about was to fall into the +hands of a feller that felt like I do about makin' money?" + +"What do you mean?" Farley demanded, moving forward eagerly in his +chair. + +"Hain't good at guessin', be you?" + +"That paper doesn't worry me," said Farley. "Calc'lated on havin' it +before you took the train to-night, eh?" + +Farley scowled. + +"Uh-huh!... Wa-al, I wasn't seein' sich a chance to make a dollar slip +by. The way you was figgerin' on gittin' that paper, Mr. Curtis, won't +work. I know. Uh-huh! I know, because I got ahead of you. I got that +paper myself.... And we kin deal if I kin be made to feel safe.... Most +things leaks out through wimmin.... Hain't mixin' any wimmin into this, +be you?" + +"No." + +"Um!... How about Sairy Pound?" + +Curtis shrugged his shoulders. + +"Calc'latin' on takin' her away with you to-night?" + +"Not now," said Farley. + +"Seein's how you can't use her to git this paper for you, eh? That it?" + +"Yes." + +"Calc'lated on marryin' her, didn't you?" + +"Fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Curtis, harshly. + +"Understand me, I hain't takin' chances.... If this gal's mixed up in +this, I don't deal." + +"Do I look like a man who would let a silly, backwoods idiot of a girl +stand between me and money? I'm through with her. She's no use to me +now. You've said that yourself.... She's nothing to me." + +"Good.... I got the paper right here, and I'm a-listenin' to your offer +for it...." + +"Ten thous--" began Farley, but a swift, furious thrusting open of the +parlor door interrupted, as Sarah Pound flung herself into the room. For +a moment she was speechless with rage.... Shame would come later.... +"You contemptible--contemptible--contemptible--" she cried, +breathlessly. "It was a thing like you I--I could choose!... I could +throw away a man for you!... For a suit of clothes, and manners, and a +lying tongue.... I could compare Bob Allen with you--and choose you!... +Oh!..." + +"Sairy," said Scattergood. + +"But I never would have done it--not that. I'd never have taken that +paper.... You know I wouldn't, Mr. Baines. Say you know that...." + +"Wa-al," said Scattergood, dryly, "they hain't no tellin' how fur a +woman'll go when she's bein' bamboozled by a scamp--so I kind of insured +ag'in' your takin' it by takin' it myself.... Er--Mr. Curtis, if I was +you, I'd sort of slip out soft by the back door. Bob Allen's a-waitin' +for you on the front porch.... There's a train at nine." + +Scattergood put a clumsy arm about Sarah, who, the moment her wrathful +energy ebbed away, sobbed and sobbed and sobbed with shame and fear. + +"Hey, out there," shouted Scattergood, "git a move on you!" + +Bob Allen needed no urging. His arm was substituted for Scattergood's, +his breast for Scattergood's--and Sarah made no complaint. "I +wouldn't.... I wouldn't.... You thought I did," she murmured. + +"I thought that," said Bob, brokenly. "How can you ever forgive me?... +I--But I love you, Sarah. Won't that make up for it?" + +"You--believed it," she repeated, and Scattergood grinned. + +"Dummed if she hain't managed to put him in the wrong.... You can't beat +wimmin.... She's put him in the wrong." + +Scattergood peered at them a moment, saw what filled him with perfect +satisfaction, and discreetly withdrew. He went out and sat on the porch +and beamed up at the stars.... He sat there a long, long time, and +nobody called him in. He got up, pressed his nose against the window, +and rapped on the glass. + +"Everybody forgiv' and fixed up," he called, "so's I kin git to bed with +an easy mind?" + +There was no answer. He had not been heard--but what he saw was answer +sufficient for any man. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Scattergood Baines, by Clarence Budington Kelland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCATTERGOOD BAINES *** + +***** This file should be named 13307.txt or 13307.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/0/13307/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Cori Samuel and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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