9026
HE next morning at breakfast Alfred Bishop announced his intention of going to Atlanta to talk to Perkins, and incidentally to call on his brother William, who was a successful wholesale merchant in that city.
“I believe I would,” said Mrs. Bishop. “Maybe William will tell you what to do.”
“I'd see Perkins fust,” advised Abner Daniel. “Ef I felt shore Perkins had buncoed me I'd steer cleer o' William. I'd hate to heer 'im let out on that subject. He's made his pile by keepin' a sharp lookout.”
“I hain't had no reason to think I have been lied to,” said Bishop, doggedly, as he poured his coffee into his saucer and shook it about to cool. “A body could hear his death-knell rung every minute ef he'd jest listen to old women an'—”
“Old bachelors,” interpolated Abner. “I reckon theyarealike. The longer a man lives without a woman the more he gits like one. I reckon that's beca'se the man 'at lives with one don't see nothin' wuth copyin' in 'er, an' vice-a-versy.”
Mrs. Bishop had never been an appreciative listener to her brother's philosophy. She ignored what he had just said and its accompanying smile, which was always Abner's subtle apology for such observations.
“Are you goin' to tell Adele about the railroad?” she asked.
“I reckon I won't tell 'er to git up a' excursion over it, ”fore the cross-ties is laid,” retorted Bishop, sharply, and Abner Daniel laughed—that sort of response being in his own vein.
“I was goin' to say,” pursued the softly treading wife, “that I wouldn't mention it to 'er, ef—ef—Mr. Perkins ain't to be relied on, beca'se she worries enough already about our pore way o' livin' compared to her uncle's folks. Ef she knowed how I spent last night she'd want to come back. But I ain't a-goin' to let brother Ab skeer me yet. It is jest too awful to think about. What on earth would we do? What would we, I say?”
That afternoon Bishop was driven to Darley by a negro boy who was to bring the buggy back home. He first repaired to a barber-shop, where he was shaved, had his hair cut, and his shoes blacked; then he went to the station half an hour before time and impatiently walked up and down the platform till the train arrived.
It was six o'clock when he reached Atlanta and made his way through the jostling crowd in the big passenger depot out into the streets. He had his choice of going at once to the residence of his brother, on Peachtree Street, the most fashionable avenue of the city, or looking up Perkins in his office. He decided to unburden his mind by at once calling on the lawyer, whose office was in a tall building quite near at hand.
It was the hour at which Perkins usually left for home, but the old planter found him in.
“Oh, it's you, Mr. Bishop,” he said, suavely, as he rose from his desk in the dingy, disordered little room with its single window. He pushed a chair forward. “Sit down; didn't know you were in town. At your brother's, I reckon. How are the crops up the road? Too much rain last month, I'm afraid.”
Bishop sank wearily into the chair. He had tired himself out thinking over what he would say to the man before him and with the awful contemplation of what the man might say to him.
“They are doin' as well as can be expected,” he made answer; but he didn't approve of even that platitude, for he was plain and outspoken, and hadn't come all that distance for a mere exchange of courtesies. Still, he lacked the faculty to approach easily the subject which had grown so heavy within the last twenty-four hours, and of which he now almost stood in terror.
“Well, that's good,” returned Perkins. He took up a pen as he resumed his seat, and began to touch it idly to the broad nail of his thumb. He was a swarthy man of fifty-five or sixty, rather tall and slender, with a bald head that sloped back sharply from heavy, jutting brows, under which a pair of keen, black eyes shone and shifted. “Come down to see your daughter,” he said. “Good thing for her that you have a brother in town. By-the-way, he's a fine type of a man. He's making headway, too; his trade is stretching out in all directions—funny how different you two are! He seems to take to a swallow-tail coat and good cigars like a duck to water, while you want the open sky above you, sweet-smelling fields around, an' fishing, hunting, sowing, reaping, and chickens—fat, juicy ones, like your wife fried when I was there. And her apple-butter! Ice-cream can' t hold a candle to it.”
“I 'lowed I'd see William 'fore I went back,” said Bishop, rather irrelevantly, and, for the lack of something else to do, he took out his eye-glasses and perched them on his sharp nose, only, on discovering the inutility of the act, to restore them clumsily to his pocket. He was trying to persuade himself, in the silence that followed, that, if the lawyer had known of his trade with the Tompkins heirs, he would naturally have alluded to it. Then, seeing that Perkins was staring at him rather fixedly, he said—it was a verbal plunge: “I bought some more timber-land yesterday!”
“Oh, you did? That's good.” Perkins's eyes fluttered once or twice before his gaze steadied itself on the face of the man before him. “Well, as I told you, Mr. Bishop, that sort of a thing is a good investment. I reckon it's already climbing up a little, ain't it?”
“Not much yet.” It struck Bishop that he had given the lawyer a splendid opportunity to speak of the chief cause for an advance in value, and his heart felt heavier as he finished. “But I took quite a slice the last time—five thousand acres at the old figure, you know—a dollar a acre.”
“You don't say! Thatwasa slice.”
Bishop drew himself up in his chair and inhaled a deep breath. It was as if he took into himself in that way the courage to make his next remark.
“I got it from the Tompkins estate.”
“You don't say. I didn't know they had that much on hand.”
There was a certain skill displayed in the lawyer's choice of questions and observations that somehow held him aloof from the unlettered man, and there was, too, something in his easy, bland manner that defied the open charge of underhand dealing, and yet Bishop had not paid out his railroad fare for nothing. He was not going back to his home-circle no wiser than when he left it. His next remark surprised himself; it was bluntness hardened by despair.
“Sence I bought the land I've accidentally heerd that you are some kin o' that family.”
Perkins started slightly and raised his brows.
“Oh yes; on my wife's side, away off, some way or other. I believe the original Tompkins that settled there from Virginia was my wife's grandfather. I never was much of a hand to go into such matters.”
The wily lawyer had erected as strong a verbal fence as was possible on such short notice, and for a moment it looked as if Bishop's frankness would not attempt to surmount it; but it did, in a fashion.
“When I heerd that, Perkins, it was natural fer me to wonder why you, you see—why you didn't tellthemabout the railroad.”
The sallow features of the lawyer seemed to stiffen. He drew himself up coldly and a wicked expression flashed in his eyes.
“Take my advice, old man,” he snarled, as he threw down his pen and stared doggedly into Bishop's face, “stick to your farming and don't waste your time asking a professional lawyer questions which have no bearing on your business whatever. Now, really, do I have to explain to you my personal reasons for not favoring the Tompkins people with a—I may say—any piece of information?”
Bishop was now as white as death; his worst suspicions were confirmed; he was a ruined man; there was no further doubt about that. Suddenly he felt unable to bridle the contemptuous fury that raged within him.
“I think I knowwhyyou didn't tell 'em,” was what he hurled at the lawyer.
“You think you do.”
“Yes, it was beca'se you knowed no road was goin' to be built. You told Pete Mosely the same tale you did me, an' Abe Tompkins unloaded on 'im. That's a way you have o' doin' business.”
Perkins stood up. He took his silk hat from the top of his desk and put it on. “Oh yes, old man,” he sneered, “I'm a terribly dishonest fellow; but I've got company in this world. Now, really, the only thing that has worried me has been your unchristian act in buying all that land from the Tompkins heirs at such a low figure when the railroad will advance its value so greatly. Mr. Bishop, I thought you were a good Methodist.”
“Oh, you kin laugh an' jeer all you like,” cried Bishop, “but I can handle you fer this.”
“You are not as well versed in the law as you are in fertilizers, Mr. Bishop,” sneered the lawyer. “In order to make a case against me, you'd have to publicly betray a matter I told to you in confidence, and then what would you gain? I doubt if the court would force me to explain a private matter like this where the interests of my clients are concerned. And if the court did, I could simply show the letters I have regarding the possible construction of a railroad in your section. If you remember rightly, I did not say the thing was an absolute certainty. On top of all this, you'd be obliged to prove collusion between me and the Tompkins heirs over a sale made by their attorney, Mr. Trabue. There is one thing certain, Mr. Bishop, and that is that you have forfeited your right to any further confidence in this matter. If the road is built you 'll find out about it with the rest of your people. You think you acted wisely in attacking me this way, but you have simply cut off your nose to spite your face. Now I have a long car-ride before me, and it's growing late.”
Bishop stood up. He was quivering as with palsy. His voice shook and rang like that of a madman.
“You are a scoundrel, Perkins,” he said—“a dirty black snake in the grass. I want to tell you that.”
“Well, I hope you won't make any charge for it.”
“No, it's free.” Bishop turned to the door. There was a droop upon his whole body. He dragged his feet as he moved out into the unlighted corridor, where he paused irresolutely. So great was his agony that he almost obeyed an impulse to go back and fall at the feet of Perkins and implore his aid to rescue him and his family from impending ruin. The lawyer was moving about the room, closing his desk and drawing down the window-shade. Up from the street came the clanging of locomotive bells under the car-shed, the whir of street-cars, the clatter of cabs on the cobble-stones.
“It's no use,” sighed Bishop, as he made his way down-stairs. “I'm ruined—Alan an' Adele hain't a cent to their names, an' that devil—” Bishop paused on the first landing like an animal at bay. He heard the steady step of Perkins on the floor above, and for a moment his fingers tingled with the thought of waiting there in the darkness and choking the life out of the subtle scoundrel who had taken advantage of his credulity.
But with a groan that was half a prayer he went on down the steps and out into the lighted streets. At the first corner he saw a car which would take him to his brother's, and he hastened to catch it.
William Bishop's house was a modern brick structure, standing on a well-clipped lawn which held a gothic summer-house and two or three marble statues. It was in the best portion of the avenue. Reaching it, the planter left the car and approached the iron gate which opened on to the granite steps leading up the terrace. It was now quite dark and many pedestrians were hurrying homeward along the sidewalks. Obeying a sudden impulse, the old man irresolutely passed by the gate and walked farther up the street. He wanted to gain time, to think whether it would be best for him in his present state of mind to meet those fashionable relatives—above all, his matter-of-fact, progressive brother.
“Somehow I don't feel one bit like it,” he mused. “I couldn't tell William. He'd think I wanted to borrow money an' ud git skeerd right off. He always was afeerd I'd mismanage. An' then I'd hate to sp'ile Adele's visit, an' she could tell thar was some'n wrong by me bein' heer in sech a flurry. I reckon Idoshow it. How could a body he'p it? Oh, my Lord, have mercy! It's all gone, all—all me'n Betsy has saved.”
He turned at the corner of his brother's property and slowly retraced his halting steps to the gate, but he did not pause, continuing his way back towards the station. A glance at the house showed that all the lower rooms were lighted, as well as the big prismatic lamp that hung over the front door. Bishop saw forms in light summer clothing on the wide veranda. “I 'll bet that tallest one is Sis,” he said, pathetically. “I jest wish I could see 'er a little while. Maybe it ud stop this awful hurtin' a little jest to look at 'er an' heer 'er laugh like she always did at home. She'd be brave; she wouldn't cry an' take on; but it would hurt 'er away down in 'er heart, especially when she's mixin' with sech high-flyers an' money-spenders. Lord, what 'll I do fer cash to send 'er next month? I'm the land-porest man in my county.”
As he went along he passed several fashionable hotels, from which orchestral music came. Through the plate-glass windows he saw men and women, amid palms and flowers, dining in evening dress and sparkling jewels.
Reaching the station, he inquired about a train to Darley, and was told that one left at midnight. He decided to take it, and in the mean time he would have nothing to occupy him. He was not hungry; the travel and worry had killed his appetite; but he went into a little café across the street from the depot and ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He drank the coffee at a gulp, but the food seemed to stick in his throat. After this he went into the waiting-room, which was thronged with tired women holding babies in their arms, and roughly clad emigrants with packs and oil-cloth bags. He sat in one of the iron-armed seats without moving till he heard his train announced, and then he went into the smoking-car and sat down in a corner.
He reached Darley at half-past three in the morning and went to the only hotel in the place. The sleepy night-clerk rose from his lounge behind the counter in the office and assigned him to a room to which a colored boy, vigorously rubbing his eyes, conducted him. Left alone in his room, he sat down on the edge of his bed and started to undress, but with a sigh he stopped.
“What's the use o' me lyin' down almost at daybreak?” he asked himself. “I mought as well be on the way home. I cayn't sleep nohow.”
Blowing out his lamp, he went down-stairs and roused the clerk again. “Will I have to pay fer that bed ef I don't use it?” he questioned.
“Why, no, Mr. Bishop,” said the clerk.
“Well, I believe I 'll start out home.”
“Is your team in town?” asked the clerk.
“The team I'm a-goin' to use is. I'm goin' to foot it. I've done the like before this.”
“Well, it's a purty tough stretch,” smiled the clerk. “But the roads are good.”
9035
T was a little after sunrise; the family had just left the breakfast-table when Bishop walked in; his shoes and trousers were damp with dew and covered with the dust of the road. His wife saw him entering the gate and called out to him from the hall:
“Well, I declare! Didn't you go to Atlanta?”
He came slowly up the steps, dragging his feet after him. He had the appearance of a man beaten by every storm that could fall upon a human being.
“Yes, I went,” he said, doggedly. He passed her and went into the sitting-room, where his brother-inlaw stood at the fireplace lighting his pipe with a live coal of fire on the tip of a stick. Abner Daniel looked at him critically, his brows raised a little as he puffed, but he said nothing. Mrs. Bishop came in behind her husband, sweeping him from head to foot with her searching eyes.
“You don't mean to tell me you walked out heer this mornin',” she cried. “Lord have mercy!”
“I don't know as I've prepared any set speech on the subject,” said her husband, testily; “but I walked. I could 'a' gone to a livery an' ordered out a team, but I believe thar's more'n one way o' wearin' sackcloth an' ashes, an' the sooner I begin the better I 'll feel.” Abner Daniel winked; the scriptural allusion appealed to his fancy, and he smiled impulsively.
“That thar is,” he said. “Thar's a whole way an' a half way. Some folks jest wear it next to the skin whar it don't show, with broadcloth ur silk on the outside. They think ef it scratches a little that 'll satisfy the Lord an' hoodwink other folks. But I believe He meant it to be whole hog or none.”
Mrs. Bishop was deaf to this philosophy. “I don't see,” she said, in her own field of reflection—“I don't see, I say, how you got to Atlanta; attended to business; seed Adele; an' got back heer at sunrise. Why, Alfred—”
But Bishop interrupted her. “Have you all had prayers yet?”
“No, you know we hain't,” said his wife, wondering over his strange manner. “I reckon it can pass jest this once, bein' as you are tired an' hain't had nothin' to eat.”
“No, it can't pass, nuther; I don't want to touch a mouthful; tell the rest of 'em to come in, an' you fetch me the Book.”
“Well!” Mrs. Bishop went out and told the negro woman and her daughter to stop washing the dishes and go in to prayer. Then she hurried out to the back porch, where Alan was oiling his gun.
“Something's happened to yore pa,” she said. “He acts queer, an' says sech strange things. He walked all the way from Darley this morning, an' now wants to have prayers 'fore he touches a bite o' breakfast. I reckon we are ruined.”
“I'm afraid that's it,” opined her son, as he put down his gun and followed her into the sitting-room. Here the two negroes stood against the wall. Abner Daniel was smoking and Bishop held the big family Bible on his quivering knees.
“Ef you mean to keep it up,” Abner was saying, argumentatively, “all right an' good; but I don't believe in sudden spurts o' worship. My hosses is hitched up ready to haul a load o' bark to the tannery, an' it may throw me a little late at dinner; but ef you are a-goin' to make a daily business of it I'm with you.”
“I'm a-goin' to be regular from now on,” said Bishop, slowly turning the leaves of the tome. “I forgot whar I read last.”
“You didn't finish about Samson tyin' all them foxes' tails together,” said Abner Daniel, as he knocked the hot ashes from his pipe into the palm of his hand and tossed them into the chimney. “That sorter interested me. I wondered how that was a-goin' to end. I'd hate to have a passle o' foxes with torches to the'r tails turned loose in my wheat jest 'fore cuttin' time. It must 'a' been a sight. I wondered how that was a-goin' to end.”
“You 'll wonder howyo'rea-goin' to end if you don't be more respectful,” said his sister.
“Like the foxes, I reckon,” grinned Abner, “with a eternal torch tied to me. Well, ef I am treated that away, I 'll go into the business o' destruction an' set fire to everything I run across.”
“Ain' t you goin' to tell us what you did in Atlanta 'fore you have prayer?” asked Mrs. Bishop, almost resentfully.
“No, I hain't!” Bishop snapped. “I 'll tell you soon enough. I reckon I won't read this mornin'; let's pray.”
They all knelt reverently, and yet with some curiosity, for Bishop often suited his prayers to important occasions, and it struck them that he might now allude to the subject bound up within him.
“Lord, God Almighty,” he began, his lower lip hanging and quivering, as were his hands clasped in the seat of his chair, “Thou knowest the struggle Thy creatures are makin' on the face of Thy green globe to live up to the best of the'r lights an' standards. As I bend before Thee this mornin' I realize how small a bein' I am in Thy sight, an' that I ort to bow in humble submission to Thy will, an' I do. For many yeers this family has enjoyed Thy bounteous blessings. We've had good health, an' the influence of a Bible-readin', God-fearin' community, an' our childern has been educated in a way that raised 'em head an' shoulders above many o' the'r associates an' even blood kin. I don't know exactly whar an' how I've sinned; but I know I have displeased Thee, fer Thy scourge has fallen hard an' heavy on my ambitions. I wanted to see my boy heer, a good, obedient son, an' my daughter thar in Atlanta, able to hold the'r heads up among the folks they mix with, an' so I reached out. Maybe it was forbidden fruit helt out by a snake in the devil's service. I don't know—Thou knowest. Anyways, I steered my course out o' the calm waters o' content an' peace o' soul into the whirlpool rapids o' avarice an' greed. I'lowed I was in a safe haven an' didn't dream o' the storm-clouds hangin' over me till they bust in fury on my head. Now, Lord, my Father, give them hearts of patience an' forgiveness fer the blunders of Thy servant. What I done, I done in the bull-headed way that I've always done things; but I meant good an' not harm. These things we ask in the name o' Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord an' Master. Amen.”
During the latter part of the prayer Mrs. Bishop had been staring at her husband through her parted fingers, her face pale and agitated, and as she rose her eyes were glued to his face.
“Now, Alfred,” she said, “what are you goin' to tell us about the railroad? Is it as bad as brother Ab thought it would be?”
Bishop hesitated. It seemed as if he had even then to tear himself from the clutch of his natural stubbornness. He looked into all the anxious, waiting faces before he spoke, and then he gave in.
“Ab made a good guess. Ef I'd 'a' had his sense, or Alan' s, I'd 'a' made a better trader. It's like Ab said it was, only a sight wuss—a powerful sight wuss!”
“Wuss?” gasped his wife, In fresh alarm. “How could it be wuss? Why, brother Ab said—”
“I never have told you the extent o' my draim's,” went on Bishop in the current of confession. “I never even told Perkins yesterday. Fust an' last I've managed to rake in fully twenty thousand acres o' mountain-land. I was goin' on what I'lowed was a dead-shore thing. I secured all I could lay my hands on, an' I did it in secret. I was afeerd even to tell you about what Perkins said, thinkin' it mought leak out an' sp'ile my chances.”
“But, father,” said Alan, “you didn't have enough money to buy all that land.”
“I got it up”—Bishop's face was doggedly pale, almost defiant of his overwhelming disaster—“I mortgaged this farm to get money to buy Maybry and Morton's four thousand acres.”
“The farm you was going to deed to Alan?” gasped his wife. “You didn't include that?”
“Not inthatdeal,” groaned Bishop. “I swapped that to Phil Parsons fer his poplar an' cypress belt.” The words seemed to cut raspingly into the silence of the big room. Abner Daniel was the only one who seemed unmoved by the confession. He filled his pipe from the bowl on the mantel-piece and pressed the tobacco down with his forefinger; then he kicked the ashes in the chimney till he uncovered a small five coal. He eyed it for a moment, then dipped it up in the shovel, rolled it into his pipe, and began to smoke.
“So I ain't a-goin' to git no yeerly pass over the new road,” he said, his object being to draw his brother-in-law back to Perkins's action in the matter.
“Perkins was a-lyin' to me,” answered Bishop. “He hain't admitted it yet; but he was a-lyin'. His object was to he'p the Tompkins sell out fer a decent price, but he can' t be handled; he's got me on the hip.”
“No,” said Abner. “I'd ruther keep on swappin' gold dollars fer mountain-land an' lettin' it go fer taxes 'an to try to beat a lawyer at his own game. A court-house is like the devil's abode, easy to git into, no outlet, an' nothin' but scorch while you are thar.”
“Hush, fer the name o' goodness!” cried Mrs. Bishop, looking at her husband. “Don't you see he's dyin' from it? Are you all a-goin' to kill 'im? What does a few acres o' land ur debts amount to beside killin' a man 'at's been tryin' to help us all? Alfred, it ain't so mighty awful. You know it ain't! What did me 'n' you have when we started out but a log-house boarded up on the outside? an' now we've got our childern educated an' all of us in good health. I railly believe it's a sin agin God's mercy fer us to moan an' fret under a thing like this.”
“That's the talk,” exclaimed Abner Daniel, enthusiastically. “Now you are gittin' down to brass tacks. I've always contended—”
“For God's sake, don't talk that way!” said Bishop to his wife. “You don't mean a word of it. You are jest a-sayin' it to try to keep me from seein' what a fool I am.”
“You needn't worry about me, father,” said Alan, firmly. “I am able to look out for myself an' for you and mother. It's done, and the best thing to do is to look at it in a sensible way. Besides, a man with twenty thousand acres of mountain-land paid for is not broken, by a long jump.”
“Yes, I'm gone,” said Bishop, a wavering look of gratitude in his eye as he turned to his son. “I figured on it all last night. I can't pay the heavy interest an' come out. I was playin' for big stakes an' got left. Thar's nothin' to do but give up. Me buyin' so much land has made it rise a little, but when I begin to try to sell I won't be able to give it away.”
“Thar's some'n in that,” opined Abner Daniel, as he turned to leave the room. “I reckon I mought as well go haul that tan-bark. I reckon you won't move out 'fore dinner.”
Alan followed him out to the wagon.
“It's pretty tough, Uncle Ab,” he said. “I hadn't the slightest idea it was so bad.”
“I wasn't so shore,” said Daniel. “But I was jest a-thinkin' in thar. You've got a powerful good friend in Rayburn Miller. He's the sharpest speculator in North Georgia; ef I was you, I'd see him an' lay the whole thing before him. He 'll be able to give you good advice, an' I'd take it. A feller that's made as much money as he has at his age won't give a friend bad advice.”
“I thought of him,” said Alan; “but I am a little afraid he will think we want to borrow money, and he never lets out a cent without the best security.”
“Well, you needn't be afeerd on that score,” laughed the old man, as he reached up on the high wagon-seat for his whip. “I once heerd 'im say that business an' friendship wouldn't mix any better'n oil an' water.”
9042
HE following Saturday Alan went to Darley, as he frequently did, to spend Sunday. On such visits he usually stayed at the Johnston House, a great, old-fashioned brick building that had survived the Civil War and remained untouched by the shot and shell that hurtled over it during that dismal period when most of the population had “refugeed farther south.” It had four stories, and was too big for the town, which could boast of only two thousand inhabitants, one-third of whom were black. However, the smallness of the town was in the hotel's favor, for in a place where no one would have patronized a second-class hotel, opposition would have died a natural death. The genial proprietor and his family were of the best blood, and the Johnston House was a sort of social club-house, where the church people held their affairs and the less serious element gave dances. To be admitted to the hotel without having to pay for one's dinner was the hallmark of social approval. It was near the ancient-looking brick car-shed under which the trains of two main lines ran, and a long freight warehouse of the same date and architecture. Around the hotel were clustered the chief financial enterprises of the town—its stores, post-office, banks, and a hall for theatrical purposes. Darley was the seat of its county, and another relic of the days before the war was its court house. The principal sidewalks were paved with brick, which in places were damp and green, and sometimes raised above their common level by the undergrowing roots of the sycamore-trees that edged the streets.
In the office of the hotel, just after registering his name, Alan met his friend Rayburn Miller, for whose business ability, it may be remembered, Abner Daniel had such high regard. He was a fine-looking man of thirty-three, tall and of athletic build; he had dark eyes and hair, and a ruddy, out-door complexion.
“Hello,” he said, cordially. “I thought you might get in to-day, so I came round to see. Sorry you've taken a room. I wanted you to sleep with me to-night. Sister's gone, and no one is there but the cook. Hello, I must be careful. I'm drumming for business right under Sanford's nose.”
“I 'll make you stay with me to make up for it,” said Alan, as the clerk behind the counter laughed good-naturedly over the allusion to himself.
“Blamed if I don't think about it,” said Miller. “Come round to the office. I want to talk to you. I reckon you've got every plough going such weather as this.”
“Took my horse out of the field to drive over,” said Alan, as they went out and turned down to a side street where there was a row of law offices, all two-roomed buildings, single-storied, built of brick, and bearing battered tin signs. One of these buildings was Miller's, which, like all its fellows, had its door wide open, thus inviting all the lawyers in the “row” and all students of law to enter and borrow books or use the ever-open desk.
Rayburn Miller was a man among ten thousand in his class. Just after being graduated at the State University he was admitted to the bar and took up the practice of law. He could undoubtedly have made his way at this alone, had not other and more absorbing talents developed within him. Having had a few thousand dollars left him at his father's death, he began to utilize this capital in “note shaving,” and other methods of turning over money for a handsome profit furnished by the unsettled conditions, the time, and locality. He soon became an adept in many lines of speculation, and as he was remarkably shrewd and cautious, it is not to be wondered at that he soon accumulated quite a fortune.
“Take a seat,” he said to Alan, as they went into the office, and he threw himself into the revolving-chair at his littered desk. “I want to talk to you. I suppose you are in for some fun. The boys are getting up a dance at the hotel and they want your dollar to help pay the band. It's a good one this time. They've ordered it from Chattanooga. It will be down on the seven-thirty-five. Got a match?”
Alan had not, and Miller turned his head to the open door. An old negro happened to be passing, with an axe on his shoulder.
“Heigh, there, Uncle Ned!” Miller called out.
The negro had passed, but he heard his name called and he came back and looked in at the door.
“Want me, Marse Rayburn?”
“Yes, you old scamp; get me a match or I 'll shoot the top of your head off.”
“All right, suh; all right, Marse Rayburn!”
“You ought to know him,” said Miller, with a smile, as the negro hurried into the adjoining office. “His wife cooks for Colonel Barclay; he might tell you if Miss Dolly's going to-night, but I know she is. Frank Hillhouse checked her name off the list, and I heard him say she'd accepted. By-the-way, that fellow will do to watch. I think he and the Colonel are pretty thick.”
“Will you never let up on that?” Alan asked with a flush.
“I don't know that I shall,” laughed Rayburn. “It seems so funny to see you in love, or, rather, to see you think you are.”
“I have never said I was,” said Alan, sharply.
“But you show it so blamed plain,” said Miller.
“Heer 'tis, Marse Rayburn. Marse Trabue said you could have a whole box ef you'd put up wid sulphur ones.”
Miller took the matches from the outstretched hand and tossed a cigar to Alan. “Say, Uncle Ned,” he asked, “do you know that gentleman?” indicating Alan with a nod of his head.
A quizzical look dawned in the old negro's eyes, and then he gave a resounding guffaw and shook all over.
“I reckon I know his hoss, Marse Rayburn,” he tittered.
“That's a good one on you, Alan,” laughed Miller. “He knows your 'hoss.'I 'll have to spring that on you when I see you two together.”
As the negro left the office Mr. Trabue leaned in the doorway, holding his battered silk hat in his hand and mopping his perspiring face.
He nodded to Alan, and said to Miller: “Do you want to write?”
“Not any more for you, thanks,” said Miller. “I have the back-ache now from those depositions I made out for you yesterday.”
“Oh, I don't mean that,” the old lawyer assured him, “but I had to borrow yore ink just now, and seein' you at yore desk I thought you might need it.”
“Oh, if I do,” jested Miller, “I can buy another bottle at the book-store. They pay me a commission on the ink I furnish the row. They let me have it cheap by the case. What stumps me is that you looked in to see if I needed it. You are breaking the rule, Mr. Trabue. They generally make me hunt for my office furniture when I need it. They've borrowed everything I have except my iron safe. Their ignorance of the combination, its weight, and their confirmed laziness is all that saved it.”
When the old lawyer had gone the two friends sat and smoked in silence for several minutes. Alan was studying Miller's face. Something told him that the news of his father's disaster had reached him, and that Miller was going to speak of it. He was not mistaken, for the lawyer soon broached the subject.
“I've been intending to ride out to see you almost every day this week,” he said, “but business has always prevented my leaving town.”
“Then you have heard—”
“Yes, Alan, I'm sorry, but it's all over the country. A man's bad luck spreads as fast as good war news. I heard it the next day after your father returned from Atlanta, and saw the whole thing in a flash. The truth is, Perkins had the cheek to try his scheme on me. I'm the first target of every scoundrel who has something to sell, and I've learned many of their tricks. I didn't listen to all he had to say, but got rid of him as soon as I could. You must not blame the old man. As I see it now, it was a most plausible scheme, and the shame of it is that no one can be handled for it. I don't think the Tompkins heirs knew anything of Perkins's plans at all, except that he was to get a commission, perhaps, if the property was sold. Trabue is innocent, too—a cat's-paw. As for Perkins, he has kept his skirts clear of prosecution. Your father will have to grin and bear it. He really didn't pay a fabulous price for the land, and if he were in a condition to hold on to it for, say, twenty-five years, he might not lose money; but who can do that sort of thing? I have acres and acres of mountain-land offered me at a much lower figure, but what little money I've made has been made by turning my capital rapidly. Have you seen Dolly since it happened?”
“No, not for two weeks,” replied Alan. “I went to church with her Sunday before last, and have not seen her since. I was wondering if she had heard about it.”
“Oh yes; she's heard it from the Colonel. It may surprise you, but the thing has rubbed him the wrong way.”
“Why, I don't understand,” exclaimed Alan. “Has he—”
“The old man has had about two thousand acres of land over near your father's purchases, and it seems that he was closely watching all your father's deals, and, in spite of his judgment to the contrary, Mr. Bishop's confidence in that sort of real-estate has made him put a higher valuation on his holdings over there. So you see, now that your father's mistake is common talk, he is forced to realize a big slump, and he wants to blame some one for it. I don't know but that your father or some one else made him an offer for his land which he refused. So you see it is only natural for him to be disgruntled.”
“I see,” said Alan. “I reckon you heard that from Miss Dolly?”
Miller smoked slowly.
“Yes”—after a pause—“I dropped in there night before last and she told me about it. She's not one of your surface creatures. She talks sensibly on all sorts of subjects. Of course, she's not going to show her heart to me, but she couldn't hide the fact that your trouble was worrying her a good deal. I think she'd like to see you at the ball to-night. Frank Hillhouse will give you a dance or two. He's going to be hard to beat. He's the most attentive fellow I ever run across. He's got a new buggy—a regular hug-me-tight—and a high-stepping Kentucky mare for the summer campaign. He 'll have some money at his father's death, and all the old women say he's the best catch in town because he doesn't drink, has a Sunday-school class, and will have money. We are all going to wear evening-suits to-night. There are some girls from Rome visiting Hattie Alexander, and we don't want them to smell hay in our hair. You know how the boys are; unless all of us wear spike-tails no one will, so we took a vote on it and we 'll be on a big dike. There 'll be a devilish lot of misfits. Those who haven't suits are borrowing in all directions. Frank Buford will rig out in Colonel Day's antebellum toggery. Did you bring yours?”
“It happens to be at Parker's shop, being pressed,” said Alan.
“I've had three in the last six years,” laughed Miller. “You know how much larger Todd Selman is than I am; he bursted one of mine from collar to waist last summer at the Springs, and sweated so much that you could dust salt out of it for a month afterwards. I can't refuse 'em, God bless 'em! Jeff Higgins married in my best Prince Albert last week and spilled boiled custard on it; but he's got a good wife and a fair job on a railroad in Tennessee now. I'd have given him the coat, but he'd never have accepted it, and been mad the rest of his life at my offer. Parker said somebody had tried to scrape the custard off with a sharp knife, and that he had a lot of trouble cleaning it. I wore the coat yesterday and felt like I was going to be married. Todd must have left some of his shivers in it I reckon that's as near as I 'll ever come to the hitching-post.”
Just then a tall, thin man entered. He wore a rather threadbare frock-coat, unevenly bound with braid, and had a sallow, sunken, and rather long face. It was Samuel Craig, one of the two private bankers of the town. He was about sixty years of age and had a pronounced stoop.
“Hello!” he said, pleasantly; “you young bloods are a-goin' to play smash with the gals' hearts to-night, I reckon. I say go it while you are young. Rayburn, I want to get one of them iron-clad mortgage-blanks. I've got a feller that is disposed to wiggle, an' I want to tie 'im up. The inventor of that form is a blessing to mankind.”
“Help yourself,” smiled Miller. “I was just telling Mr. Trabue that I was running a stationery store, and if I was out of anything in the line I'd order it for him.”
The banker laughed good-humoredly as he selected several of the blanks from the drawer Rayburn had opened in the desk.
“I hope you won't complain as much of hard times as Jake Pitner does,” he chuckled. “I passed his store the other day, where he was standin' over some old magazines that he'd marked down.
“'How's trade?' I asked 'im. 'It's gone clean to hell,' he said, and I noticed he'd been drinking. 'I 'll give you a sample of my customers,' he went on. 'A feller from the mountains come in jest now an' asked the price of these magazines. I told him the regular price was twenty-five cents apiece, but I'd marked 'em down to five. He looked at 'em for about half a hour an' then said he wasn't goin' out o' town till sundown an' believed he'd take one if I'd read it to him.'”
Craig laughed heartily as he finished the story, and Alan and Miller joined in.
“I want you to remember that yarn when you get to over-checkin' on me,” said Craig, jestingly. “I was just noticing this morning that you have drawn more than your deposit.”
“Over-checked?” said Miller. “You 'll think I have when all my checks get in. I mailed a dozen to-day. They 'll slide in on you in about a week and you 'll telegraphBradstreet'sto know how I stand. This is afinebanker,” Miller went on to Alan. “He twits me about over-checking occasionally. Let me tell you something. Last year I happened to have ten thousand dollars on my hands waiting for a cotton factory to begin operations down in Alabama, and as I had no idea when the money would be called for I placed it with his nibs here 'on call.'Things got in a tangle at the mill and they kept waiting, and our friend here concluded I had given it to him.”
“I thought you had forgotten you had it,” said Craig, with another of his loud, infectious laughs.
“Anyway,” went on Miller, “I got a sudden order for the amount and ran in on him on my way from the post-office. I made out my check and stuck it under his nose. Great Scott! you ought to have seen him wilt. I don't believe he had half of it in the house, but he had ten million excuses. He kept me waiting two days and hustled around to beat the band. He thought I was going to close him up.”
“That was a close shave,” admitted Craig. “Never mind about the over-checking, my boy; keep it up, if it will help you. You are doing altogether too much business with the other bank to suit me, anyway.”