leaves
"I WISH the Doctor would stop in," said Caleb, in a manner as casual as if his first call that morning had not been on Doctor and Mrs. Taggess, whom he told of the new arrivals, declaring that Philip and Grace were "about as nice as the best, 'specially her, an' powerful in need of a cheerin' up," and begging Mrs. Taggess to invite Grace to midday dinner at once, so that Philip might be free to prepare his surprise for Grace.
"The Doctor?" Grace echoed. "Why, Mr. Wright, which of us looks ill?"
"Neither one nor t'other, at present," Caleb replied; "but this country's full of malary, an' forewarned is forearmed. Besides, our doctor's the kind to do your heart good, an' his wife's just like him. They're good an' clever, an' hearty, an' sociable, an' up to snuff in gen'ral.Fact is, they're the salt of the earth, or to as much of it as knows 'em. Sometimes I think that Claybanks an' the round-about country would kind o' decay an' disappear if it wasn't for Doc Taggess an' his wife. Doc's had good chances to go to the city, for he's done some great cures that's got in the medical papers, but here he stays. He don't charge high, an' a good deal of the time it don't do him no good to charge, but here he sticks—says he knows all the people an' their constitutions, an' so on, an' a new doctor might let some folks die while he was learnin' the ropes, so to speak. How's that for a genuine man?"
"First-rate," said Philip, and Grace assented. Caleb continued to tell of the Doctor's good qualities, and suddenly said:—
"Speak of angels, an' you hear their buggy-wheels, an' the driver hollerin' 'Whoa!' I think I just heard the Doctor say it, out in front."
A middle-aged couple bustled into the store; Grace hastily consulted a small mirror in the back room, and Caleb whispered to Philip:—
"If they ask you folks to ride or do anythin',let your wife go, an' you make an excuse to stay. There's a powerful lot of your New York stuff to be fixed, if you expect to do it to-day. Come along! Doctor an' Mrs. Taggess, this is my new boss, an' here comes his wife."
"Glad to meet you," said the Doctor, a man of large, rugged, earnest face, extending a hand to each.
Mrs. Taggess, who was a motherly-looking woman, exclaimed to Grace:—
"You poor child, how lonesome you must feel! So far from your home!"
"Oh, no,—only the length of the store-yard," Grace replied.
"Eh? Brave girl!" said the Doctor. "That's the sort of spirit to have in a new country, if you want to be happy. Well, I can't stop more than a minute,—I've a patient to see in the back street. I understand you're stopping at the hotel, and as, for the reputation of the town, we shouldn't like you to get a violent attack of indigestion the first day, we came down to ask you to dine with us at twelve. Mrs. Somerton can ride up now and visit withmy wife, and her husband can come up when he will. Caleb can give him the direction."
"So kind of you!" murmured Grace, and Philip said:—
"I shall be under everlasting obligations to you for giving my wife a view of some better interior than that of a store or that dismal hotel, but I daren't leave to-day. Caleb has arranged for several men to see me."
"Well, well, I'll catch you some other day," said the Doctor. "I must be going; hope you'll find business as brisk as I do. You may be sure that Mrs. Taggess will take good care of your wife, and see that she gets safely back. Good day. I'll drop in once in a while. Hope to know you better. I make no charge for social calls."
So it came to pass that within ten minutes Philip was furnishing his new home with the contents of the old. The possible contents of a New York flat for two are small, at best; yet as each bit of furniture, upholstery, and bric-à-brac was placed in position in the Jethro Somerton house, the plain rooms looked less bare, so Philip was correspondingly elated.True, he had to use ordinary iron nails to hang his pictures, and was in desperation for some moments for lack of rods for portières and curtains, but he supplied their places with rake-handles from the store and rested them in meat-hooks. He worked so long, and hurried so often into the store for one makeshift after another, that Caleb became excited and peered through the windows of the store's back room at his first opportunity, just in time to see the upright piano moved in. Unable to endure the strain of curiosity any longer, he quickly devised an excuse, in the shape of a cup of coffee and some buttered toast, all made at the stove in the back room of the store. Coaxing a trustworthy but lounging customer to "mind store" for him a minute or two, Caleb put the refreshments in a covered box and timed himself to meet Philip as the latter emerged from the warehouse with an armful of books.
"Didn't want to disturb you, but seein' that you let the hotel dinner-hour pass an' was workin' hard, I thought mebbe a little snack" (here Caleb lifted the lid of the box) "'d find its way to the right place."
"Mr. Wright, you're a trump! Would you mind bringing it into the house for me, my hands being full?"
"Don't want to intrude."
"Nonsense! Aren't we friends? If not, we're going to be. Besides, I really want some one to rejoice with me over the surprise I'm going to give my wife. Come right in. Drop the box on this table."
"Well!" exclaimed Caleb, after a long suspiration, "I reckon I done that just in time! A second more, an' I'd ha' dropped the hull thing on this carpet—or is it a shawl? Why, 'taint the same place at all! Je-ru-salem! What would your Uncle Jethro say if he could look in a minute? Reckon he'd want to come back an' stay. I dunno's I ought to have said that, though, for I've always b'lieved he was among the saved, an' of course your house ain't better'n heaven, but—"
"But 'twill be heaven to my wife and me," said Philip.
"Well, I reckon homes was invented 'specially to prepare folks for heaven,—or t'other place, 'cordin' to the folks."
"Come into the parlor," said Philip, toast and coffee in hand. For a moment or two Caleb stood speechless in the doorway; then he said:—
"Je-ru-salem! This reminds me to take off my hat. Why, I s'posed you folks wasn't over-an'-above well fixed in the city, but this is a palace!"
"Not quite," said Philip, although delighted by Caleb's comments. "Thousands of quiet young couples in New York have prettier parlors than this."
"I want to know!" Then Caleb sighed. "I reckon that's why young people that go there from the country never come home again. I've knowed a lot of 'em that I'd like to see once more. Hello! I reckon that's a pianner; I've seen pictures of 'em in advertisements. A firm in the city once wanted your uncle to take the county agency for pianners." Caleb laughed almost convulsively as he continued, "Ye ort to have seen Jethro's face when he read that letter!"
"Do you mean to say that there are no pianos in this county?" asked Philip.
"I just do. But there once was an organ. Squire Pease, out in Hick'ry Township, bought one two or three years ago for his gals. He was runnin' for sheriff then, an' thought somethin' so new an' startlin' might look like a sign of public spirit, an' draw him some votes. But somehow his gals didn't get the hang of it, an' the noises it made always set visitors' dogs to howlin', an' to tryin' to get into the house an' kill the varmint, whatever it was, an' Pease's dogs tried to down the visitors' dogs, an' that made bad feelin'; so Pease traded the organ to a pedler for a patent corn-planter, an' he didn't get 'lected sheriff, either. I allers reckoned that ef anybody'd knowed how to play on it, that organ might ha' been a means of grace in these parts, for I've knowed a nigger's fiddle to stop a drunken fight that was too much for the sheriff an' his posse." Caleb looked the piano over as if it were a horse on sale, and continued:—
"Don't seem to work with a crank."
"Oh, no," replied Philip, placing a chair in front of the instrument and seating himself. "This is the method." He indulged in two orthree "runs," and then, with his heart on Grace, he dashed into the music dearest to him and his wife—perhaps because it was not played at their own very quiet marriage,—the Mendelssohn Wedding March.
"Je-ru-salem!" exclaimed Caleb. "That's a hair-lifter! What a blessin' such a machine must be to a man that knows the tunes!"
Rightly construing this remark as an indication that Caleb longed to hear music with which he was acquainted, Philip searched his memory for familiar music of the days when he was a country boy, and which would therefore be recognized by Caleb. Suddenly he recalled an air very dear to several religious denominations, although it has been dropped from almost all modern hymnals, probably because its vivacity, repetitions, and its inevitable suggestion of runs and variations had made it seem absolutely indecorous to ears that were fastidious as well as religious. Philip had heard it played (by request) as a quick march, by a famous brass band, at the return of troops from a soldier's funeral in New York; so, after playing a few bars of it softly, he tried to recall and imitatethe march effect. He succeeded so well that soon he was surprised to see Caleb himself, an ex-soldier, striding to and fro, singing the hymn beginning:—
"Am I a soldier of the Cross?"
When Philip stopped, Caleb shouted:—
"Three cheers for the gospel! Say! I wish—"
"Well?"
"Never mind," replied Caleb. "I was only thinkin' that if our church could hear that, there'd be an almighty revival of religion. Reckon I'd better git back to the store. Say, you've been so full of palace-makin' that you've let the fires go out. I'll just load 'em up again for you; afterwards, if you chance to think of 'em, there's lots of good dry hick'ry in the woodshed, right behind the kitchen."
Philip continued to make hurried dashes into the store for necessities and makeshifts. When finally he entered for candles, Caleb remarked:—
"I'll call you in when your wife comes; but if you don't want her to smell a rat, you'd better shut the front shutters. There's already been people hangin' on the fence, lookin' at themlace fixin's in the winders, an' women are powerful observin'. An' say, here's a new tea-kettle, full of water; better set it on the kitchen stove. Pianners are splendid,—I never would have believed there could be anythin' like 'em,—but the singin' of a tea-kettle's got a powerful grip on most women's ears. I didn't see no ev'ryday dishes among your things. Don't you want some?"
Philip thought he did not, and he hurried to the house. He was soon summoned to the store, and through the coming darkness of the sunset hour he saw at the back door his wife, who said:—
"Oh, Phil! Mrs. Taggess is the dearest woman! We were of the same age before I'd been with her an hour."
"Eh? You don't look a moment older."
"But she looked twenty years younger. When she's animated, she—oh, I never saw such a complexion."
"Not even in your mirror?"
"No, you silly dear! And her home is real cosey. There's nothing showy or expensive in it; but if ever I get homesick, I'm going tohurry up there, even if the mud is a foot deep."
"Good! Perhaps you got some ideas of how to fix up our own dismal barn of a house. Come down and look about it once more."
Together they started. As they reached the front door, and Philip threw it open, Caleb, with his eye at the back window of the store, saw Grace stop and toss up her hands. As the door closed, Caleb jumped up and down, and afterward said to himself:—
"There are times when I wish, church or no church, that I'd learned how to dance."
"Phil! Phil! Phil!" exclaimed Grace, dashing from one room to another, all of which were as well lighted as candles could make them. "How did you?—how could you? No woman could have done better! Oh! home!—home!—home! And a few hours ago, right here, I was the most disheartened, rebellious, wicked woman in the world! Come here to me—this instant!"
There are times when manly obedience is a natural virtue. For a few moments a single easy chair was large enough for the couple,who laughed, and cried, and otherwise comported themselves very much as any other healthy and affectionate couple might have done in similar circumstances. A knock at the door recalled them to the world.
"Don't like to disturb you," said Caleb, "but Doc Taggess has dropped in again an' asked for Mr. Somerton, an' as his time's not all his own, mebbe you'd—"
"Do tell him how I enjoyed my day with his wife," said Grace. "I tried to, when he brought me down, but I don't feel that I said half enough."
Philip hurried to the store; Caleb lingered and said to Grace:—
"Reckon you've had a little s'prise, hain't you? Your husband showed me 'round a little."
"Little surprise? Oh, Mr. Wright! 'Twas the greatest, dearest surprise of my life. But 'twas just like Phil; he's the thoughtfullest, smartest man in the world."
"Is, eh? Well, stick to that, an' you'll always be happy, even if you should chance to be mistaken. But say,—'what's sauce forthe goose is sauce for the gander,' as I reckon you've heard. Don't you want to give your husband a pleasant s'prise?"
"Oh, don't I!"
"Well, I'm kind o' feared to ask you, after seein' all these fine things; but you said you was brought up in the country. Can you cook?"
"Indeed I can! I've cooked all our meals at home since we were married—except those that Phil prepared."
"Good! Well, there's self-raisin' flour an' all sorts o' groceries in the store, an' eggs an' butter in the store cellar, an' alongside of the warehouse there's an ice-house, with three or four kinds o' meat. We have to take all sorts o' things in trade from country customers, an' some of 'em won't keep without ice. Now, if you was to s'prise your husband with a home-made supper, he wouldn't have to go down to the hotel, an' mebbe your own heart wouldn't break not to have to eat down there again."
"Oh, Mr. Wright! You're a genius! I wonder whether I could manage the kitchen stove."
"Best way to find out's to take a look at it."
Grace followed the suggestion. Caleb explained the draught and dampers, and took Grace's orders, saying, as he departed:—
"Doc'll keep him in the store till I get back,—that's what he's there for,—an' I'll keep him afterwards. When you want him, pull this rope: it starts an alarm in my room, over the store, an' I'll hear it."
Doctor Taggess gave Philip some health counsel, at great length. Claybanks and the surrounding country was very malarious, he said, and newcomers, especially healthy young people from the East, could not be too careful about diet, dress, and general habits until entirely acclimatized. Then he got upon some of his hobbies, and Philip thought the conversation might be very entertaining if Grace and the new home were not within a moment's walk. No sooner had the Doctor departed than Caleb insisted on a decision regarding an account that was in dispute, because the debtor was likely to come in at any moment, and the matter was very important. He talkeddetails until Philip was almost crazed with impatience, but suddenly a muffled whir caused Caleb to say abruptly:—
"But it's better for him to suffer than for your wife to do it; an' if you don't be ready to start her for supper the minute the hotel bell rings, you won't get the best pickin's."
Philip escaped with great joy, and a minute later was in his new sitting room and staring in amazement at a neatly set table, with Grace at the head of it, and upon it an omelette, a filet of beef, some crisp fried potatoes, tea-biscuits, cake, and a pot of coffee. After seating himself and bowing his head a moment, he succeeded in saying:—
"'How did you?—how could you?' as you said to me."
"How could I help it," Grace replied, "after the delicate hint you left behind you,—the kettle boiling on the stove?"
"My dear girl, like little George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. Caleb was responsible for that tea-kettle; he brought it from the store, and said something poetical about the singing of a kettle being music to a woman's ear."
"Caleb did that?" exclaimed Grace, springing from her chair. "Set another place, please!" Then she dashed through the darkness, into the store, and exclaimed:—
"Mr. Wright, I shan't eat a single mouthful until you come down and join us. Lock the store—quick—before things get cold."
"Your word's law, I s'pose," said Caleb, locking the front door, "but—"
"'But me no buts,'" Grace said, taking his hand and making a true "home run." Caleb seated himself awkwardly, looked around him, and said:—
"Hope you asked a blessin' on all this?"
"I never ate a meal without one," Philip replied.
"Reckon you'll get along, then," said Caleb, looking relieved and engulfing half of a tea-biscuit.
leaves
PHILIP engaged a plumber from the nearest city and had one of his upper chambers transformed into a bath-room, and Caleb, by special permission, studied every detail of the work and went into so brown a study of the general subject that Philip informed Grace that either the malarial soaking, mentioned in Uncle Jethro's letter, had reached the point of saturation, or that the Confederate bullet had found a new byway in its meanderings.
But Caleb was not conscious of anything out of the usual—except the bath-room. By dint of curiosity and indirect questioning he learned that in New York Philip and his wife had bathed daily. Afterward he talked bathing with the occasional commercial travellers who reached Claybanks—men who seemed "well set up," despite some distinct signs of badhabits, and learned that men of affairs in the great city thought bathing quite as necessary as eating. He talked to Doctor Taggess on the subject, and was told in reply that, in the Doctor's opinion, cleanliness was not only next to godliness, but frequently an absolute prerequisite to cleanly longings and a clean life.
So one day, after a fortnight of self-abstraction, he announced to Philip that a bath-room ought to be regarded as a means of grace.
"Quite so," assented Philip, "but I wish it weren't so expensive at the start. Do you know what that bath-room, with its tank, pump, drain, etc., has cost? The bill amounts to about a hundred and fifty dollars, and it can't be charged to my account for six months, like most of our purchases for the store."
"That so?" drawled Caleb, carelessly, though in his heart he was delighted; for Philip had also engaged from the city a paper-hanger, and he had employed a local painter to do a lot of work; and Caleb, who knew the business ways of country stores, had trembled for the bills, yet doubted his right to speak of them. "Well, have you got the money to pay for it?"
"Yes, but not much more; and in the two weeks I've been here the store has taken in about forty dollars in cash."
"That's about it, I b'lieve. Well, realizin'-time is comin'; it's right at hand, in fact, an' I've wanted a chance to have a good long talk with you 'bout it. When I was a boy I used to lie on my back in the woods for hours at a time, catchin' backaches an' rheumatiz for the sake of watchin' the birds makin' their nests an' startin' their house-keepin'. Watchin' you an' your wife gettin' to rights has made me feel just like I did in them days—except for the backaches and rheumatiz. I wouldn't have pestered the birds for a hull farm, an' I hain't wanted to pester you, but the quicker you can give more 'tention to the business, the better 'twill be for your pocket."
"Why, Mr. Wright—"
"Call me Caleb, won't you? Ev'rybody else does, 'xcept you an' your wife, an' I can talk straighter when I ain't 'mistered.'"
"Thank you, good friend, for the permission. I'll take it, if you'll call me Philip."
"That's a bargain," said Caleb, with visiblesigns of relief. "Well, as I was sayin', the more time you can give the business, the better 'twill be for your pocket. Your uncle kept first place in this town an' county, an' you need to do the same, if you want to keep your mind easy about other things. I've said all sorts of good things about you to the customers, though I haven't stretched the truth an inch. They all think you bright, but you need to show 'em that you're sharp too, else they'll do their best to dull you. Business is business, you know; likewise, human nature's human nature."
"Correct! Go on."
"Well, I'm doin' my best to keep an eye on ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody, but I'm not boss. Besides, it took two of us to do it all when your uncle was alive, though he was about as smart as they make 'em. There's one thing you won't have no trouble about, an' that's beatin' down. This is the only strictly one-price store in the county, an' it saves lots o' time by keepin' away the slowest, naggiest traders. It might ha' kept away some good customers, too, if your uncle hadn't been a master hand at gettin' up new throw-ins."
"Throw-ins? What are they?"
"What? You brought up in the country, an' not know what a 'throw-in' is? Why, when a man buys somethin', he gen'rally says, 'What ye goin' to throw in?' That means, 'What are you goin' to give me for comin' here instead of buyin' somewhere else?' When it's stuff for clothes, there's no trouble, for any merchant throws in thread and buttons to make it up if it's men's goods, or thread an' hooks an' eyes if it's women's. Up at Bustpodder's store they throw in a drink o' whiskey whenever a man buys anythin' that costs a quarter or more, an' it draws lots o' trade; but your uncle never worked for drinkin' men's trade, unless for cash, so we've never kept liquor, but that made him all the keener to get other throw-ins. One year 'twas wooden pipes for men, an' little balls of gum-camphor for women. Then 'twas hair-ile for young men an' young women. Whatever 'twas, 'twas sure to be somethin' kind o' new, an' go-to-the-spotty. Shouldn't wonder if your wife, havin' been in a big store, might think of a lot o' new throw-ins for women-folks. But that's only a beginnin'."
"H'm! Now tell me everything I ought to do that I haven't been doing."
"Well, in the first place, when you meet a customer, you want to get a tight grip on him, somehow, 'fore he leaves. Then you want to get into your mind how much each one owes you, an' ask when he's goin' to begin to bring in his produce. None of the men on our books mean to be dishonest; but if you don't keep 'em in mind of their accounts at this time o' year, some of 'em may sell their stuff to somebody else for cash, an' country folks with cash in their pockets is likely to think more of what they'd like to buy than what they owe. I reckon, from some things I've heerd, that some city folks are that way too."
"Quite likely. Well?"
"Well, if say a dozen of your biggest country customers sell for cash an' don't bring you the money, you'll find yourself in a hole about your own bills, for some of your customers are on the books for three or four hundred apiece. Your uncle sold 'em all he could, for he knew their ways an' that he could bring 'em to time."
"H'm! Suppose they fail to pay after having been trusted a full year, isn't the law good for anything?"
"Oh, yes; but sue a customer an' you lose a customer, an' there ain't any too many in this county, at best. Now, your uncle made sure, before he died, about all of 'm whose principal crop was wheat; but the wheat's then brought in an' sold, an' most of the money for it, after his own bills were paid, was in the check the lawyers sent you. The rest of the customers raised mostly corn an' pork,—most gen'rally both, for the easiest way to get corn to market is to put it into pork; twenty bushels o' corn, weighin' over a thousan' poun's, makes two hundred pound o' pork, an' five times less haulin'; besides, pork's always good for cash, but sometimes you can't hardly give corn away. Queer about corn; lot's o' folks that's middlin' sensible about a good many things seems to think that corn's only fit to feed to hogs an' niggers. Why, some o' 'em's made me so touchy about it that I've took travellin' business men up into my room, over the store, an' give 'em a meal o' nothin' but corn an' pork,worked up in half a dozen ways, an' it seemed as if they couldn't eat enough, but I couldn't see that the price o' corn went up afterwards. I'd like to try a meal o' that kind on you an' your wife some day. If the world took as easy to corn when it's ground into meal as when it's turned into whiskey, this section o' country would get rich."
"I shouldn't wonder if it would. But what else?"
"Well, you must get a square up-an'-down promise from each o' your customers that their pork's to come to you, you promisin' to pay cash, at full market price, for all above the amount that's owed you. You must have the cash ready, too."
"But where am I to get it?"
"Why, out of the first pork you can get in an' ship East or South. You must be smart enough to coax some of 'em to do their killin' the first week the roads freeze hard enough to haul a full load. They'll all put it off, hopin' to put a few more pounds o' weight on each hog, an' that mebbe the price'll go up a little."
"But how am I to coax them?"
"Well, there's about as many ways as customers. I'll put you up to the nature of the men, as well as I can, an' help you other ways all I can, but you must do the rest; for, as I said before, you're boss, an' they're all takin' your measure, agin next year an' afterwards. As to ways o' coaxin',—well, the best is them that don't show on their face what they be. Your uncle held one slippery customer tight by pertendin' to be mighty fond o' the man's only son, who was the old fellow's idol. Your uncle got the boy a book once in a while, an' spent lots o' spare moments answerin' the youngster's questions, for your uncle knew a lot about a good many things. There was another customer that thought all money spent on women's clothes was money throwed away—p'raps 'twas 'cause his wife was more'n ordinary good-lookin', an' liked to show off. One year, in one of our goods boxes from the East, was a piece of silk dress-goods that would have put your eyes out. Black silk was the only kind that ever came here before, and it had always been satisfyin'. Next to plenty o' religion and gum-camphor, a black silk dress is what ev'ryself-respectin' woman in the county hankers for most. Well, your uncle never showed that blue an' white an' yaller an' purple an' red silk to nobody till about this time o' year; he told me not to, too, but one day, when the feller's wife was in town, an' warmin' her feet at the backroom stove, your uncle took that silk in there an' showed it, an' he see her eyes was a-devourin' it in less than a minute.
"'There's only enough of it for one dress,' said he, 'an' I ain't sure I could get any more like it. You're the style o' woman that would set it off, so you'd better take it before somebody else snaps it up.'
"'Take it?' said she, lookin' all ways to once; 'why, if I was to have that charged, my husband would go plum crazy, or else he'd send me to an asylum.'
"'Not a bit of it!' said your uncle. 'Tell you what I'll do; I'll lay that silk away, an' not show it to anybody till your husban' brings me in his pork an' we have our settlement. You come with him, an' I'll wrap up the silk for you, an' if he objects to payin' for it—oh, I know his ways, but I tell you right here, thatif he objects to payin' for it, I'll make you a present of it, an' you can lay all the blame on me, sayin' I pestered you so hard that you had to take it.' Well, your uncle got the pork; the wife gave the man no peace till he promised to fetch it here, an' she got the dress, an' her husband—Hawk Howlaway, his name was,—was so tickled that he told all the county how he got the best of old Jethro."
"Pretty good—for one year, if the dress didn't cost too much."
"It only cost seventy cents a yard, an' there was fifteen yards of it. The pork netted more'n four hundred dollars. But that wa'n't the end of it. The woman hadn't wore the dress to church but one Sunday when her husband came into the store one day an' hung 'round a spell, lookin' 'bout as uneasy as a sinner under conviction, an' at last he winked your uncle into the back room, an' says Howlaway, says he:—
"'Jethro, you've got me in a heap o' trouble, 'cause of that silk dress you loaded on to my wife. She looks an' acts as if my Sunday clothes wasn't good enough to show alongsideof it, an' other folks looks an' acts so too. So, Jethro, you've got to help me out. I've got to have some new clothes, an' they've got to be just so, or they won't do.' Your uncle said, 'All right,' an' got off a line from an advertisement in a city paper, about 'No fit, no pay.' Then he wrote to a city clothin' store for some samples of goods, an' for directions how to measure a man for a suit of clothes. Oh, he was a case, your uncle was; why, I do believe he'd ha' took an order from an angel for a new set of wing-feathers an' counted on gettin' the goods some way. I don't say he made light of it, though. I never see him so close-minded as he was for the next two weeks. One day I chaffed him a little about wastin' a lot o' time on a handsome hardware-goods drummer that hadn't much go, an' whose prices was too high anyway; but your uncle said:—
"'He's just about the height and build of Hawk Howlaway, an' he knows how to wear his clothes.' Then I knowed what was up. Well, to make a long story short, the clothes come, in the course o' time, and on an app'inted day Howlaway come too, lookin' about as wish-I-could-hideas a gal goin' to be married. Your uncle stuck up four lookin'-glasses on the back room wall, one over another, an' then he turned Howlaway loose in the room, with the clothes, an' a white shirt with cuffs an' collar on it, an' told him to lock himself in an' go to work, an' to pound on the door if he got into trouble. In about ten minutes he pounded, an' your uncle went in, an' Hawk was lookin' powerful cocky, though he said:—
"'There's somethin' that ain't quite right, though I don't know what 'tis.'
"'It's your hair—an' your beard,' said your uncle. 'Now, Hawk, you slip out o' them clothes, an' go down to Black Sam, that does barberin', an' tell him you want an all-round job: 't'll only cost a quarter. But wait a minute,' an' with that your uncle hurried into the store, took out of the cash-drawer a picture that he'd cut out of a paper that he'd been studyin' pretty hard for a week, took it back, an' said, 'Take this along, an' tell the barber it's about the style you want.'
"Well, when Hawk saw his own face in the glass after that reapin', he hardly knowed himself,an' he sneaked into the store by climbin' the fence an' knockin' at the back door, for fear of havin' to be interdooced to any neighbors that might be hangin' 'round the counters. Then he made another try at the clothes, an' called your uncle in again, and said:—
"'They looked all right until I put my hat on, an' then somethin' went wrong again.'
"'Shouldn't wonder if 'twas your hat,' said your uncle, comin' back for a special hat an' a pair of Sunday shoes, all Howlaway's size, that he'd ordered with the clothes. He took 'em in an' said:—
"'When you start to dress like a gentleman, to stand 'longside of a lady, you want to go the whole hog or none.'
"Well,—I didn't know this story was so long when I begun to tell it,—Hawk sneaked the clothes home, an' it come out in the course o' time that when on Sunday mornin' he dressed up an' showed off to his wife, she kissed him for the first time in three year, which sot him up so that he had the courage to go to church without first loadin' up with whiskey, as he'd expected to, to nerve him up to be looked atin his new things, an' when hog-killin' an' settlement time came round again, Hawk brought his pork to us, an' when he found his wife's silk dress hadn't been charged to him, he said in a high an' mighty way that he reckoned that until he was dead or divorced he could afford to pay for his own wife's duds, hearin' which, your uncle, who'd already socked the price of the dress onto the price of Hawk's own clothes, smiled out o' both sides of his mouth, an' all the way round to the back of his neck. An' since then, Hawk's always brought his pork to us, an' got a new silk dress ev'ry winter for his wife, an' new Sunday clothes for himself, an' nobody would he buy of but your uncle. Let's see; what was we talkin' 'bout when I turned off onto this story?"
"We were talking of ways of cajoling customers into paying their year's bills," said Philip. "Apparently I ought, just as a starter, to know how to coddle customer's boys, and supply hair-cutting and shaving plans to the village barber, and to play wife against husband, and learn to measure a man for clothes, like a—"
"That's so," said Caleb, "an' you can't be too quick about that, either, for Hawk'll want a new suit pretty soon."
"Anything else? By the way: what you said about the need of ready money reminds me of some questions I've been intending to ask, but forgotten. There are some mortgages in the safe on which interest will be due on the first of the year,—only a fortnight off. 'Twill aggregate nearly a thousand dollars."
"Yes,—when you get it, but interest's the slowest pay of all, in these parts, unless you work an' contrive for it. They know you won't foreclose on 'em; for while the security's good enough if you let it alone, there ain't an estate in the county that would fetch the face of its mortgage under the hammer. Besides, a merchant gen'rally dassent foreclose a mortgage, unless it's agin some worthless shack of a man. Folks remember it agin him, an' he loses some trade."
"Then those mortgages are practically worthless?"
"Oh, no. The money's in 'em, principal an' int'rest in full,—but the holder's got to knowhow to git it out. That's the difference between successful merchants and failures."
"H'm—I see. Apparently country merchants should be, like the disciples, as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves."
"That's it in a nutshell. I reckon any fool could make money in the store business if there was nothin' to do but weigh an' measure out goods an' take in ready cash for 'em. But there ain't no ready money in this county, 'xcept what the merchants get in for the produce they send out. There ain't no banks, so the store-keepers have to be money-lenders, an' have money in hand to lend; for while there's some borrowers that can be turned off, there's some it would never do to say 'No' to, if you wanted further dealin's with 'em, for they'd feel as if they'd lost their main dependence, an' been insulted besides. Why, some of our customers come in here Saturdays an' get a few five an' ten cent pieces, on credit like any other goods, so's their families can have somethin' to put in the plate in church on Sunday."
"But there are rentals due from severalfarms, and from houses in town. Are they as hard to collect as interest on mortgages?"
"Well, no—oh, no. The rent of most of the farms is payable in produce; there's ironclad written agreements, recorded in the county clerk's office, that the renters shan't sell any of their main crops anywhere else until the year's rent is satisfied. One of 'em pays by clearin' five acre of woodland ev'ry winter, an' gettin' it under cultivation in the spring, and another has to do a certain amount of ditchin' to drain swampy places. You'll have to watch them two fellers close, or they'll skimp their work, for there's nothin' farmers hate like clearin' an' ditchin'. I don't blame 'em, either."
"And the houses in town?"
"Oh, they're all right. The man in one of 'em, at two dollars a month, cuts all the firewood for the store an' house; that about balances his bill. Another house, at three thirty-three a month, has a cooper in it; he pays the rent, an' all of the stuff he buys at the store, in barrels for us in the pork-packin' season. The three an' a-half a month house man works out his rent in the pork-house durin' thewinter, an' the four dollar house has your insurance agent in it; there's always a little balance in his favor ev'ry year. The—"
"Caleb!" exclaimed Philip, "wait a minute; do you mean to tell me that houses in Claybanks rent as low as four dollars, three and a half, three and a third, and even as low as two dollars a month?"
"That's what I said. Why, the highest rent ever paid in this town was six dollars a month. The owner tried to stick out for seventy-five a year, but the renter wouldn't stand the extra twenty-five cents a month."
Philip put his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and said:—
"Six dollars a month! And in New York I paid twenty-five dollars a month for five rooms, and thought myself lucky!"
"Twenty—five—dollars—a month!" echoed Caleb. "Why, if it's a fair question, how much money did you make?"
"Eighty dollars a month, with a certainty of a twenty per cent increase every year. 'Twasn't much, but I was sure of getting it. From what you've been telling me, I'm notabsolutely sure of anything whatever here, unless I do a lot of special and peculiar work—and after I've earned the money by delivering the goods."
"Well, your uncle averaged somethin' between three an' four thousan', clear, ev'ry year, an' he come by it honestly, too, but there's no denyin' that he had to work for it. From seven in the mornin' to nine at night in winter; five in the mornin' till sundown in summer, to say nothin' of watchin' the pork-house work till all hours of the night throughout the season—a matter o' two months. He always went to sleep in church Sunday mornin', but the minister didn't hold it agin him. That reminds me: your uncle was a class-leader, an' the brethren are quietly sizin' you up to see if you can take the job where he left off. I hope you'll fetch."
"Thank you, Caleb," said Philip, closing his eyes as if to exclude the prospect. "But tell me," he said a moment later, "why my uncle did so much for so little. Don't imagine that I underrate three or four thousand dollars a year, but—money is worth only what it really bringsor does. That's the common-sense view of the matter, isn't it?"
"Yes; I can't see anythin' the matter with it."
"But uncle got nothing for his money but ordinary food, clothes, and shelter, and seems to have worked as hard as any overworked laborer."
"Well, I reckon he was doin' what the rest of us do in one way or other; he was countin' on what there might be in the future. He b'lieved in a good time comin'."
"Yes,—in heaven, perhaps, but not here."
"That's where you're mistaken, for he did expect it here—right here, in Claybanks."
Philip looked incredulous, and asked:—
"From what?"
"Well, he could remember when Chicago was as small as Claybanks is now, an' had a good deal more swamp land to the acre, too—an' now look at it! He'd seen St. Paul an' Minneapolis when both of 'em together could be hid in a town as big as Claybanks—but now look at 'em!"
"But St. Paul and Minneapolis had an immensewater-fall and water-power to attract millers of many kinds."
"Well, hain't we got a crick? They calculate that with a proper dam above town, we'd have water-power nine months every year, an' there ain't nothin' else o' the kind within fifty mile. Then there's our clay banks that the town was named after; they're the only banks of brick clay in the state; ev'rywhere else folks has to dig some feet down for clay to make bricks, so we ought to make brick cheaper'n any other town, an' supply all the country round—when we get a railroad to haul 'em out. They're not as red as some, bein' really brown, but they're a mighty sight harder'n any red brick, so they're better for foundations an' for walls o' big buildings. Chicago didn't have no clay banks nor water-power, but just look at her now! All that made her was her bein' the first tradin' place in the neighborhood; well, so's Claybanks, an' it's been so for forty year or more, too, so its time must be almost come. Your uncle 'xpected to see it all in his time, but, like Moses, he died without the sight.Why, there's been three or four railroads surveyed right through here—yes, sir!"
"Is there any Western town that couldn't say as much, I wonder?" Philip asked.
"Mebbe not, but they hain't all got clay banks an' a crick; not many of 'em's got eleven hundred people in forty year, either. An' say—it's all right for you to talk this way with me—askin' questions an' so on, an' wonderin' if the place'll ever 'mount to anythin', but don't let out a bit of it to anybody else—not for a farm. You might's well be dead out here as not to believe in the West with all your might, an' most of all in this part of it."
"Thank you; I'll remember."
Then Philip went out and walked slowly about the shabby village until he found himself in the depths of the blues.