CHAPTER VIIIALL ABOARD FOR PARDYVILLE
“Whois it?” says Poppy, as the waddler tried out his weight on the porch steps. “Mark Tidd, Sr.?”
“Search me,” says I, wondering if the heavy watch chain that the over-fed visitor carried around on his vest front, like a young suspension bridge, was solid gold. If it was, he must be a millionaire, I thought.
“It’s Lawyer Chew,” the woman told us in a low voice.
“Quick!” laughed Poppy, remembering that this was the enemy. “Get the teakettle.”
“A dose of hot water is what he deserves,” came stiffly from the fearless little old lady, as she planted herself, sort of belligerent-like, in front of the door.
Having successfully dragged himself up the mountain, like a heaving donkey engine, old fatty stopped on the top step to swab his bald spot and adjust his scowl.
“Well, madam,” he boomed at us out of his inflated stomach, “I’m here.”
“So I see,” says Mrs. Doane quietly.
“As I told you over the ’phone,” proceeded old dough-face in his ponderous, important way, “you are outside of your rights in coming here to live. The late owner of this place instructed me to close it after his death and keep it closed until the complete settlement of the estate. So I have come to see that his wishes are obeyed.”
Say, I wish you could have seen that little old lady swell up! As I watched her, grinning, all I could think of was a ruffled bantam getting ready to do its stuff. Boy, was my thought, if she ever socked her spurs into old goozleum the goo sure would run.
“I don’t believe,” came hotly, “that Corbin Danver ever told you to close this house against his relations. And I defy you to show me anywritingto that effect.”
“I know my business, madam.”
“Then tend to it,” was the slap that old fatty got in the face.
“Hot dog!” laughed Poppy in my ear, as tickled as a monkey with the cooties. “I guess she handed him a hot one that trip.”
The visitor’s big ears were on fire now.
“Mrs. Doane,” he rumbled like an angry volcano, “I didn’t come here to bandy words with you. Nor do I feel called upon to show you anywritingto back up my position as preliminary administrator of this estate. His chosen legal adviser, I was givencertain definite instructions by the late Corbin Danver, just before his death, and to the best of my professional ability I am now trying to carry out those instructions. As I tell you, you’ve got to pack up and get out of here. And the sooner you do it the better foryou.”
But Ma held the fort.
“Oh!... do tell!” came sarcastically. “And suppose Idon’tpack up and get out of here—what then?”
“In that case, madam, I’ll see that the law puts you out.”
That was more than the high-spirited little old lady could stand.
“So, you’re going to put me out, are you?” she cried, shaking her fists in the lawyer’s pudgy face. “You and thelaw! I’d like to see you do it. Yes, you better back up, you big bag of wind. For two cents I’d twist your fat nose. Maybe you’d learn then to keep it where it belongs.”
“Madam! ...” thundered the heaving volcano, as the lava slopped close to the brim.
“Don’t ‘madam’ me. You’re more lucky than you realize that I don’t fly at you and scratch your eyes out. Such an insult! And now that you have hadyoursay, Mr. Lawyer Chew, letmetell you something: The whole state militia can’t drag me out of here if I choose to stay. Is that clear to you?Not that I’m a person to oppose the law, but in this case I don’t believe that you have anyrightto put me out of here. If Corbin Danver told meoncehe told me a hundred times that of all his relations there was no one whom he enjoyed having here more than me. I was welcome to come whenever I chose, he said. Nor did he say that his death was to make any difference. Yetyoutry to put me out! And this in spite of the fact that I was sent here, as I told you last night, by some one who has every right in the world to use the property as she sees fit.”
At this mention of the granddaughter, the volcano sort of subsided. And there was a peculiar crafty look in the deepset eyes now.
“What is this that you tell me about Miss Ruth sending you here to open up the house for her? Is she intending to live here?”
With all of her free talk to us, Mrs. Doane was foxy about showing her hand to the enemy.
“I’ll let her talk for herself when she gets here.”
“Then she isn’t here yet?” and instead of craftiness there was satisfaction in the gray-green eyes now.
“If she were,” came sharply, “you’d have been ordered away from here before this. For while you may questionmyright to be here, I don’t think, if you have any judgment at all, that you would questionherright.”
In the further heated talk between the angry man and woman, I got the feeling that it was a case of dog eat dog. They both hated each other. And probably, I concluded, it was to spite the woman more than anything else that the visitor was now threatening to come back in the afternoon with the sheriff.
“Nor will it avail you anything to resist. For I have the law on my side. And I’m going to use it. If necessary,” came the final ugly threat, “we can take you by force and set you down outside of the stone wall. And that’s where you’ll stay until the granddaughter gets here.”
Well, say, if he hadn’t backed down the steps I actually believe that he would have lost what little hair he had. For take it from me that little old lady wasmad. Drive her out of the house, would he? Set her down outside of the stone wall in spitework, huh? Gr-r-r-r!
But she went all to pieces when the angry lawyer was gone. She trembled like a leaf. And there was worry and every other kind of grief mixed up in her thin face. The poor old soul! She had tried to be brave but her age was against her. I felt sorry for her. And what I wanted to do to old fatty!
Poppy drew me aside. And as I got a squint at his face I saw right off that he was getting ready to do something. He’s that kind of a kid. Letsome one he likes get stepped on and he’ll fight his head off for them. And now, as I saw, hating the lawyer the same as me, and wanting to fix him, he was getting ready to take up Mrs. Doane’s battle.
“When did old dough-face say he was coming back with the sheriff?”
“This afternoon.”
“Then we’ve either got to find the granddaughter this morning or think up some kind of a scheme.”
“It’s easy enough to talk about finding her,” says I. “But how are we going to do it?”
Here old Ivory Dome percolated through the front door.
“Jerry,heknows where the girl is.”
“Shall we choke it out of him?” I grinned.
“Bu-lieve me, I’ll try it if necessary.”
“Why ... Ma,” came in a worried voice from the newcomer. “You look all white. Be you sick?”
“Oh, Pa,” came helplessly. “Lawyer Chew was here. And he’s coming back with the sheriff to put us out.”
“Um.... What’s he goin’ to put us out for?”
“Spitework, more than anything. He says that we haven’t any right to be here.”
“But Miss Ruth has the keys. Her grandpa gave her the keys. And she sent us here.”
SO, YOU’RE GOING TO PUT ME OUT, ARE YOU?“SO, YOU’RE GOING TO PUT ME OUT, ARE YOU?”Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail.Page85
“SO, YOU’RE GOING TO PUT ME OUT, ARE YOU?”Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail.Page85
“SO, YOU’RE GOING TO PUT ME OUT, ARE YOU?”Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail.Page85
“I know, Pa, but Miss Ruth isn’t here yet. Anduntil she comes we’re helpless. Oh, the humiliation if that man does put us out in the road! To think that such a thing could happen to aDanverat the hands of a man whose grandfather was a horse thief!”
Poppy and I were watching the old man to see what we could read in his face. For in this new trouble it didn’t seem possible to us that he could hide all trace of his secret. Yet we saw nothing—only dumbness. I began to wonder then if he really knew as much about the granddaughter’s hiding place and her other secrets as we imagined. Maybe, I admitted our error, we were all wrong in our belief.
Poppy had gone into the house. And now I heard him at the telephone. When he came out he was grinning. But when I asked him what the joke was he wouldn’t tell me. I suspected, though, that he had made the first move against the enemy.
It was now time for us to start for Pardyville. So, with the old engine heaving and snorting, we loaded ourselves onto the cushioned back of the Galloping Snail and gallantly set forth on our journey, yelling to Ma Doane the very last thing to keep a stiff upper lip and cook a lot of beefsteak and gravy. For there’d be five of us for supper, we promised. Down in our hearts, though, we were saying “maybe.” Yet it was all right, we thought, to say something like that to cheer her up. And it made us glad to know that we left her smiling.