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 ofthatargument, 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 andstilland 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 ofher." 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 ofcontentment.
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 toknowanythin' on earth. How d'youknow?"
"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 astrangerthat 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 ofher'?"
"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 seeyou. 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."
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 ofvestin 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 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.
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'tbad—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 becomeparticeps 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.
"Ithoughtsomething 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 wouldyoucalc'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 wasbad. 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 Nixoncouldbe 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."
"Isee," 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'dseeit," 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."