Pole Baker
BY WILL N. HARBENAuthor of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc.
In a small Georgia town a friendship has grown up between Pole Baker, reformed moonshiner and an unusual and likable character, and young Nelson Floyd, who was left as a baby in a mountain cabin by an unknown woman just before her death. Floyd, in the face of many trials and temptations, has worked his way up in the world and made a man of himself. Jeff Wade appears at the store, in which Floyd has become a partner, to avenge on him a rumored injustice to Wade’s sister. Pole Baker’s tact prevents a duel by making Floyd see that the unselfish course is for him to avoid a meeting. Cynthia Porter comes to the store, alarmed for Floyd’s safety. On his way home to his family Pole falls a victim to his besetting sin of drink. Cynthia rejects the suit of the Rev. Jason Hillhouse and refuses to act on his warnings against Floyd’s attentions. At a corn-shucking given by Pole, Floyd wins the right to kiss Cynthia, and on their way home claims his privilege without actually asking to marry her and proposes in vain that, since her mother dislikes him, she meet him at times on signal in the grape-arbor. That night, while Cynthia is regretting even her slight weakness, her suspicious and tactless mother half accuses her and hints that the worry over Cynthia and Floyd has caused her to fear an attack of insanity.
ON the following Saturday morning there was a considerable gathering of farmers at Springtown. A heavy fall of rain during the night had rendered the soil unfit for plowing, and it was a sort of enforced holiday. Many of them stood around Mayhew & Floyd’s store. Several women and children were seated between the two long counters, on boxes and the few available chairs. Nelson Floyd was at the high desk in the rear, occupied with business letters, when Pole Baker came in at the back door and stood near him, closely scanning the long room.
“Where’s the old man?” he asked when Floyd looked up and saw him.
“Not down yet; dry up, Pole! I was making a calculation and you knocked it hell-west and crooked.”
“Well, I reckon that kin wait. I’ve got a note fer you.” Pole was taking it from his coat pocket.
“Miss Cynthia?” Floyd asked eagerly.
“Not by a long shot,” said Pole. “I reckon maybe you’ll wish it was.” He threw the missive on the desk and went on in quite a portentous tone: “I come by Jeff Wade’s house, Nelson, on my way back from the mill. He was inside with his wife and childern, an’ as I was passin’ one of the little boys run out to the fence and called me in to whar he was. He’s a queer fellow! I saw he was tryin’ to keep his wife in the dark, fer what you reckon he said?”
“How do I know?” The young merchant, with a serious expression of face, had torn open the envelope but not yet unfolded the sheet of cheap, blue-lined writing paper.
“Why, he jest set thar in his chair before the fire, an’ as he handed it up to me he sorter looked knowin’ an’ said, said he: ‘Pole, I’m owin’ Mayhew & Floyd a little balance on my account, an’ they seem uneasy. I wish you’d take this here note to young Floyd. He’s always stood to me sorter, an’ I believe he’ll git old Mayhew to wait on me a little while.’”
“Did he say that, Pole?” Floyd had opened the note, but was looking straight into Baker’s eyes.
“Yes, he said them words, Nelson, although he knowed I was on hand that day when he paid off his bill in full. I couldn’t chip in thar before his wife, an’ the Lord knows I couldn’t tell him I had an idea what was in the note, so I rid on as fast as I could. I had a turn o’ meal under me an’ I tuck it off an’hid it in the thicket t’other side o’ Duncan’s big spring. I wasn’t goin’ to carry a secret war message a-straddle o’ two bushels o’ meal warm from the rocks. An’ I’d bet my hat that scrap o’ paper means battle.”
Floyd read the note. There was scarcely a change in the expression of his face or a flicker of his eyelashes as he folded it with steady fingers and held it in his hand.
“Yes, he says he has got the whole story, Pole,” Floyd said. “He gives me fair warning as a man of honor to arm myself. He will be here at twelve o’clock to the minute.”
“Great God!” Pole ejaculated. “You hain’t one chance in a million to escape with yore life. You seed how he shot t’other day. He was excited then—he was as calm as a rock mountain when I seed him a while ago, an’ his ride to town will steady ’im more. He sorter drawed down his mouth at one corner an’ cocked up his eye, same as to say: ‘You understand; thar hain’t no use in upsettin’ women folks over a necessary matter o’ this sort.’ Looky here, Nelson, old friend, some’n has got to be done, an’ it’s got to be done in a hurry.”
“It will have to be done at twelve o’clock, anyway,” Floyd said calmly, a grim smile almost rising to his face. “That’s the hour he’s set.”
“Do you mean to tell me you are a-goin’ to set thar like a knot on a log an’ ’low that keen-eyed mountain sharpshooter to step up in that door an’ peg away at you?”
“No, I don’t mean that, exactly, Pole,” Floyd smiled coldly. “A man ought not to insult even his antagonist that way. You see, that would be making the offended party liable for wilful, cold-blooded murder before the law. No, I’ve got my gun here in the drawer, and we’ll make a pretense at fighting a duel, even if he downs me in the first round.”
“You are a darn fool, that’s what you are!” Pole was angry without knowing why. “Do you mean to tell me you are a-goin’ to put yore life up like that to gratify a scamp like Jeff Wade?”
“I’d deserve to be kicked off the face of the earth,” Floyd responded with firmness, “if I turned tail and ran. He seems to think I may light out; I judge that by his setting the time a couple of hours ahead, but I’ll give him satisfaction. I’m built that way, Pole. There is no use arguing about it.”
“My God, my God!” Pole said under his breath. “Hush! Thar comes Mayhew. I reckon you don’t want him to know about it!”
“No, he’d be in for swearing out a peace warrant. For all you do, don’t let him on to it, Pole. I want to write a letter or two, before Wade comes. Don’t let the old man interrupt me.”
“I’ll feel like I’m dancin’ on yore scaffold,” the farmer growled. “I want my mind free to—to study. Thar! He’s stopped to talk to Joe Peters. Say, Nelson, I see Mel Jones down thar talkin’ to a squad in front o’ the door; they’ve got the’r heads packed together as close as sardines. I see through it now. By God, I see throughthat!”
“What is it you see through, Pole?” Floyd looked up from Wade’s note, his brow furrowed.
“Why, Mel’s Jeff Wade’s fust cousin; he’s on to what’s up, an’ he’s confidin’ it to a few; it will be all over this town in five minutes, an’ the women an’ childern will hide out to keep from bein’ hit. Thar they come in at the front now, an’ they are around the old man like red ants round the body of a black one. He’ll be on to it in a minute. Thar, see? What did I tell you? He’s comin’ this way. You can tell by the old duck’s walk that he’s excited.”
Floyd muttered something that escaped Pole’s ears, and set to work writing. Mayhew came on rapidly, tapping his heavy cane on the floor, his eyes glued on the placid profile of his young partner.
“What’s this I hear?” he panted. “Has Jeff Wade sent you word that he was comin’ here to shoot you?”
Pole laughed out merrily, and, stepping forward, slapped the old merchant familiarly on the arm. “It’sa joke, Mr. Mayhew!” he said. “I put it up on Mel Jones as we rid in town; he’s always makin’ fun o’ women fer tattlin’, an’ said I to myse’f, said I, ‘I’ll see how deep that’s rooted under yore hide, old chap,’ an’ so I made that up out o’ whole cloth. I was jest tellin’ Nelson, here, that I’d bet a hoss to a ginger-cake that Mel ’ud not be able to keep it, an’ he hain’t. Nelson, by George, the triflin’ skunk let it out inside o’ ten minutes, although he swore to me he’d keep his mouth shet. I’ll make ’im set up the drinks on that.”
“Well, I don’t like such jokes!” Mayhew fumed. “Jokes like that and what’s at the bottom of them don’t do a reputable house any good. And I don’t want any more of them. Do you understand, sir?”
“Oh, yes, I won’t do it ag’in,” answered Pole in an almost absent-minded tone. His eyes were now on Floyd, and despite his assumed lightness of manner the real condition of things was bearing heavily on him. Just then a rough-looking farmer, in a suit of home-made jeans, straw hat and shoes worn through at the bottom, came back to them. He held in his hand the point of a plow and looked nervously about him.
“Everybody’s busy down in front,” he said, “an’ I want to git a quarter’s wuth o’ coffee.” His glance, full of curiosity, was now on Floyd’s face. “I want to stay till Wade comes,myself, but my old woman’s almost got a spasm. She says she seed enough bloodshed durin’ the war, an’ then she always liked Mr. Floyd. She says she’d mighty nigh as soon see an own brother laid out as him. Mr. Floyd sorter done us a favor two year back when he stood fer us on our corn crop, an’, as fer me, why, of course, I——”
“Look here, Bill Champ,” Pole burst out in a spontaneous laugh. “I thought you had more sense than to swallow a joke like that. Go tell yore old woman that I started that tale jest fer pure fun. Nelson here an’ Wade is good friends.”
“Oh, well, ef that’s it, that’s different,” the farmer said. “But from the way Mel Jones talked down thar a body would think you fellers was back here takin’ Mr. Floyd’s measure fer his box. I’ll go quiet my wife. She couldn’t talk of a thing all the way here this mornin’ but a new dress she was goin’ to git an’ now she’s fer hurryin’ back without even pickin’ out the cloth.”
“No, I don’t like this sort o’ thing,” old Mayhew growled as the customer moved away. “An’ I want you to remember that, Baker.”
“Ah, you dry up, old man!” Pole retorted, with a mechanical laugh. “You’d live longer an’ enjoy life better ef you’d joke more. Ef the marrow o’ my bones was as sour as yourn is I’d cut my throat or go into the vinegar business.”
At this juncture Captain Duncan came in the store and walked back to the trio.
“Good morning,” he said cheerily. “Say, Floyd, I’ve heard the news, and thought if you wanted to borrow a pair of real, good, old-fashioned dueling pistols, why, I’ve got a pair my father owned. They were once used by General——”
“It’s all a joke, Captain,” Pole broke in, winking at the planter and casting a look of warning at the now unobservant Mayhew.
“Oh, isthatit?” Duncan was quick of perception. “To tell you the truth, I thought so, boys. Yes, yes”—he was studying Floyd’s calm face admiringly—“yes, it sounded to me like a prank somebody was playing. Well, I thought I’d go fishing this evening, and came in to get some hooks and lines. Fine weather, isn’t it? But the river’s muddy. I’ll go down and pick out some tackle.”
He had just gone when an old woman wearing a cheap breakfast shawl over her gray head, a dress of dingy solid black calico and a pair of old, heavy shoes approached from the door in the rear.
“I got yore summons, Mr. Mayhew,” she said in a thin, shaky voice.“Peter, my husband, was so downhearted that he wouldn’t come to town, an’ so I had to do it. So you are goin’ to foreclose on us? The mule an’ cow is all on earth we’ve got to make the crop on, and when they are gone we will be plumb ruined.”
The face of the old merchant was like carved stone.
“You got the goods, didn’t you, Mrs. Stark?” he asked harshly.
“Oh, yes, nobody hain’t disputin’ the account,” she answered plaintively.
“And you agreed faithfully if you didn’t pay this spring that the mule and cow would be our property?”
“Oh, yes, of course! As I say, Mr. Mayhew, I’m not blamin’ you-uns. Thar hain’t a thing for me an’ Peter to do but thrust ourselves on my daughter and son-in-law over in Fannin, but I’d rather die than go. We won’t be welcome; they are loaded down with childern too young to work. So it’s settled, Mr. Mayhew—I mean ef we drive over the mule an’ cow thar won’t be no lawsuit?”
“No, there won’t be any suit. I’d let this pass and give you more time, Mrs. Stark, but a thing like that can’t be kept quiet through the country, an’ there are fifty customers of ours over your way who ’ud be running here with some cock-and-bull story and we’d be left high and dry with the goods to pay for in market and nothing to show for it. We make our rules, Mrs. Stark, and they are clearly understood at the time the papers are signed.”
“Never you mind, Mrs. Stark, I’ll fix that all right.” It was Nelson Floyd who was speaking, and with a face full of pity and tenderness he had stepped forward and was offering to shake hands.
The little woman, her lips twitching and drawn, gave him her trembly hand, her eyes wide open in groping wonder.
“I don’t understand, Nelson—Mr. Floyd. You mean——?”
“I mean that I’ll have your entire account charged to me and you can take your time about paying it—next fall or the next, or any time it suits you. I’ll not press you for it, if you never pay it. I passed your place the other day, and your crop looks very promising. You are sure to get out of debt this coming fall.”
“Oh, Nelson—I—I don’t know what to do about it. Mr. Mayhew says——”
“But I say it’s all right,” Floyd broke in as he laid his hand softly on her shoulder. “Go down in front and buy what you need to run on. I’ll assume the risk, if there is any.”
Mayhew turned suddenly; his face was white and his lip shook.
“Do you mean to say that you are going to step in and——?”
“Step in nothing,” Floyd said calmly. “I hope I won’t have to remind you, sir, of our clearly written agreement of partnership in which it is plainly stated that I may use my judgment in regard to customers whenever I wish.”
“You’ll ruin us—you’ll break us all to smash, if you do this sort of thing,” Mayhew panted. “It will upset our whole system.”
“I don’t agree with you, sir,” Floyd answered, “but we won’t argue about it. If you don’t intend to abide by our agreement then say so and we will part company.”
Mayhew stared in alarm for a moment, then he said:
“There’s no use talking about parting. I only want to kind of hold you in check. You get your sympathies stirred up and make plunges sometimes when you ought to act with a clear head. You say the crop looks well; then, it’s all right. Go ahead, Mrs. Stark. Anything Nelson does is agreeable to me.”
“Well, it’s mighty good of you both,” the old woman said, wiping tears of joy from her eyes. “No, I won’t buy anything today. I’ll ride out to the farm as quick as I can and tell Peter the good news. He’s mighty nigh out of his senses about it.”
Mayhew followed her down into the store. It was as if he were ashamed to meet the quizzical look which Pole Baker had fixed upon him. He had nosooner turned his back than Pole faced Floyd and asked: “How does she stand by your ticker?”
Floyd looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter-past eleven,” he said.
“The hell it is!” Pole went to the back door and looked out at the dreary stable-yard and barn. He stood there for several minutes in deep thought. Then he seemed to make up his mind on something that was troubling him, for he suddenly thrust his hand into his hip-pocket and drew out a revolver and rapidly twirled the cylinder with his heavy thumb.
“Yes, I ’lowed I’d swore off from shootin’ scrapes,” he mused; “but I shore have to git in this ’un. I’d never look Sally an’ the childern in the face agin ef I was to stand still an’ let that dead shot kill the best friend me an’ them ever had. No, Poley, old boy, you’ve got to enlist this mornin’, an’ thar hain’t no two ways about it. I’d take a drink on that, but a feller’s aim hain’t wuth a dang when he sees double.”
His attention was suddenly attracted to Floyd, who had left his stool and was putting a revolver into the pocket of his sack coat. Pole shoved his own cautiously back into his pocket and went to his friend’s side.
“What you goin’ to do now?” he asked.
“I have just thought of something that ought to be attended to,” was Floyd’s answer. “Is Mel Jones still down there?”
“Yes; I see ’im now through the left-hand window,” said Pole. “Do you want to see ’im?”
“Yes.” Floyd moved in the direction indicated and Pole wonderingly followed. Outside on the pavement at the corner of the store Mel Jones stood talking to a group of eager listeners. He stopped when he saw Floyd, and looked in the opposite direction, but in a calm voice the young merchant called him.
“Mel, may I see you a minute?”
“Certainly.” The face of the gaunt farmer fell as he came forward, his eyes shifting uneasily.
“I got a message from Jeff Wade just now,” said Floyd.
“Oh, did you? Is that so?” the fellow exclaimed.
“Yes; he says he has a private matter to settle with me, and says he’ll be here at the store at twelve. Now, as you see, there are a good many people standing around—women and children, and somebody might get hurt or frightened. You know where Price’s spring is, down behind the old brick yard?”
“Oh, yes; I know where it is, Floyd.”
“Well, you will do me a favor if you will ride out to Wade’s and tell him I’ll meet him there. He could reach it without coming through town, and we’d escape a lot of prying people who would be in the way.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Jones, his strong face lighting up. “Yes, I’ll go tell ’im. I’m glad to see that you are a man o’ backbone, Floyd. Some ’lowed you’d throw up the sponge an’ leave fer parts unknown, but Jeff’s got to tackle the rale stuff. I kin see that, Floyd. Minnie Wade raised a lots o’ devilment, an’ my wife says whatever rumors spread about her was her own fault. But Jeff cayn’t be expected to see it through a woman’s eyes. I wish you was goin’ to meet a man that wasn’t sech a dead shot. I seed Jeff knock a squirrel out of a high tree with his six-shooter that three men had missed with rifles.”
“I’ll try to take care of myself, Mel. But you’d better hurry up and get to him before he starts to town.”
“Oh, I’ll git ’im all right,” said the farmer, and he went out to the hitching-rack, jumped on his horse and galloped away.
The group Jones had been talking to now drew near, their eyes and mouths open.
“It’s all off, boys,” Pole said, with one of his inscrutable laughs. “Explanations an’ apologies has been exchanged—no gore today. It was a big mistake all round.”
This version soon spread, and a sigh of relief went up from everybody. Fifteen minutes passed. Pole was standing in the front door of the store,cautiously watching Floyd, who had gone back to his desk to write a letter. Suddenly Pole missed him from his place.
“He’s tryin’ to give me the slip,” Pole said. “He’s gone out at the back door and has made fer the spring. Well, he kinthinkhe’s throwed old Pole off, but he hain’t by a jugful. I know now which road Jeff Wade will come by, an’ I’ll see that skunk before Nelson does or no prayers hain’t answered.”
He went out to the hitching-rack, mounted, and, waving his hand to the few bystanders who were eying him curiously, rode away, his long legs swinging back and forth from the flanks of his horse. A quarter of a mile outside of the village he came to a portion of the road leading to Jeff Wade’s house that was densely shaded, and there he drew rein and dismounted.
“Thar hain’t no other way fer ’im to come,” he said, “an’ he’s my meat—that is, unless the damn fool kin be fetched to reason.”
There was a quilting party at Porter’s that day. Cynthia had invited some of her friends to help her, and the quilt, a big square of colored scraps, more or less artistically arranged in stars, crescents and floral wreaths, occupied the centre of the sitting-room. It was stitched to a frame of four smooth wooden bars, which were held together at the corners by pegs driven into gimlet holes and which rested on the backs of four chairs. The workers sat on two sides of it and stitched, with upward and downward strokes, toward the centre, the quilt being rolled up as the work progressed.
Hattie Mayhew was there, Kitty Welborn and two or three others. As usual they were teasing Cynthia about the young preacher.
“I know she’s the apple of his eye,” laughed Kitty Welborn. “He really can’t, as you said the other night, keep from looking at her during preaching. I noticed it particularly one Sunday not long ago and told Matt Digby that I’d be sure to get religion if a man bored it into me with eyes like his.”
“I certainly would go up to the mourners’ bench every time he called up repentant sinners,” said Hattie Mayhew. “I went up once while he was exhorting and he turned me over to Sister Perdue, that snaggle-toothed old maid. He didn’t even offer his hand.”
Cynthia said nothing, but she smiled good-naturedly as she rose from her chair and went to the side of the quilt near the crudely screened fireplace to see that the work was rolled evenly on the frame. While thus engaged her father came into the room, vigorously fanning himself with his old slouch hat. The girls knew he had been to the village, and all asked eagerly if he had brought them any letters.
“No, I clean forgot to go to the office,” he made slow answer as he threw himself into a big armchair with a rawhide bottom, near a window on the shaded side of the house.
“Why, father,” his daughter chided him, “you promised the girls faithfully to call at the office. I think that was very neglectful of you when you knew they would be here to dinner.”
“And he usually has a good memory,” spoke up Mrs. Porter, appearing in the doorway leading to the dining-room and kitchen. She was rolling flakes of dough from her lank hands and glanced at her husband reprovingly. “Nathan, whatdidyou go and do that way for, when you knew Cynthia was trying to make her friends pass a pleasant day?”
“Well, I clean forgot it,” Porter said, quite undisturbed. “To tell you the truth, thar was so much excitement on all hands, with this un runnin’ in with fresh news, an’ that un sayin’ that maybe it was all a false alarm, that the post-office plumb slipped out o’ my head. Huh, I hain’t thought post-office once sence I left here! I don’t know whether I could ’a’ got in thar anyway, fer the Postmaster hisse’f was runnin’ round like a camp-meetin’ chicken with its head cut off.Besides, I tell you, gals, I made up my mind to hit the grit. I never was much of a hand to want to see wholesale bloodshed. Moreover, I’ve heard of many a spectator a-gittin’ shot in the arms an’ legs or some vital spot. No, I sorter thought I’d come on. Mandy, have you seen anything o’ my fly-flap? When company comes you an’ Cynthia jest try yoreselves on seein’ how many things you kin put out o’ place, an’ I’m gittin’ sick an’ tired o’——”
“Nathan, what’s going on in town?” broke in Mrs. Porter. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what’s goin’ onnow,” Porter drawled out as he slapped at a fly on his bald pate with an angry hand. “I say I don’t know what’s goin’ onnow; but I know what was jest gittin’ ready to go on. I reckon the coroner’s goin’ on with the inquest ef he ain’t afeared of an ambush. Jeff Wade—” Porter suddenly bethought himself of something, and he rose, passed through the composite and palpable stare of the whole room and went to the clock on the mantelpiece and opened it. “Thar!” he said impatiently. “I wonder what hole or crack you-uns have stuck my chawin’ tobacco in. I put it right in the corner of this clock, right under the turpentine bottle.”
“There’s your fool tobacco!” Mrs. Porter exclaimed, running forward and taking the dark plug from beneath the clock. “Fill your mouth with it; maybe it will unlock your jaw. What is the trouble at Springtown?”
“I was jest startin’ to tell you,” said Porter, diving into his capacious trousers pocket for his knife and slowly opening the blade with his long thumbnail. “You see, Jeff Wade has at last got wind o’ all that gab about Minnie an’ Nelson Floyd, an’ he sent a war-cry by Pole Baker on hossback as fast as Pole could clip it to tell Floyd to arm an’ be ready at exactly twelve o’clock sharp.”
“I knew it would come,” said Mrs. Porter, a combination of finality and resignation in her harsh voice. “I knew Jeff Wade wasn’t going to allow that talk to go on.” She was looking at her daughter, who, white and wide-eyed, stood motionless behind Hattie Mayhew’s chair. For a moment no one spoke, though instinctively the general glance went to Cynthia, who, feeling it, turned to the window looking out upon the porch, and stood with her back to the room. Mrs. Porter broke the silence, her words directed to her daughter.
“Jeff Wade will kill that man if he was fool enough to wait and meet him. Do you think Floyd waited, Nathan?”
“No, he didn’t wait,” was Porter’s answer. “The plucky chap went ’im one better; he sent word by Mel Jones to tell Wade that it would be indecent to have a rumpus like that in town on a Saturday, when so many women an’ childern was settin’ round in bullet-range, an’ so, if it was agreeable he’d ruther have it in the open place at Price’s spring. Mel passed me as he was goin’ to Jeff with that word. It’s nearly one o’clock now, an’ it’s my candid opinion publicly expressed that Nelson Floyd has gone to meet a higher Power. I didn’t want to be hauled up at court as a witness, an’ so, as I say, I hit the grit. I’ve been tied up in other folks’s matters before this, an’ the court don’t allow enough fer witness fees to tempt me to set an’ listen to them long-winded lawyers talk fer a whole week on a stretch.”
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Hattie Mayhew. “I’m right sorry for him. He was so handsome and sweet-natured. He had faults, but they may have been due to the hard life he had when he was a child. I must say I have always been sorry for him; he had the saddest look out of the eyes of any human being I ever saw.”
“And he knew how to use his eyes, too,” was the sting Mrs. Porter added to this charitable comment as her sharp gaze still rested on her daughter.
There was a sound at the window. Cynthia, with unsteady hands, was trying to raise the sash. She finally succeeded in doing this and placing the wooden prop under it. There wasa steely look in her eyes and her features were set, her face pale.
“It’s very warm in here!” they heard her say. “There isn’t a bit of draught in the room. It’s that hot cook stove, mother; I will—I——”
She had turned and walked from the room.
Mrs. Porter sighed as she looked after the departing form.
“Did you notice her face, girls?” she asked. “It was as white as death itself. She looked as if she was about to faint. It’s all this talk about Floyd. Well, theywerefriends. I tried to get her to stop receiving his attentions, but she thought she knew better. Well, he has got his deserts, I reckon.”
“And all on account of the talk about that silly Minnie Wade!” cried Kitty Welborn, “when you know as well as I do, Mrs. Porter, that Thad Pelham—” The speaker glanced at Nathan Porter and paused.
“Oh, you needn’t let up on yore hen-cackle on my account,” that blunt worthy made haste to say. “I’ll go out an’ look at my new hogs. You gals are out fer a day o’ pleasure, an’ I wouldn’t interfere with the workin’ of yore jaws fer a purty.”
Mrs. Porter didn’t remain to hear Kitty Welborn finish her observation, but followed her daughter.
In the next room, which was the dining-room, an old woman sat at a window. She was dressed in dingy black calico, her snowy hair brushed smoothly down over a white wrinkled brow, and was fanning herself slowly with a turkey-feather fan. She had Mrs. Porter’s features and thinness of frame.
“Mother,” Mrs. Porter said, pausing before her, “didn’t Cynthia come in here just now?”
“Yes, she did,” replied the old woman. “Shedid. And I just want to know, Mandy, what you all have been saying to her? I want to know, I say?”
“We haven’t been saying anything to her as I know of,” said the farmer’s wife in slow, studious surprise.
“I know you have, I say, I know youhave!” The withered hand holding the fan quivered in excitement. “I know you have, for I can always tell when that poor child is worried. I heard a little of it, too, but not all. I heard them mention Hillhouse’s name. I tell you, I am not going to sit still and let a whole pack of addle-pated women tease as good a girl as Cynthia is plumb to death.”
“I don’t think they were troubling her,” Mrs. Porter said, her face drawn in thought, her mind elsewhere.
“I know theywere,” the old woman insisted. “She may have hidden it in there before you all, but when she came in here just now she stopped right near me and looked me full in the face, and never since she was a little baby have I seen such an odd look in her eyes. They looked like they were about to burst with tears. She saw me looking at her, and she come up behind me and laid her face down against my neck. She quivered all over, and then she said, ‘Oh, Granny! Oh, Granny!’ and then she straightened up and went right out at that door into the yard. I tell you, it’s got to let up. She sha’n’t have the life deviled out of her. If she don’t want to marry that preacher, she don’t have to. As for me, I’d rather have married any sort of man on earth when I was young than a long-legged, straight-faced preacher.”
“You say she went out in the yard?” said Mrs. Porter absently. “I wonder what she went out there for.”
Mrs. Porter went to the door and looked out. There was a clothesline stretched between two apple trees nearby, and Cynthia stood at it taking down a tablecloth. She turned with it in her arms and came to her mother.
“I just remembered,” she said, “that there isn’t a clean cloth for the table. Mother, the iron is hot on the stove. You go back to the girls and I’ll smooth this out and set the table.”
The eyes of the two met. Mrs. Porter took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go back to the company, but I’ve got something to say, and then I’m done for good.I want to say that I’m glad a daughter of mine has got the proper pride and spunk you have. I see you are not going to make a goose of yourself before visitors, and I’m proud of you. You are the right sort—especially after he’s acted in the scandalous way he has and—and laid you, even as good a girl as you, liable to be talked about for keeping company with him.”
The girl’s eyes sank. Something seemed to rise and struggle up within her, for her breast heaved and her shoulders quivered convulsively.
“I’ll fix the cloth,” she said in a low, forced voice, “and then I’ll set the table and call you.”
“All right”; Mrs. Porter was turning away. “I’ll try to keep them entertained till you come back.”
Beneath a big oak Pole stood holding his bridle-rein and waiting, his earnest gaze on the long road leading to Jeff Wade’s farm. Suddenly he descried a cloud of dust far ahead and he chuckled.
“He’s certainly on time,” he mused. “He must ’a’ had his hoss ready out in the thicket. Mel made good time, too. The dern devil is thirstin’ fer bloodshed. Mel’s that sort. By gum, that hain’t Wade; it’s Mel hisse’f, an’ he’s certainly layin’ the lash to his animal.”
In a gallop Jones bore down on him, riding as wildly as a cowboy, his broad hat in one hand, a heavy switch in the other. He drew rein when he recognized Baker.
“Did you deliver that message?” Pole questioned.
“Oh, yes, I finally got him alone; his wife seems to suspicion some’n, and she stuck to ’im like a leech. She’s a jealous woman, Pole, an’ I don’t know but what she kinder thought Jeff was up to some o’ his old shines. He was a sorter tough nut before he married, you know, an’ a man like that will do to watch.”
“Well, what did he say?” Pole asked.
“Why, he said ‘all hunkydory.’ The spring plan ketched him jest right. He said that one thing—o’ bloodyin’ up the main street in town—had bothered him more than anything else. He admired it in Floyd, too. Jeff said, ‘By gum! fer a town dude that feller’s got more backbone than I expected. He’s a foe wuth meetin’, an’ I reckon killin’ ’im won’t be sech a terrible disgrace as I was afeared it mought be.’”
“But whar are you headin’ fer in sech a rush?” Pole asked.
Jones laughed as he put his hat carefully on his shaggy head and pressed the broad brims up on the sides and to a point in front. “Why, Pole,” he answered, “to tell you the truth, I am headed fer that thar spring. I’m goin’ to acknowledge to you that, as long as I’ve lived in this world, I hain’t never been on hand at a shootin’ affair. Mighty nigh every man I know has seed oodlin’s of ’em, but my luck’s been agin me. About the most excitin’ thing I ever attended was a chicken fight, and so I determined to see this un. I know a big rock jest above that spring, and I’m a-goin’ to git thar in plenty o’ time. You let me git kivered all but my eyes, an’ I’ll run the resk o’ gettin’ hit from thar up. Whar you makin’ fer, Pole?”
“Me? Oh, I’m on the way home, Mel. I seed the biggest rattlesnake run across this road jest now I ever laid eyes on. I got down to settle his hash, but I didn’t have anything to hit ’im with, an’ I’m done stompin’ at them fellers sence Tobe Baker, my cousin, over at Hillbend, got bliffed on the knee.”
“Well, so long!” Mel laughed. “I’ll hunt rattlesnakes some other time. Are you plumb shore you hain’t got the jimmies agin’, Pole? Take my advice an’ don’t tell about seein’ snakes; it sets folks to thinkin’. Why, I seed you once in broad daylight when you swore black spiders was playin’ sweepstakes on yore shirt front.”
“So long, Mel!” Pole smiled and waved his hand. He made a fair pretenseat getting ready to mount as Mel galloped away in a cloud of dust. The horseman was scarcely out of sight when a pair of fine black horses drawing a buggy came into view. The vehicle contained Captain Duncan and his daughter Evelyn. She was a delicate, rather pretty girl of nineteen or twenty, and she nodded pleasantly to Pole as her father stopped his horses.
“You are sure that thing’s off, are you, Baker?” the planter said, with a genial smile.
“Oh, yes, Captain.” Pole had his eyes on the young lady and had taken off his hat, and stood awkwardly swinging it against the baggy knees of his rough trousers.
“Well, I’m very glad,” Duncan said. “I know you told some of the crowd back at the store that it had been settled, but I didn’t know whether it was reliable or not.”
Pole’s glance shifted between plain truth and Evelyn Duncan’s refined face for a moment, and then he nodded. “Oh, yes, it was all a mistake, Captain. Reports get out, you know; and nothin’ hain’t as bad as gossip is after it’s crawled through a hundred mouths an’ over a hundred wigglin’ tongues.”
“Well, I’m glad, as I say,” the planter said as he jerked his reins and spoke to his horses.
As he whirled away Pole growled. “Damned ef I hain’t a-makin’ a regular signpost out o’ myself,” he mused, “an’ lyin’ to beat the Dutch. Ef that dern fool don’t come on purty soon he’ll—but thar he is now, comin’ on with a swoop—looks like his hoss is about to run from under ’im, his dern legs is so long. Now, looky here, Pole Baker, Esquire, hog-thief an’ liar, you are up agin about the most serious proposition you ever tackled, an’ ef you don’t mind what you are about you’ll have cold feet inside o’ ten minutes by the clock. You’ve set in to carry this thing through or die in the attempt, an’ time’s precious. The fust thing is to stop the blamed whelp; you cayn’t reason with a man that’s flyin’ through the air like he’s shot out of a gun, an’ Jeff Wade’s a-goin’ to be the devil to halt. He’s got the smell o’ blood, an’ that works on a mad man jest like it does on a bloodhound—he’s a-goin’ to run down some’n. The only thing in God’s world that’ll stop a man o’ that sort is to insult ’im, an’ I reckon I’ll have that to do in this case.”
Jeff Wade was riding rapidly. Just before he reached Pole he drew out his big silver open-faced watch and looked at it. He wore no coat and had on a gray flannel shirt open at the neck. Round his waist he wore a wide leather belt, from which, on his right side, protruded the glittering butt of a revolver of unusual size and length of barrel. Suddenly Pole led his own horse round, until the animal stood directly across the narrow road, rendering it impossible for the approaching rider to pass at the speed he was going.
“Hold on thar, Jeff!” Pole held up his hand. “Whar away? The mail hack hain’t in yet. I’ve jest left town.”
“I hain’t goin’ after no mail!” Wade said, his lips tight, a fixed stare in his big, earnest eyes. “I’m headed fer Price’s spring. I’m goin’ to put a few holes in that thar Nelson Floyd, ef I git the drap on him ’fore he does on me.”
“Huh!” Pole ejaculated; “no, you hain’t a-goin’ to see him, nuther; that is, not till me’n you’ve had a talk, Jeff Wade. You seem in a hurry, but thar’s a matter betwixt me an’ you that’s got to be attended to.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Wade demanded, a stare of irritated astonishment dawning in his eyes.
“Why, I mean that Nelson Floyd is a friend o’ mine, an’ he ain’t a-goin’ to be shot down like a dog by a man that could hit a nickel a hundred yards away nine times out o’ ten. You an’ me’s close together, an’ I reckon chances ’ud be somewhar about equal. I hain’t a brag shot, but I could hit a pouch as big as yourn is about as easy as you could me.”
“You—you—by God, do you mean to take this matter up?”
Jeff Wade slid off his horse and stood facing Pole.
“Yes, I do, Jeff; that is, unless you’lllisten to common sense. That’s what I’m here fer. I’m a-goin’ to stuff reason into you ef I have to make a new hole to put it in at. You are a-goin’ entirely too fast to live in an enlightened Christian age, an’ I’m here to call a halt. I’ve got some things to tell you. They are a-goin’ to hurt like pullin’ eye-teeth, an’ you may draw yore gun before I’m through, but I’m goin’ to make a try at it.”
“What the——?”
“Hold on, hold on, hold on, Jeff!” Pole raised a warning hand. “Keep that paw off’n that cannon in yore belt or thar’ll be a war right here before you hear my proclamation of the terms we kin both live by. Jeff, I am yore neighbor an’ friend. I love you mighty nigh like a brother, an’ I’m here to tell you that, with all yore grit an’ good qualities, you are makin’ a bellowin’ jackass o’ yoreself. An’ ef I let you put through yore present plans, you’ll weep in repentance fer it till you are let down in yore soggy grave. Thar’s two sides to every question, an’ you are lookin’ only at yore side o’ this un. You cayn’t tell how sorry I am about havin’ to take this step. I’ve been a friend to yore entire family—to yore brothers, an’ yore old daddy when he was alive. I mighty nigh swore a lie down in Atlanta to keephimout o’ limbo when he was arrested fer moonshinin’.”
“I know all that!” growled Wade; “but God——”
“Hold yore taters now, an’ listen! You mought as well take yore mind off’n that spring. You hain’t a-goin’ to git at Nelson Floyd without you walk over my dead body—an’ thar’s no efs an’ ands about that. You try to mount that hoss, an’ I’ll kill you ef it’s in my power. I say I’ve got some’n to tell you that you’ll wish you’d listened to. I know some’n about Minnie that will put a new color on this whole nasty business; an’ when you know it, ef you kill Nelson Floyd in cold blood, the law will jerk that stiff neck o’ yourn—jerk it till it’s limber.”
“You say you know some’n about Minnie?” The gaunt hand which till now had hovered over the butt of the big revolver hung down straight. He stood staring, his lip hanging loose, a sudden droop of indecision upon him.
“I know this much, Jeff,” Pole said, less sharply. “I know you are not after the fust offender agin yore family honor, an’ when I provethatto you I don’t believe you’ll look at it the same.”
“You say—you say——?”
“Listen now, Jeff, an’ don’t fly off the handle at a well-wisher sayin’ what he thinks has to be said in justice to all concerned. The truth is, you never seed Minnie like other folks has all along. You seed ’er grow up an’ she was yore pet. To you she was a regular angel; but other folks has knowed all along, Jeff, that she was born with a sorter light nature. Women folks, with the’r keen eyes, has knowed that ever since she got out o’ short dresses. Even yore own wife has said behind yore back a heap on this line that she was afeared to say to you. Not a soul has dared to talk plain to you, an’ evenIwouldn’t do it except in this case o’ life an’ death.”
Wade shook back his long, coarse hair. He was panting like a tired dog. “I don’t believe a damn word of what you are a-sayin’!” he muttered, “an’ I’ll make you prove it, by God, or I’ll have yore life-blood!”
“Listen to me, Jeff,” Pole said gently. “I’m not goin’ to threaten any more. Believe me or not,but listen! You remember when Thad Pelham went off to Mexico a year or so ago?”
Wade made no reply, but there was a look of dawning comprehension in his great, blearing eyes.
“I see you remember that,” Pole went on. “Well, you know, too, that he was goin’ with Minnie a lot about that time—takin’ her buggy-ridin’ an’ to meetin’. He was a devil in pants; his whole family was bad. The men in it wouldn’t go in the gate o’ heaven ef a woman was winkin’ at ’em on the outside. Well, Thad started fer Mexico one day, an’ at the same time Minnie went on a visit to yore brother Joe in Calhoun.
“She went thar a year ago,” Wade said, “fer I bought ’er ticket at Parley.”
“She toldyoushe went to Calhoun.” Pole’s eyes were mercifully averted. “I met her an’ Thad in Atlanta.”
Wade caught his breath. He shook from head to foot as with a chill.
“You say—Pole, you say——?”
Pole pulled at his mustache and looked down.
“Well, I reckon they wasn’t down thar to attend a Sunday-school convention, Jeff—they didn’t have that look to me. But I was so worried fer fear I mought be doin’ a woman injustice in my mind that, after they left me—to make sure, I went in the office o’ the hotel an’ made sure.”
Suddenly Wade put out his hand and laid it heavily on Pole’s shoulder. “Looky here, Baker,” he said, “if you are lying to me, I——”
“Hold on,hold on, Jeff Wade!” Pole broke in sternly. “Whenever you use words like them you smile! So fer, this has been a friendly talk, as I see it; but you begin to intimate that I’m a liar, an’ I’ll try my best to make you chaw the statement. You’re excited, but you mustn’t go too fur.”
“Well, I want the truth, by God, I want the truth!”
“Well, you are a-gittin’ it, with the measure runnin’ over,” Pole said, “an’ that ought to satisfy any reasonable man.”
“So you think then, that Nelson Floyd never done any—any o’ the things folks says he did—that ’twas jest report?”
“Well, I ain’t here to say that, nuther,” said Pole most diplomatically. “But la me! what a stark, ravin’ fool you was about to make o’ yoreself, Jeff!” Pole went on. “You started to do this thing today on yore sister’s account, when by doin’ it you would bust up her home an’ make her life miserable.”
“You mean——?”
“I mean that Joe Mitchell, that’s been dead stuck on Minnie sence she was a little gal, set up to her an’ proposed marriage. They got engaged an’ then every old snaggle-toothed busybody in these mountains set in to try to bust it up by totin’ tales about Floyd an’ others to ’im. As fast as one would come Minnie’d kill it, an’ show Joe what a foolish thing it was to listen to gossip, an’ Joe finally told ’em all to go to thunder, an’ they was married an’ moved on his farm in Texas. From all accounts they are doin’ well an’ are happy; but la me; they wouldn’t be that a-way long ef you’d ’a’ shot Nelson Floyd this mornin’.”
“You say they wouldn’t, Pole?”
“Huh, I reckonyouwouldn’t dance a jig an’ sing alleluia ef you was to pick up a newspaper this mornin’ an’ read in type a foot long that yore wife’s brother, in another state, had laid a man out stiff as a board fer some’n that folks said had tuck place some time back betwixt the man an’ her.”
“Huh!” Wade’s glance was now on Pole’s face. “Huh, I reckon you are right, Pole, I reckon you are right. I wasn’t thinkin’ about that.”
“Thar wasanotherduty you wasn’t a-thinkin’ about, too,” Pole said. “An’ that is yore duty to yore wife an’ childern that would be throwed helpless on the world ef this thing had ’a’ come off today.”
“Well, I don’t seethat, anyway,” said Wade dejectedly.
“Well,Ido, Jeff. You see, ef you’d ’a’ gone on an’ killed Floyd, after I halted you, I’d ’a’ been a witness agin you, an’ I’d ’a’ had to testify that I told you, in so many words, whar theraleblame laid, an’ no jury alive would ’a’ spared yore neck.”
“I reckon that’s so,” Wade admitted. “Well, I guess I’ll go back, Pole. I won’t go any further with it. I promise you not to molest that scamp. I’ll not trade any more at his shebang, an’ I’ll avoid ’im all I kin, but I’ll not kill ’im as I intended.”
“Now, you’re a-talkin’ with a clear head an’ a clean tongue.” Pole drew a breath of relief and stood silent as Wade drew his horse around, put his foot into the heavy woodenstirrup and mounted. Pole said nothing until Wade had ridden several paces homeward, then he called out to him, and beckoned him back with his hand, going to meet him, leading his horse.
“I just thought o’ some’n else, Jeff—some’n I want to say. I reckon I wouldn’t sleep sound tonight, or think of anything the rest o’ the day, ef I don’t git it off my mind.”
“What’s that, Pole?”
“Why, I don’t feel right about callin’ you to halt so rough jest now, an’ talkin’ about shootin’ holes in you an’ the like, fer I hain’t nothin’ agin you, Jeff. In fact, I’m yore friend now more than I ever was in my life. I feel fer you’way down inside o’ me. The look on yore face cuts me as keen as a knife. I—I reckon, Jeff, that you sorter feel like—like yore little sister’s dead, don’t you?”
The rough face looking down from the horse filled. “Like she was dead an’ buried, Pole,” Wade answered.
“Well, Jeff”—Pole’s voice was husky—“don’t you ever think o’ what I said a while ago about shootin’. Jeff, I jest did that to git yore attention. You mought ’a’ blazed away at me, but I’ll be derned ef I believe I could ’a’ cocked or pulled trigger on you to ’a’ saved my soul.”
“Same here, old neighbor,” said Wade as he wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve. “I wouldn’t ’a’ tuck them words from no other man on the face o’ God’s green globe.”
When Wade had ridden slowly away Pole mounted his own horse.
“Now, I’ll go tell Nelson that the danger is over,” he said. Suddenly he reined his horse in and sat looking thoughtfully at the ground.
“No, I won’t,” he finally decided. “He kin set thar an’ wonder what’s up. I was in a hair’s breadth o’ the grave, about to leave a sweet wife an’ kids to starvation jest beca’se of him. No, Nelsy, old boy, you look death in the eye fer a while; it won’t do you no harm.”
And Pole Baker rode to the thicket, where he had hidden his bag of cornmeal that morning, and took it home.
(To be continued.)