IDID not bother with any of the victualing houses in that low-down locality. I led the Sortwell boys uptown and ushered them into a very fancy restaurant. I could see that their opinion of my greatness was growing all of the time. I could not induce them to touch the bill of fare or even look at it. They gaped in such a frightened way when I mentioned fancy dishes, that I helped to set them at ease by ordering steak and potatoes. They ate to the last scrap, cleaning their plates with morsels of bread, even as grateful pups lick their platters. They confessed that they had not dared to go into an eating-house, and I remembered that first day when I had roamed the streets of the city.
I wanted to ask questions about Levant, but I delayed. Dave Sortwell, the older, opened up the subject, but he did not do it very gracefully.
“I reckon they can’t slur the Sidneys after this, like they have always done past back,” he said. “Here you are, something big down here in the city—and your uncle Deck is first selectman of Levant.”
So my uncle had achieved his political ambition! When I heard that news I had inside me a feeling of apprehension which I could scarcely account for.
“Elected last week at the March town-meeting,” affirmed Ardon, the brother. “We younger fellows that have come of voting age went for him—most all of us, because he say’s he is going to turn politics in our town upside down and dance a jig on the bottom of ’em.”
“He was into the tavern the other night, pretty well teaed up,” giggled Dave, “and he said he was going to gallop Judge Kingsley to hell and stand over him with a red-hot gad while he shoveled brimstone. He has got it in for the judge—and a good many folks in Levant ain’t sorry. Judge Kingsley has always gouged folks.”
“Did they put the judge out of the treasurership—did my uncle bring that about?” Hearing that the feud was on worse than ever made my heart sick. I had been hoping!
“O Lord, no! I guess the judge is forever fixed in that job. Folks can’t seem to think of anybody else as treasurer. He’s a financier,” said Dave, reverently. “He knows all about handling money. Folks trust to him for that.”
“But you say my uncle—”
“Your uncle is doing most of the saying. Folks stand round and listen. I don’t know what he is trying to do to the judge. Nobody seems to know. Guess he can’t do much of anything except talk. You know, yourself, Ross, how he keeps sparked up most of the time. Maybe he don’t know just what he says, himself.”
I began to skirt the edges of conditions in Levant, asking questions about this one and that, showing as much indifference as I could. But the Sortwell boys showed even more indifference about their home town. It was all too familiar to them. They were displaying increasing interest in me, and were emboldened to ask questions, now that their early awe was wearing off.
I found out—and I was rather surprised—that the folks in Levant had not heard a word about me since I left the town. I had rather expected that Dodovah Vose would drop some hint as to what had become of me—and yet, on reflection, I could see that prudence required him to keep still. He had helped a prisoner to escape, and could not well let anybody suspect that he knew the whereabouts of that prisoner.
“I’ll tell you, boys,” I said, when they had flanked me with questions from every approach and had finally and fairly pounced on me to find out what I was doing for a living and how I was so important, “I am hitched up with big business interests who don’t allow their men to talk. I’d tell you if I could tell anybody. It isn’t one special kind of business—it’s all kinds—a sort of a syndicate—a combination. You understand!”
They hastened to say that they did—and I was glad of that because I didn’t understand, myself.
“But you’ll let us say that you’re in this big business, won’t you? When we get back home we want to tell all of ’em that they’d better not slur you any more.”
“I suppose the backbiters have been busy, eh?”
“Oh, not much nowadays except somebody remarks once in a while that you had to skip the town. You know how such things pop up in talk. Your uncle being prominent nowadays, you get mentioned once in a while. But Dodovah Vose has always stood up for you!”
“And a lot of folks didn’t believe what that detective said. He wasn’t a real detective, anyway. He was only a deputy sheriff from Pownal,” added Ardon, and the next minute I felt like hugging the boy. “I was always ashamed of how us fellows put you in bad, Ross, and so I owned up when Celene Kingsley asked me—”
I couldn’t help it! I came right up in my chair. “Celene Kingsley asked you?”
He misunderstood my heat.
“Don’t be mad, Ross! I stood up for you, I say! I was sorry for what I did. I was ashamed.”
“But you said Celene Kingsley asked you something!”
“Well, I can’t remember whether she came right to me and asked me or whether it just happened that the thing came up somewhere or—”
“But you would surely remember ifshecame to you!” I could not conceive of Celene coming to anybody without it marking a mile-stone in life.
However, the Sortwell boy had plainly decided to be non-committal until he had a better line on my feelings in the affair.
“I don’t want you to be mad because I talked it over, Ross. I stood up for you!”
“But did she comeasking?”
“We-e-ll, I guess she must have asked—or—or something! Anyway, it came up in talk—somehow—”
Confound his haziness!
“And of course I stood up for you. It was only right! I told her how you tried to bust up the Skokums! I said you threatened to bat out the brains of the whole of us if we didn’t stop cutting-up. I told her that they hadn’t ought to have arrested you that night, for you was trying to stop us from raiding her father’s house to grab that detective. You said something about a home being a castle—or—or something. Anyway, Ross, I did the best I knew how—I ain’t so much good in talk as you are. Honestly, I did the best I could to put you straight when she asked. Yes, I reckon she did ask.”
I was looking at him with such rapturous expression that his face cleared of uncertainty regarding my feelings.
“Sure, she must have asked, for I wouldn’t go to blart-ing that around, making the rest of us out as pirates, unless she had pinned me down. I reckon she did just that! Pinned me down. But I was glad to help you out that much!”
It came to me with a rush of sentiment that all I had done that day for the Sortwell boys had been fully paid for long in advance, and I was sorry because a whole lot of my actions had really been dictated by my selfishness and my desire to show off.
I reached across the table and took his hand.
“Ardon, I’m going to own up that I have had a lot of bitter thoughts about the folks in Levant since I left home. But if I had known that I had only one friend there like you have been in this matter, I would have put all the bad things out of my mind.”
“I only told the truth, Ross.”
“But that’s the hardest job a man undertakes to do in a lot of cases.” I was thinking just then how hardIwould find it to own up about myself, and how I had secured that money from the clutches of the rogues in Dawlin’s joint. And there I was, making a lot of capital out of that deceit!
But after what I had just heard I was resolved to go ahead and make more capital out of my pretensions to greatness.
“You’re going to let us say that you have made good, aren’t you?” asked Dave.
“I’d like to get back into the good opinion of the old town, boys. If you feel like saying something nice about me when you get back to Levant, I’ll be grateful.”
“Say, if we don’t blow your horn!” they cried in concert.
“But not too loud, boys! I don’t want to have too big a reputation to live up to when I come back home.”
They stood up and clapped me on the back.
“By gorry! you will come, won’t you, and show ’em?” pleaded Dave. “Come and show ’em!”
“But there’s one thing to be thought of first,” I said, with a grin. “Has my uncle Deck stopped threatening to kill me on sight?”
That stirred their memories and fetched a laugh.
“He wouldn’t dare to give you as much as one yip if you walked up to him looking like you do now,” said Dave.
The thought which he suggested was comforting; so much in this world does depend on outside appearances. The hankering in me to go back was whetted; just to make a show in the face and eyes of Levant, to stop their tongues for good and all! But I was conscious that deep under those cheaper motives was something more compelling. I had felt the thrust of it after Ardon Sortwell had told me of his confession to Celene. She, at least, knew that I had not been a renegade, and she had taken enough interest in me to make sure on that point.
“When are you coming back, Ross?” demanded Dave.
“Don’t tell anybody I am coming back, boys. Promise me that.”
They did.
“But you may say that you saw me in the city, and that I am doing well, and sent my best regards to all my friends.”
“We’ll make their cussed old ears sing,” declared Ardon. “Don’t you worry about us!”
“If I can arrange my business so as to leave it, I may run up later.”
I showed them some of the city sights that afternoon and they started for home that night—and I saw to it that they were safely aboard their train.
That I should dream of Levant that night was entirely natural. They were enticing dreams and they made me homesick and I found out that I was not such a bold man, after all, in spite of the shell I had grown; I felt very much like a boy when I woke next morning. I was hungry for my own folks.
In my haste to be gone I forgot all my caution. I went down to the water-front just as if there were no such person as a vengeful Anson C. Doughty.
I had cached, temporarily, my diving equipment. I went to the storage-man and arranged for its care, paying in advance.
Then I was bold enough to go hunting up Jodrey Vose because I wanted to carry some fresh and direct message to his brother in order to secure continued favor in the case of the tavern-keeper; he certainly had been my best friend in Levant. I intended to lodge with him and I dreaded his keen questioning in case I went to him with lies about when I had seen his brother last.
I found the captain on his lighter and we had a good talk during his rest-spell.
“I’m sorry it has turned out for you as it has, young Sidney. But it’s a good idea for you to run up to the old town and hang round with Dod for a while and sort of get your feet placed all over again. Maybe something will turn up down this way later!”
“Anson C. Doughty’s toes, perhaps.”
He wagged his head, soberly.
“I’m glad you came down to take leave, son, but you’re running chances. Anson C. Doughty is mighty ugly. He was beaten up in front of his crew—and folks haven’t got done talking and he knows they are talking. You’d better be hipering, I reckon.”
He sent one of the helpers to his cabin for a parcel and he put it into my hands.
“It’ll be handier than sending it by express to Dod,” he said. “It’s a skull I found in the dock. Tell him to make up a pirate yarn to go with it.”
Being thus equipped with full credentials as to my continued comfortable standing with Jodrey Vose, for the purposes of my further intimacy with Dodovah Vose, I started up the wharf in excellent spirits, my thoughts on my home-going.
And half-way to the street I fairly bumped into Anson C. Doughty. It was no coincidence—I ought to have reckoned on that meeting—the manager was regularly up and down the wharf at all hours of the day. But, as I have said, I had lost my caution. I had met him once face to face, and had not been recognized. But I was no longer wearing that mustache.
He swore a blue streak and danced back and forth in front of me, waving his hairy hands to shoo me back. He looked just as much like a cockroach as ever.
“You belong in State prison and you’re going there,” he snarled.
There were two wharf loafers near by, the only men in sight. He called to them, and they came to us, a couple of husky stevedores.
“You knowme!” shouted Doughty. “You two men hold this sucker till I can fetch a cop. Hold him! Don’t let him get away!”
He ran off toward the street.
I had not a chance to get away from those big chaps on that narrow wharf—and it was plain that they knew Anson C. Doughty and recognized his authority in those quarters.
So here were all my fresh plans, my hankering for home, my new-laid reputation for Levant consumption about to be kicked into the black depths of tophet by the grudge of Anson C. Doughty!
I could see that the stevedores despised my size because I was wearing a plug-hat; they glowered at me with the natural enmity the man in overalls feels for the dandy. It was perfectly damnable—that situation! To be arrested—to be shown up for what I was—the thought screwed my desperation to the breaking-point.
I pulled my wallet and began to flick out bills.
“He’s only trying to get back at me on account of a grudge, fellows; he’s using you for tongs,” I told them. “I was one of the divers and I batted him when he insulted me! I want to get out of town! Here’s a piece of money! He won’t give you anything.”
I had the skull under my arm and my wallet in my hands, and I wasn’t paying much attention to the men while I counted out money.
“Who was the gink who told us to hold the guy?” muttered one of the men. “Was it Doughty?”
“Sure! You know him,” said his companion.
“But he don’t knowus!”
“He won’t remember who you are!” I hastened to put in. “Take some money, and—”
“You bet we’ll take some money,” barked the two of them in chorus, and the next instant one of them clutched me and the other grabbed wallet, money and all, and they ran away, ducked into an alley between storehouses, and disappeared.
I was free at a high price.
I ran after them, of course, but they were nowhere in sight when I reached the parallel wharf, and so I started for the street; and Anson C. Doughty saw me, for he was running up and down the sidewalk, wildly hunting for a policeman. When he undertook to head me off I pitched the wrapped skull at him with all my might; it plunked him squarely in the face and dropped him, and then went bounding along the pavement at a lively clip. I was conscious that a lot of people were looking on and that a hullabaloo was started. But in spite of that I stopped to pick up the skull before I fled from the place. I reckon I must have felt considerable of a sense of responsibility where the interests of my friends, the Voses, were concerned!
I got through a short street on the jump, caught a passing car and when I was once aboard I was lost to pursuers—I was merely one of the city’s mass, and my garments testified for me.
I dug down into my pockets and found a few crumpled bills and some silver—the loose money I carried outside my wallet. The whole of it amounted to mighty little—only about enough to take me to Levant, as I remembered what the train fare had been.
I did not stop to figure on any further resources; I did not dare to go and seek aid from any of my acquaintances; I did not go back to my room for any of my belongings. Panic was on me. To be caught at that time meant the toppling of my cardboard house of hopes and reputation. I did not know to what extent Anson C. Doughty would throw out his drag-net—but I was pretty sure that he would drop all his other business for a time and attend strictly to what concerned me. He surely was the angriest man I had seen in many a day when he went down under the impact of that package.
To get out of that city just as quickly as I could, before he could set persons on my trail, or put spies at the city’s outlets, was the only sensible course open to me.
So in less than half an hour I found myself on the train, homeward bound, just as much of a fugitivefromthe city as I had been in other days when I headedtowardit.
I had a little spare change in my pocket and a skull under my arm.
HAVING caught a train out of the city at a fairly early hour in the forenoon, I made a daylight ride of it to Levant, and I stepped out upon the platform at Lower Comers just before sundown.
I remember that the red March sun was almost touching the rocky edge of the beech ridge, and, with the bare trunks of the trees striping it, looked like a coal fire with the stove cover off and a griddle on. In fact, as I looked up at the sun and reflected on the general condition of my affairs, I felt as if I were the particular live lobster destined for the griddle in Levant.
But I walked past the platform loafers, leaving my satin-lined overcoat open so that they might get the full effect of my frock suit. No one seemed to recognize me; Levant Comers is all of three miles from Levant village, and there was never much mixing between the communities when I was a boy. I set off at a good pace to walk the three miles to Dodovah Vose’s tavern.
Men in several teams which overtook me offered a lift, and one of them addressed me as “Elder.” Evidently my clothes were producing an impression! But I declined all offers. I had waved the stage-driver aside, and now if I accepted a free ride I might have brought suspicion on my financial ability. So I told them all politely that I needed exercise and walked on in all my dignity—and, being encumbered by nothing except a skull under my arm, I found my tramp pleasurable.
I went along at such a clip that I topped the long rise from the river where the railroad winds and was able to look down on distant Levant village before the lingering dusk had settled into night. The stripped trees had left all the houses bare and rather bleak; there was no beauty anywhere. The afternoon chill had hardened the road mud into iron ridges. Being back on my native heath was not so consoling and heart-thrilling as I had pictured. That faded, sodden, frozen landscape was depressing. I looked like a millionaire, but I belonged on the town farm. There was one thing to remember, however. My uncle as first selectman was also overseer of the poor, by virtue of his office.
I wondered what he would say to me if I walked up to him and tried to borrow money! On second thought, I knew so well what he would say that I promptly decided that I would keep my mouth shut in regard to my finances.
I hurried on, for there was an inviting twinkle of light in the windows of Vose’s tavern. I was carrying a rather gruesome ticket of admission, but a message from Jodrey Vose went along with it and it would make me especially welcome.
For some distance the highway was bordered by woods, and at last I saw a roadside sign which gave me a bit of a thrill, for it bore the magic name of Kingsley.
“For Sale. This Wood-lot. Apply to Z. Kingsley.”
That’s what the sign said.
Before I was fairly on my way, after stopping to read, I was able to put eyes on Z. Kingsley, himself. He was in a carriage which was coming in my direction and his daughter was driving a horse which was too likely-looking to have been furnished by my uncle.
I did not reflect or consider. I had no clear notion in my mind at that instant. I suppose I was overcome by an irresistible hankering to hear her voice—to speak to her.
At any rate, backed by that longing or by courage or cheek or whatever else it might be called, I stepped out into the middle of the road and put up my hand. I reckon if Judge Kingsley had been driving he would have run over me. His blessed daughter pulled up short.
I took off my hat and he gave me a sharp glance and recognized me. And so did Celene, for she smiled even while she looked a bit startled.
“Drive on!” snapped her father.
“Judge Kingsley, I want to—”
He checked me with much impatience, and I was glad of it, for I was not prepared to tell him just what I did want. I knew I wanted to rush up to her and say a lot of things, but I was conscious that the action would not have made much of a hit with her father.
“I have no time to waste on you, sir. I have to catch a train.”
“But the train has gone along,” I stalled. “I just came in on it.”
“I am going the other way—to the city!” He showed considerable temper.
“We have plenty of time before the down train is due, father,” Celene told him. He reached after the reins, but she held them away from him, showing that she had more or less of the Kingsley obstinacy, herself.
“What do you want, sir? Quick!”
It was a rather contemptuous command, but it was showing more consideration for a member of the Sidney family than I had dared to hope for. If he had taken up the whip and lashed at me at first meeting I would not have been surprised. It was evident that my personal appearance was having weight with him. I ventured to believe that the Sortwell boys had been advertising me in town, though they were only a few hours ahead of me.
I rolled my eyes around, trying to think of something sensible. I saw the sign again.
“What is your price on this wood-lot, Judge Kingsley?”
“I can’t stop to talk business, sir.”
“But I’m simply asking the price. You’re advertising it. You must have put a price on it.”
“I’ll be back in a week or ten days. Come to me then. I’m in a hurry.”
I put on a fine air of importance.
“So am I, Judge Kingsley! So are the big interests which I represent. But we are never in too much of a hurry to answer polite questions in business. I say, what is your price?”
“Two thousand dollars,” he cracked out.
“How many acres?”
“Forty.”
I raised my hat and stepped to one side.
“That’s all, sir. I’ll investigate and be ready to talk with you when you return. Good evening!”
I could see that he was taken aback a bit by my own shortness in the matter. He sat there holding his mouth open as if he intended to say something more, but I walked on; it came to me that perhaps he was going to say that he wouldn’t do any business with a Sidney—and I was avoiding all argument on that point.
Celene gave me another flicker of a smile when she started the horse. They went on at a good clip, and the moment they were out of sight around a bend in the road I turned back, climbed the fence, and sat down beside some bushes. My heart was so warm within me that I was not afraid of a chill.
I was guessing that she would not waste any time in making that trip to the railroad station; you see, I was building high merely on the glances she had been giving me—on the flush which was on her cheek when she drove away. Would she hurry back to overtake me? She did.
When I saw her coming, snapping her whip to make the horse trot at a brisker pace, I climbed back over the pitch-pole fence and leaned against it. It was pretty dark, but she spied me and stopped the horse.
“I have done something rather foolish,” I told her, staying where I stood.
“Yes?”
“And I have found out all over again that haste makes waste. I wanted to get a peep at that stand of timber and I went racing around in the dark—and so I have wrenched my ankle.”
“Oh, I am so sorry!”
“It’s my own fault! It’s what the city does to a man! Keeps him on the gallop! Makes him too impatient to wait for morning.”
“Can you get to the carriage?”
“But I don’t like to trouble you, Miss Kingsley! If you will send a team—”
“No, you shall ride with me! The idea of my leaving you in the woods alone! I’ll come and help you.”
“No, I’ll manage!”
So I limped to the carriage and climbed in. She watched me anxiously and asked after my hurt with solicitude. I was doing a pretty mean thing, I knew, but the opportunity to be alone with Celene Kingsley that first hour of my arrival in town was a favor to be grabbed for and hugged jealously. She walked the horse, and I sat beside her and was so happy in that first intimacy that I was not a bit ashamed of my deceit.
“So you are doing wonderful things in the city!” she said, after a time. I had not spoken, for I was afraid of blurting out something foolish.
“Nothing so very grand,” I faltered.
“But Dave and Ardon Sortwell have had something to say about that since they have been home. I am very glad for you, Mr. Sidney.”
“I’d rather please you than anybody else.” That was a mighty awkward answer and I was just as much embarrassed as she was.
“Good news about Levant boys pleases us all up here.’
“Sometimes I have thought they liked the bad news best—the most of ’em. The way they drove me out and then talked behind my back was—”
“I know all the truth of it—and most of the folks do now, I think,” she broke in. “You must put it all out of your mind. You must not come back with resentment toward anybody. There’s too much of that in the world. There’s too much in Levant.”
She hesitated a moment and then burst out with a tremble in her voice.
“Oh, Mr. Sidney, I am so thankful because you have come home! I do hope you can have some influence with your uncle. I ask your forgiveness for bringing it up so soon. But my heart is so full of it all! I hurried back, hoping I could overtake you.”
So that was why she had hurried!
“I don’t know about having influence with my uncle,” I said, and I could not keep all of the rasp out of my voice. Her welcome of me simply as an uncle-tamer had pricked me in a mighty tender place. “I don’t believe he is going to give me either three cheers or a hug and kiss when he sees me.”
“But you are an important man, now, and he must be proud of you and your success. He will look up to you now that you have money and position.”
Like a bang on the head the conviction struck me that I had cut out a fine bit of work for myself when I dropped back into my home town.
I had been all too well advertised by my loving friends.
Celene Kingsley had touched squarely on one truth: the only way to handle my uncle was to appear important even if I were not important. Mere bluff would go a little way—but not far. I must have money!
And here I was picked by her as her champion in the family feud!
If I had only stayed in the city! There was money to be come at there. Dollars in Levant were nailed down with spikes.
“We haven’t one happy hour in our home,” she wailed. “Your uncle is breaking my father’s heart, Mr. Sidney. I don’t understand what your uncle is doing; mother doesn’t understand it! Father has never told his business to us. But he sits in his office and figures and figures. Sometimes he stays there ’most all night. And it’s all on account of your uncle! I know that! For my father says your uncle is hounding him to death. You must find out what he is doing. I know you will find out and tell him he must stop.”
“I will look into the matter,” I said, as bravely as I could. “Of course there’s been hard feeling between my uncle and your father for a good many years.”
“But my father is sorry now for anything in the past. He says so to us, to mother and me. He sent mother to your uncle to ask him if he would not stop persecuting. Yes, she went to your uncle because father asked her to do so.”
That statement nigh took my breath away!
Mrs. Kingsley going as suppliant to my uncle Deck? Judge Zebulon Kingsley requesting her to do it? I shut my eyes and could picture her—frail, pale, aristocratic. The exigency must be desperate when Judge Kingsley would submit his wife to such employment.
“But please keep that a secret,” she pleaded.
I saw that I was headed into something which was bigger and more baleful than I had dreamed of. And more than before did I feel my deficiencies as a fraud who could not even turn a trick for his own wants, let alone those greater affairs in Levant.
“This mystery in our home is killing us all,” she went on. “There have been strangers in town and they have been much with my father. I do not like their looks. He would not tell us, but I am afraid they have coaxed him away to the city on this trip he is making. Perhaps your uncle has set those men on to harm him.”
I had never gauged my uncle Deck as a hirer of assassins, but I had not seen him for some years, and I admitted to myself that there was never any telling where a man’s grudge would lead him.
“Mother and I tried to make him stay at home. But he would not stay and he would not tell us why he was going to the city. Oh, how I hate those strangers, for I believe they have coaxed him away.”
I looked sideways at her, and a little shiver tingled in me. There was real venom in her tone and I saw that I had not guessed the depths in Miss Celene Kingsley.
“I wish I had a brother,” she mourned. “I believe he would feel as I feel now, and would follow up and kill the man who would harm my father.”
It was so strange an utterance from a girl and seemed so contrary to what I had supposed her nature to be that I remembered that outburst for a long time.
I juggled the skull on my knee and pondered awhile before I said anything, and she was silent, too, evidently trying to get control of her emotions.
“I want to say this to you, Miss Kingsley. The Sort-well boys gave me some news of the home town and they told me that my uncle was after your father in bitter fashion. That’s one reason why I have hurried up here. I don’t know just what I can do with my uncle, but I’ll truly do my best.”
We had come into the edge of the village and had passed the first houses.
“I put my trust in you,” she said, gently. “I always knew you had good impulses in you. I remember our talk that day on Purgatory Hill. And I know you kept your promise you gave to me then. You did your best to make the boys good.”
“And I’ll do my best to make my uncle good.”
“I do hope your business will not call you away until you have straightened matters out. Oh, you asked about the price of the wood-lot! Does it mean that you expect to have some business with father?”
I had not given another thought to the wood-lot since I had used it for an excuse in an emergency. I did not see at that moment how I could use a wood-lot for anything else than that excuse.
“If only you could have some business with my father—it would smooth things so much for all of us, perhaps,” she pleaded.
“We’ll see what can be done,” I assured her. “This syndicate—this combination—a very large concern,” I floundered on, trying to think up some sort of a plausible lie to account for my interest in a wood-lot, “it’s—er—ah!—you see, I can’t give out much information locally because we do so many kinds of business—it’s all linked up—it’s necessary to move carefully, but I think I’ll tell you this much, confidentially, just between ourselves!” Again my hankering to have some sort of a secret between Celene Kingsley and myself! “One branch of our business is building all the tall brick chimneys in the eastern part of the country. We use millions of bricks and so we need a great deal of wood for burning the bricks. So that’s why, maybe, I can pay your father’s price for the wood-lot. Now you understand!” I ended up with a lot of relief, for I had to dive pretty deep for that lie.
“I do see, and I’m glad there’s a prospect you’ll stay in town. And then, too, there’s your ankle to nurse!”
I was glad she mentioned the ankle, for I had forgotten all about it, and would certainly have betrayed myself when I jumped out of the carriage at the tavern. Really, to be a good liar a fellow should take one of those courses in memory-training! As it was, I descended carefully and promised her to apply cloths and liniment that night. She tendered her little hand, and I pressed it, and she left with me the memory of a smile which was like a rose gemmed with dew—-for there were tears in her eyes.
I waited in the tavern yard till she was well on her way, and then I marched in without any limp, for I was not minded to keep up that special lie for the benefit of all Levant.
Dodovah Vose walked behind his catty-cornered counter, plucked a rusty pen from its potato scabbard, whirled the register around under my nose, and tendered the pen.
“Rather nippy evenings, though pleasant enough daytimes for this time of year, Squire,” he said, by way of welcome to the arriving guest.
That tickled me. He didn’t recognize me. He was looking at my rig rather than at my face. When I had splashed my name on the page he pulled his spectacles to the end of his nose and inspected the signature. Then he snapped upright and stared at me.
“Godfrey domino Peter!” he bawled. “Then them Sortwell boys ain’t such condemned liars as I suspected they were! When Jod wrote me that you had quit diving I reckoned you had gone plunk square to tophet!”
“Oh, there’s always a chance for a fellow in the city, if he keeps hustling,” I told him. I chinked the little handful of small change in my pocket. “I’m going to stay here with you for a spell, Mr. Vose. Have you a rule that guests without baggage must pay in advance?” I grinned and he took it as a great joke.
“If you can tell me enough about Jod I may adopt you and give you free board the rest of your life,” he chuckled.
Then I handed over his present with a word of explanation, and he unwrapped the grisly object and surveyed it with as much satisfaction as if it had been a golden nugget.
“Jod always knows what will hit me to a T. Of course, he says to you, ‘Tell Dod to make up a story to go with it’!”
“Exactly what he said, sir.”
“Sure! That’s what I have done with every curio he has given me.”
For the first time I realized that in my boyhood I had accumulated a fine line of fiction from Dodovah Vose.
But I forgave him in my thoughts, for he took me into the big kitchen and fried me the finest chicken I ever ate. And while he fixed up my supper I told him how I had learned diving with his brother. I comforted him, too, by telling him that I had given up the work only temporarily.
But I switched him when he tried to find out what I was up to at that time. The plug-hat part of my program seemed to puzzle him very much. I was not ready with any good explanation. I figured that I might have some kind of a story ready in the morning, after I had slept on the thing. I began to rely considerably on my work as a fabricator; I had shown quite a lot of aptitude and readiness on short notice, I reflected.
I found myself holding an impromptu reception in the tavern office that evening—and they were all there with their little gimlets of questions, boring for information, you can bet! Therefore I broke away early and went to bed. I staved them all off in good shape, for I could be dignified in those clothes I was wearing. What I was afraid of was that Uncle Deck would pop in. He would not have used any gimlet; he would have set upon me with a pod-auger of inquisition, and would have ridden on it so as to bear down hard! And I had not my story ready!
FURTHERMORE, in the morning I was just as much at sea. I had gone to sleep as suddenly as if somebody had hit me a tunk on the head; too much fried chicken and hashed brown potato! I did not wake up till Dodo-vah Vose marched through the tavern halls, playing the long roll on his gong. The March sun, level with the eastern windows, quivered with glorious light when I opened my eyes on it. I had all sorts of reasons to be downcast, but I was not when I waked and saw that sun.
Scattered coins, my whole capital, lay on the carpet of braided rags, where they had slipped from my trousers pocket the night before when I hung the garment over a chair. I gazed over the billowing edge of the feather tick in which I was nested, and counted, for the sun lighted the floor and glinted on the coins. One dollar and thirty-seven cents!
However, in spite of that spectacle, I hopped out of bed and dressed, whistling snatches of tupes furnished by music-hall memories. I was home again, Celene Kingsley had given me glances which my hopes translated into all sorts of dear promises—she had asked me to help her; the sun was shining, breakfast was ready! I went down-stairs whistling.
“Head up and tail over the dasher, hey?” was the greeting from Landlord Vose.
“It’s a great world to live in,” I told him. After I had tucked away a slice of home-smoked fried ham only a little smaller than a door-mat, along with eggs and the fixings, I felt even more resolute about fronting what was coming to me.
My spirit of boldness was even a bit hysterical, I guess. I rubbed the nap of my plug-hat smooth with my forearm, pulled on my overcoat, and went out and stood on the tavern porch, inhaling the tingling air of the morning, exhibiting myself to Levant like a gladiator stepping into the arena, announcing by pose and expression: “Here I am. Now come on!”
And the first to answer my challenge was my uncle Deck. I think he had been waiting for me to appear. He walked across the village square, coming from the town office, and I hailed him from afar with a flourish of the hand and a “Good morning!”
Ten feet away he stopped and looked me over. “Why didn’t you come home last night, where you belong, instead of putting up at the tavern and letting me hear about it by word of mouth?”
“Well, Uncle Deck,” I drawled, “you remember—”
“Look here,” he yapped, “as I stand here I don’t know whether to cuff your young chops or shake your hand. A good deal depends on you. If you go to digging up past foolishness I’ll cuff you. As it is”—he stepped forward, hand outstretched—“as it is, son, I’m glad to see you back, and I hear that you have made something of yourself. I’m glad of that, too! Now get your volucus, or whatever your baggage is, and come to the house.”
“I’ll tell you, Uncle Deck,” I explained, dropping his hand after a hearty shake; “I’m here on business this trip, not to go visiting.”
“What difference does that make about coming to my house, where you belong?” he demanded.
He had me there—backed into a corner! He had his pod-auger out, ready to use on me, just as I had apprehended—and so help me! I was not ready with a story.
“What is your business?”
Dignified reserve and a plug-hat would not serve to trig my uncle Deck!
It was necessary for me to dedare then and there what my business in Levant was. I had been clutching wildly into a lot of nebulous thoughts ever since waking, trying to get hold of something solid.
And I found out then, as I had experienced before, and discovered on many occasions later, that there was in me something which enabled me to leap an emergency barrier when the goad was sharp enough and the danger near.
“I’ve got to have dealings with a lot of men and I’d be a nuisance around your premises, Uncle Deck.”
“What dealings? No secret, is it?”
“Certainly not! I’m buying for a big syndicate. Buying standing timber.” I said that because I had already committed myself with Celene Kingsley and it came to me that I’d better have one story and stick to it.
“All right! Buy some of mine.”
“But as I remember it, it’s mostly black growth—pine and spruce.”
“Yes, and cedar, fir, and hemlock! What in thunder does anybody want of any other kind of timber?”
“I can’t use it. I’m buying for a special purpose.”
I felt like a man trying to get across a brook without wetting his feet. Every time I leaped I was mighty glad and rather surprised to find another stepping-stone to land on.
“Then you must be looking for hardwood?”
“That’s it.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Burn bricks for our factory chimneys.”
He did not look more than half convinced.
“I can’t go into details even with you, Uncle Deck,” I told him. “I’m ordered to buy close, and when names of big concerns are given out the sellers always raise prices.”
“There’s only one big stand of hardwood in this town,” he said, “and I’ll see you in damnation before I’ll let you buy that!”
“Why?”
The red patches beside his nose began to flame. “Don’t come back atmewith your ‘whys’! I’ll tell you why you can’t buy! It’s because you’ll be handing over money to that”—(I never heard coarser oaths; my uncle fairly choked on them)—“to Zebulon Kingsley.”
“I know the lot belongs to Judge Kingsley. I saw the sign on the fence and I happened to meet the judge right there and had some talk with him.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you have been dickering with that—”
I broke in on his list of names. “My concern has ordered me to buy hardwood and I’m buying. I have no quarrel with Judge Kingsley.”
“By the Great Jedux, youhave!Don’t you dare to tell me you have forgotten! Youhavegot a quarrel with him. D——n you, look out that you don’t start one withme!”
“I have come in here to mind my own business—”
“Condemn your ha’slet!” he cried. “No wonder you didn’t dare to come to my house last night! No wonder you’re fighting shy of me to-day!”
In spite of his anger, I felt a sudden sense of relief. I did not need to waste effort and time on minor falsehoods, trying to explain why I did not come to his house; I could devote all my attention to my main lie.
“I’m not fighting shy of you, Uncle Deck. I’m a business man, and—”
He turned sideways to me and switched his arm furiously, as if he held a goad and was trying to start a balky steer.
“You come along over to my office,” he commanded with a grate in his tones. “This isn’t a matter to blart about on a street corner.”
I followed him. He locked the door behind us.
“You know that I have been elected first selectman of this town?”
“Yes, Uncle Deck. I’m glad the citizens—”
“Yah, for the citizens! First and last, it has cost me five thousand dollars to get this office. And it’s for their own good I worked to get it—and they thought it was only to satisfy my grudge. That’s all the credit a man gets from the fools who vote. But I’m in this office now—I’m headed straight for my mark—and the man who gets in my way will be bored like a cheese target! Do you hear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They know enough in this town to keep out of my way! I have trained ’em. You don’t dare to come back here, do you—my own nephew—and get in my way?”
“I’m only attending to my business.”
“Meaning by that you’re thinking of buying a wood-lot from Zebulon Kingsley?”
Secretly I was sort of laughing at myself. Here I was, inviting a lot of trouble by insisting on doing something which was a positive impossibility, so it seemed then as I jingled my coins in my pocket.
“I have my business the same as you have yours, sir. I didn’t know—”
“You did know!” he shouted. “And if you are such a renegade as to forget what has been done to your family by that skunk, you knownow—for I’m telling you! You can’t do business with Zebulon Kingsley. I say it!” He pounded his fist on his breast.
I kept still. I was trying to work out in my mind some sensible idea as to what I really did intend to do in the matter of that wood-lot.
My uncle leaned toward me over the table in the town office, propping himself on one fist and pounding softly and slowly with the other. His lips were rolled back and he growled his words deep down in his throat, almost in a whisper.
“I know what he is, now. I’ve got the stuff on him. I’ve had to work slow. I’ve had to convince two devilish steers on the board of selectmen without telling ’em what I’m after. But I’ve got ’em. And he is headed for hell and I’m after him. And he knows it now and that’s the best of it! Because I’m taking my time while he is thinking it over! Oh, my gad! if only your father could have lived till now to see how the devilish old gouger and robber is getting his! And he is paying for your mother’s tears and sweat with drops of his blood. And he is paying me, too. I stay up nights to see that lamp in his office window. And you say, do you, that you have come here to hand over money to Zebulon Kingsley? To the man who filed your father’s heart in two with a mortgage?”
“It’s only in the way of ordinary trade,” I ventured. I was wondering why I was continuing to provoke my uncle. But I knew I needed to start considerable of a smoke to screen my real condition from him.
“There is to be no trade between you,” raged my uncle. “No money from you shall touch that scoundrel’s hands!” Just at that moment I was more sure of that than he was.
My uncle gave me a little opportunity to do some thinking, for he went to the office safe and pulled out a bottle and drank.
I wondered what kind of a hold he had on Judge Kingsley. My curiosity was aflame. It was not believable that he could ruin the judge financially, for the Kingsleys had possessed wealth for many generations. Celene Kingsley, as the petted daughter of our village aristocrat, was too far above me for any hopes to bear fruit, even though they budded. But what would the Kingsleys be after my uncle had worked out his revenge, of whose success he seemed to be so sure?
“I know there has been trouble between the families, Uncle Deck,” I said. “I know we were not used right in money matters. But what is it you’re going to do to Judge Kingsley? What is your grip on him?”
He wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand and set back the bottle. “None of your d———d business!”
“I don’t like to go into anything blindfolded. I have business to consider, and I’ll have to make explanations.
“You’ll get off better by making ’em to the men who have hired you than by explaining to me, if you don’t do what I tell you to do.”
“But I’m no kid any longer. I’m running my own affairs, sir. If you can’t let me in on the plans of this thing—”
He advanced on me, waggling his fist. “You’re a devil of a fellow to come and pump me for secrets, you are! What do you want to do—run to him again like you did in the case of that hoss trade? Do you think I have forgotten that?”
“No, and I know you never will, sir.”
“And so I say now, ask no questions and do as I tell you.”
I edged toward the door, for I was pretty well mixed up in my own thoughts and did not care to get into any more of a row with my uncle—and all needlessly.
“Are you giving me your word?” he demanded.
“I’m not promising anything until I can think it over and decide on what’s best to be done, Uncle Deck.”
“You’ll decide now before you leave this office.”
He started toward me, but the key was in the door, and I turned it and stood ready to leave.
“You have come back here to fight me, have you? A Sidney fighting his own and nearest blood kin, eh?” He came close and made threatening gestures. I put my arm across his breast and slowly pushed him back; I gave him good opportunity to note that the arm was a sizable one and mighty hard.
“You plug-hatted dude!” he frothed. “Forgetting the duty you owe to your own because you have had a whirl in the city!”
“I am no dude, Uncle Deck, and calling me names and treating me like a brat, as you used to do, isn’t going to get you anything!”
“You are not standing with your own family.”
“I can be loyal to my family, but I’m not going to-shut my eyes and jump into a row just because you tell me it’s your row.”
I saw that I had produced an impression and he calmed down a bit.
“There may be a good deal you can do to help me in the thing,” he said. “But, blast it! after what you once did to me, I ain’t sure I can trust you!” He squinted his eyes and sized me up shrewdly. “You’re a Sidney, and the old rat did dirt to you before you left this town. If you ain’t willing to rise up now and swoop on him, there’s a reason. You ain’t stuck on that girl of his, are you?”
The blood surged into my face. I couldn’t help it. I was thinking hard about her all through that talk. That was the last thing I would have looked for from my uncle. He had jumped me in fine shape, and he saw it.
“Yah-h-h!” he snarled. “You fool! You devilish fool! It had to be a girl to keep you from doing your plain duty—and I knew it. Nothing but a girl would be putting a twist-bit into your mouth right now!”
“You’re wrong! You’re all wrong!” I protested, but I didn’t sound real convincing.
Nor did he, either, when he started to give me hints about her. His eyes shifted and he stammered. I took him by the arm with a good, hearty clutch and he shut up.
There did not seem to be anything more to say just then, on the part of either of us; plainly, we had squared off at each other!
So I walked out.
I was glad because my first session with my uncle was over. But while I felt relief I knew I had pretty well done for myself where he was concerned. Of course, I had not intended to confess to him my financial condition, but deep down I had felt until then that if worse came to the worst he would see me out of a hole. He would have done something, at least, for my father’s sake. But I had been the one to deal family loyalty the first kick. Now my uncle would see me starve and enjoy my sufferings; his grudges followed just such grooves.
Whatever else was ahead, it was pretty much up to me!
I went back to the tavern, for it was some comfort just to look on Dodovah Vose’s kindly face.
“Let’s see! You’ve been dropping a word or two about doing business here,” he prodded in friendly fashion. “Hope so. It’s quiet in town. We’re all climbing ‘March Hill,’ you know—dull time in the country.”
“I’m here to start something, sir.” I was telling him the truth then. I had just started something over in the town office. I sat down and picked up a newspaper from the table and began to show great interest in reading so that I would not be obliged to talk. I was afraid he would get me cornered. I hung onto that paper as if it were a life-buoy—I read it from title to last line, advertisements and all. It was theMechanicsville Herald, printed in a manufacturing city about thirty miles from Levant, and because I did not miss anything which was printed in it I noted that two concerns wanted cord-wood—and I had just mentioned the matter of cord-wood to my uncle. At all events, I was traveling on a singletrack lie in old Levant!
I laid down that paper and did some mighty lively thinking. Then, to reassure myself, I gave my silk hat the least bit of a cock and marched to Judge Kingsley’s mansion.
Celene herself opened the door so promptly after my ring that I had a cozy little suspicion that she had seen me coming and had hurried to meet me. She was very pretty in her morning gown.
“Oh, your ankle is so much better, isn’t it?” she cried. “I watched you coming across the square.”
She stepped back, inviting me to enter by her manner, and I walked in.
“I knew just what to do for it. It’s pretty nigh all right.”
She led me to the sitting-room, and her mother rose and met me; Mrs. Kingsley was distantly polite, that was all. I was glad even for that much in the case of a Sidney, for I knew that Judge Kingsley’s obedient wife was as careful in matching her opinions to his as she was in matching colors at the store.
“I ask to be excused for calling so early in the day,” I said, with my hat in the hook of my arm, and putting on my best manners. “But this is a business call and I’m in somewhat of a hurry. You heard me speak to your father, Miss Kingsley, about the wood-lot. Now—”
“I never presume to interfere in my husband’s business matters,” said Mrs. Kingsley, looking half scared. “I know nothing whatever about his business.”
“Oh, I am not asking you to do so—certainly not,” I hurried to tell her. “I shall do all my business directly with him. But to do so I need his address in the city. I have come to ask you for it. I suppose he left it.”
“Oh yes—so that I may send his mail.” She looked relieved and gave me the name of a hotel.
I had not presumed to sit down, though I was sure that Celene’s eyes had asked me. I bowed and backed toward the door.
“I thank you. That’s all I wanted. I am sorry I was obliged to intrude.” I felt that I was certainly doing that little thing well. “I may be obliged to call again, if you will allow me.”
Mrs. Kingsley hesitated.
“Of course you may call,” blurted Celene.
“I may have to consult with you in a matter similar to this errand to-day,” I explained. “I’m sorry the judge is not here; in that case I would not be bothering you.”
“I tried to prevail on my husband to stay at home—he is not at all well—there are so many matters which need his attention here,” complained Mrs. Kingsley. “If we can help you with any information we’ll be glad to doit.”
I went away on that, and I guess I left a good impression that I was strictly business!
Feeling sure that the two of them were watching me, I put a lot of business snap into my gait when I returned to the tavern.
“Mr. Vose,” I asked, briskly, “how many hitches have you in your livery-stable?”
“Eight,” he said, “if I include two road-carts.”
“The road-carts are all right, too. I want to use all of ’em, if you can furnish drivers.”
“It’s easy enough to find men in these slack times.”
“And probably farmers and day’s-work men in the back districts of the town would like a job.”
“You can bet on it!”
“Start eight men going, then, as soon as you can get the horses hitched in. Have the messengers pass the word that I can use two hundred husky men. Each man to report here in the tavern yard to-morrow morning at six-thirty with a sharp ax on his shoulder.”
“And what else—tell ’em what else?”
“Nothing.”
“But about wages—and what they’re to do?”
“Tell ’em nothing. They’ll come running in here to find out what it’s all about, Mr. Vose. Don’t even tell ’em who wants ’em. You and I both know how curiosity itches in this town till it has been properly scratched.”
“Guess you’re right,” agreed the landlord. “If you set out to hire ’em regular style they’d want to hem and haw and haggle about so long and so much!”
“If you want a deposit for—” I suggested, reaching toward a breast pocket which was empty.
“Godfrey domino, no!” he protested, flapping his hands. “If you have had to handle business in those suspicious ways down in the city I’m sorry for you. Now forget money talk between us till it’s time to talk.”
I was glad to do that, and I hoped that his ideas of time were liberal.
I borrowed some blank paper and went up to my room and figured for many hours, stopping only to eat a good dinner—a boiled dinner in Vose’s best style. My plate was piled high twice with corned beef fringed with golden fat, succulent disks of yellow carrots, wine-red beets, snowy white spuds, and odorous turnips. No man could possibly be a pessimist with that dinner under his belt! I had every reason to be the most apprehensive man in Avon County, but I had set my face to the front and I had just naturally made up my mind that I was going to pay for that dinner and for the other things which I had been recklessly ordering. I proposed to put myself into a position where I would be compelled to use every bit of my capital of cheek. The sweat stood, out on my forehead, but it wasn’t the kind of moisture which could soften my grit.
In the afternoon, every time a steaming horse came homing back to Vose’s stable, I felt a funny quiver inside me.
“I reckon you have got a good line on human nature, young Sidney,” stated the landlord, when I went down to the foreroom before supper. “From what the men say this rushing around back district’s with teams has got the boys all heifered up. Even if they don’t come in to go to work, they’ll be here to see what in tunket the hoorah’s about.”
“I have heard my father say that this town was always ready to turn out to a bee,” I told him. When I said it another thought came to cheer me—I had noticed that when a lot of men were set at work together on one job the natural spirit of rivalry put pep into the bunch.
When Dodovah Vose went to his kitchen to give an eye to supper, I plucked a telegraph blank from his office desk. I nerved myself to try on my most audacious trick of all. I wrote this:
To Ross Sidney, Levant.—Offer accepted. Go ahead with work. Will settle with you on my return.
Z. Kingsley.
I set my jaws and told myself that the message wasn’t all falsehood; the last sentence was strictly true, even if Zebulon Kingsley did not pen it.
I folded the paper, stuck it in my pocket, and went again to the Kingsley house. It was brazen business—a dangerous hazard. But I was depending on woman’s inadequacy. I felt that I had the two of them sized pretty well. They had never presumed to meddle in the affairs of their master. They would not dare to question his will. I figured that sending him a wire asking corroboration of the message to me would seem to them like bold interference which would bring reproof from him.
I waited, respectfully standing, while they read the message, Celene looking over her mother’s shoulder.
“It’s more about the wood-lot matter,” I explained. “I think you heard your father make me a price on it. Miss Kingsley.”
“I remember distinctly, mother. Father said he would sell for two thousand dollars.”
“I know it must seem rather irregular,” I said, “but in my wire I explained that my people are in a great hurry—and I’m glad that he has been willing to meet me half-way. It means that I am to put on a crew at once and cut the wood—and, of course, it’s a safe proposition for the judge,” I went on, forcing the best smile I could. “Neither the land nor the wood can be carried away in a shawl-strap before he returns—I think he said in a week or ten days!”