"He must understand the meaning of his own books and accounts, I should think," remarked John.

"Oh," said Chet scornfully, "anybody c'd do that. That's easy 'nough; but as fur 's the real bus'nis is concerned, he don't have nothin' to do with it. It's all ben left to me: chargin' an' creditin', postin', individule ledger, gen'ral ledger, bill-book, discount register, tickler, for'n register, checkin' off the N'York accounts, drawin' off statemunts f'm the ledgers an' bill-book, writin' letters—why, the' ain't an hour 'n the day in bus'nis hours some days that the's an hour 't I ain't busy 'bout somethin'. No, sir," continued Chet, "Dave don't give himself no trouble about the bus'nis. All he does is to look after lendin' the money, an' seein' that it gits paid when the time comes, an' keep track of how much money the' is here an' in N'York, an' what notes is comin' due—an' a few things like that, that don't put pen to paper, ner take an hour of his time. Why, a man'll come in an' want to git a note done, an' it'll be 'All right,' or, 'Can't spare the money to-day,' all in a minute. He don't give it no thought at all, an' he ain't 'round here half the time. Now," said Chet, "when I work fer a man I like to have him 'round so 't I c'n say to him: 'Shall I do it so? or shall I do it so? shall I? or sha'n't I?' an' then when I make a mistake—'s anybody's liable to—he's as much to blame 's I be."

"I suppose, then," said John, "that you must have to keep Mr. Harum's private accounts also, seeing that he knows so little of details. I have been told that he is interested in a good many matters besides this business."

"Wa'al," replied Timson, somewhat disconcerted, "I suppose he must keep 'em himself in some kind of a fashion, an' I don't know a thing about any outside matters of his'n, though I suspicion he has got quite a few. He's got some books in that safe" (pointing with his finger) "an' he's got a safe in the vault, but if you'll believe me"—and the speaker looked as if he hardly expected it—"I hain't never so much as seen the inside of either one on 'em. No, sir," he declared, "I hain't no more idee of what's in them safes 'n you have. He's close, Dave Harum is," said Chet with a convincing motion of the head; "on the hull, the clostest man I ever see. I believe," he averred, "that if he was to lay out to keep it shut that lightnin' might strike him square in the mouth an' it wouldn't go in an eighth of an inch. An' yet," he added, "he c'n talk by the rod when he takes a notion."

"Must be a difficult person to get on with," commented John dryly.

"I couldn't stan' it no longer," declared Mr. Timson with the air of one who had endured to the end of virtue, "an' I says to him the other day, 'Wa'al,' I says, 'if I can't suit ye, mebbe you'd better suit yourself.'"

"Ah!" said John politely, seeing that some response was expected of him; "and what did he say to that?"

"He ast me," replied Chet, "if I meant by that to throw up the situation. 'Wa'al,' I says 'I'm sick enough to throw up most anythin',' I says, 'along with bein' found fault with fer nothin'.'"

"And then?" queried John, who had received the impression that the motion to adjourn had come from the other side of the house.

"Wa'al," replied Chet, not quite so confidently, "he said somethin' about my requirin' a larger spear of action, an' that he thought I'd do better on a mile track—some o' his hoss talk. That's another thing," said Timson, changing the subject. "He's all fer hosses. He'd sooner make a ten-dollar note on a hoss trade than a hunderd right here 'n this office. Many's the time right in bus'nis hours, when I've wanted to ask him how he wanted somethin' done, he'd be busy talkin' hoss, an' wouldn't pay no attention to me more'n 's if I wa'n't there."

"I am glad to feel," said John, "that you can not possibly have any unpleasant feeling toward me, seeing that you resigned as you did."

"Cert'nly not, cert'nly not," declared Timson, a little uneasily. "If it hadn't 'a' ben you, it would 'a' had to ben somebody else, an' now I seen you an' had a talk with you—Wa'al, I guess I better git back into the other room. Dave's liable to come in any minute. But," he said in parting, "I will give ye piece of advice: You keep enough laid by to pay your gettin' back to N'York. You may want it in a hurry," and with this parting shot the rejected one took his leave.

* * * * *

The bank parlor was lighted by a window and a glazed door in the rear wall, and another window on the south side. Mr. Harum's desk was by the rear, or west, window, which gave view of his house, standing some hundred feet back from the street. The south, or side, window afforded a view of his front yard and that of an adjoining dwelling, beyond which rose the wall of a mercantile block. Business was encroaching upon David's domain. Our friend stood looking out of the south window. To the left a bit of Main Street was visible, and the naked branches of the elms and maples with which it was bordered were waving defiantly at their rivals over the way, incited thereto by a northwest wind.

We invariably form a mental picture of every unknown person of whom we think at all. It may be so faint that we are unconscious of it at the time, or so vivid that it is always recalled until dissipated by seeing the person himself, or his likeness. But that we do so make a picture is proved by the fact that upon being confronted by the real features of the person in question we always experience a certain amount of surprise, even when we have not been conscious of a different conception of him.

Be that as it may, however, there was no question in John Lenox's mind as to the identity of the person who at last came briskly into the back office and interrupted his meditations. Rather under the middle height, he was broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a clean-shaven, red face, with—not a mole—but a slight protuberance the size of half a large pea on the line from the nostril to the corner of the mouth; bald over the crown and to a line a couple of inches above the ear, below that thick and somewhat bushy hair of yellowish red, showing a mingling of gray; small but very blue eyes; a thick nose, of no classifiable shape, and a large mouth with the lips so pressed together as to produce a slightly downward and yet rather humorous curve at the corners. He was dressed in a sack coat of dark "pepper-and-salt," with waistcoat and trousers to match. A somewhat old-fashioned standing collar, flaring away from the throat, was encircled by a red cravat, tied in a bow under his chin. A diamond stud of perhaps two carats showed in the triangle of spotless shirt front, and on his head was a cloth cap with ear lappets. He accosted our friend with, "I reckon you must be Mr. Lenox. How are you? I'm glad to see you," tugging off a thick buckskin glove, and putting out a plump but muscular hand.

John thanked him as they shook hands, and "hoped he was well."

"Wa'al," said Mr. Harum, "I'm improvin' slowly. I've got so 'st I c'n set up long enough to have my bed made. Come last night, I s'pose? Anybody to the deepo to bring ye over? This time o' year once 'n a while the' don't nobody go over for passengers."

John said that he had had no trouble. A man by the name of Robinson had brought him and his luggage.

"E-up!" said David with a nod, backing up to the fire which was burning in the grate of the Franklin stove, "'Dug' Robinson. 'D he do the p'lite thing in the matter of questions an' gen'ral conversation?" he asked with a grin. John laughed in reply to this question.

"Where'd you put up?" asked David, John said that he passed the night at the Eagle Hotel. Mr. Harum had seen Dick Larrabee that morning and heard what he had to say of our friend's reception, but he liked to get his information from original sources.

"Make ye putty comf'table?" he asked, turning to eject a mouthful into the fire.

"I got along pretty well under the circumstances," said John.

Mr. Harum did not press the inquiry. "How'd you leave the gen'ral?" he inquired.

"He seemed to be well," replied John, "and he wished to be kindly remembered to you."

"Fine man, the gen'ral," declared David, well pleased. "Fine man all 'round. Word's as good as his bond. Yes, sir, when the gen'ral gives his warrant, I don't care whether I see the critter or not. Know him much?"

"He and my father were old friends, and I have known him a good many years," replied John, adding, "he has been very kind and friendly to me."

"Set down, set down," said Mr. Harum, pointing to a chair. Seating himself, he took off his cap and dropped it with his gloves on the floor. "How long you ben here in the office?" he asked.

"Perhaps half an hour," was the reply.

"I meant to have ben here when you come," said the banker, "but I got hendered about a matter of a hoss I'm looking at. I guess I'll shut that door," making a move toward the one into the front office.

"Allow me," said John, getting up and closing it.

"May's well shut the other one while you're about it. Thank you," as John resumed his seat. "I hain't got nothin' very private, but I'm 'fraid of distractin' Timson's mind. Did he int'duce himself?"

"Yes," said John, "we introduced ourselves and had a few minutes conversation."

"Gin ye his hull hist'ry an' a few relations throwed in?"

"There was hardly time for that," said John, smiling.

"Rubbed a little furn'ture polish into my char'cter an' repitation?" insinuated Mr. Harum.

"Most of our talk was on the subject of his duties and responsibilities," was John's reply. ("Don't cal'late to let on any more'n he cal'lates to," thought David to himself.)

"Allowed he run the hull shebang, didn't he?"

"He seemed to have a pretty large idea of what was required of one in his place," admitted the witness.

"Kind o' friendly, was he?" asked David.

"Well," said John, "after we had talked for a while I said to him that I was glad to think that he could have no unpleasant feeling toward me, seeing that he had given up the place of his own preference, and he assured me that he had none."

David turned and looked at John for an instant, with a twinkle in his eye. The younger man returned the look and smiled slightly. David laughed outright.

"I guess you've seen folks before," he remarked.

"I have never met any one exactly like Mr. Timson, I think," said our friend with a slight laugh.

"Fortunitly them kind is rare," observed Mr. Harum dryly, rising and going to his desk, from a drawer of which he produced a couple of cigars, one of which he proffered to John, who, for the first time in his life, during the next half hour regretted that he was a smoker. David sat for two or three minutes puffing diligently, and then took the weed out of his mouth and looked contemplatively at it.

"How do you like that cigar?" he inquired.

"It burns very nicely," said the victim. Mr. Harum emitted a cough which was like a chuckle, or a chuckle which was like a cough, and relapsed into silence again. Presently he turned his head, looked curiously at the young man for a moment, and then turned his glance again to the fire.

"I've ben wonderin' some," he said, "pertic'lerly since I see you, how 't was 't you wanted to come up here to Homeville. Gen'l Wolsey gin his warrant, an' so I reckon you hadn't ben gettin' into no scrape nor nothin'," and again he looked sharply at the young man at his side.

"Did the general say nothing of my affairs?" the latter asked.

"No," replied David, "all 't he said was in a gen'ral way that he'd knowed you an' your folks a good while, an' he thought you'd be jest the feller I was lookin' fer. Mebbe he reckoned that if you wanted your story told, you'd ruther tell it yourself."



CHAPTER XIV.

Whatever might have been John's repugnance to making a confidant of the man whom he had known but for half an hour, he acknowledged to himself that the other's curiosity was not only natural but proper. He could not but know that in appearance and manner he was in marked contrast with those whom the man had so far seen. He divined the fact that his coming from a great city to settle down in a village town would furnish matter for surprise and conjecture, and felt that it would be to his advantage with the man who was to be his employer that he should be perfectly and obviously frank upon all matters of his own which might be properly mentioned. He had an instinctive feeling that Harum combined acuteness and suspiciousness to a very large degree, and he had also a feeling that the old man's confidence, once gained, would not be easily shaken. So he told his hearer so much of his history as he thought pertinent, and David listened without interruption or comment, save an occasional "E-um'm."

"And here I am," John remarked in conclusion.

"Here you be, fer a fact," said David. "Wa'al, the's worse places 'n Homeville—after you git used to it," he added in qualification. "I ben back here a matter o' thirteen or fourteen year now, an' am gettin' to feel my way 'round putty well; but not havin' ben in these parts fer putty nigh thirty year, I found it ruther lonesome to start with, an' I guess if it hadn't 'a' ben fer Polly I wouldn't 'a' stood it. But up to the time I come back she hadn't never ben ten mile away f'm here in her hull life, an' I couldn't budge her. But then," he remarked, "while Homeville aint a metrop'lis, it's some a diff'rent place f'm what it used to be—in some ways. Polly's my sister," he added by way of explanation.

"Well," said John, with rather a rueful laugh, "if it has taken you all that time to get used to it the outlook for me is not very encouraging, I'm afraid."

"Wa'al," remarked Mr. Harum, "I'm apt to speak in par'bles sometimes. I guess you'll git along after a spell, though it mayn't set fust rate on your stomech till you git used to the diet. Say," he said after a moment, "if you'd had a couple o' thousan' more, do you think you'd 'a' stuck to the law bus'nis?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied John, "but I am inclined to think not. General Wolsey told me that if I were very anxious to go on with it he would help me, but after what I told him he advised me to write to you."

"He did, did he?"

"Yes," said John, "and after what I had gone through I was not altogether sorry to come away."

"Wa'al," said Mr. Harum thoughtfully, "if I was to lose what little I've got, an' had to give up livin' in the way I was used to, an' couldn't even keep a hoss, I c'n allow 't I might be willin' fer a change of scene to make a fresh start in. Yes, sir, I guess I would. Wa'al," looking at his watch, "I've got to go now, an' I'll see ye later, mebbe. You feel like takin' holt to-day?"

"Oh, yes," said John with alacrity.

"All right," said Mr. Harum. "You tell Timson what you want, an' make him show you everythin'. He understands, an' I've paid him for't. He's agreed to stay any time in reason 't you want him, but I guess," he added with a laugh, "'t you c'n pump him dry 'n a day or two. It haint rained wisdom an' knowlidge in his part o' the country fer a consid'able spell."

David stood for a moment drawing on his gloves, and then, looking at John with his characteristic chuckle, continued:

"Allowed he'd ben drawin' the hull load, did he? Wa'al, sir, the truth on't is 't he never come to a hill yet, 'f 't wa'n't more 'n a foot high, but what I had to git out an' push; nor never struck a turn in the road but what I had to take him by the head an' lead him into it." With which Mr. Harum put on his overcoat and cap and departed.

* * * * *

Mr. Timson was leaning over the counter in animated controversy with a man on the outside who had evidently asserted or quoted (the quotation is the usual weapon: it has a double barb and can be wielded with comparative safety) something of a wounding effect.

"No, sir," exclaimed Chet, with a sounding slap on the counter, "no, sir! The' ain't one word o' truth in't. I said myself, 'I won't stan' it,' I says, 'not f'm you ner nobody else,' I says, 'an' what's more,' says I—" The expression in the face of Mr. Timson's tormentor caused that gentleman to break off and look around. The man on the outside grinned, stared at John a moment, and went out, and Timson turned and said, as John came forward, "Hello! The old man picked ye to pieces all he wanted to?"

"We are through for the day, I fancy," said our friend, smiling, "and if you are ready to begin my lessons I am ready to take them. Mr. Harum told me that you would be good enough to show me what was necessary."

"All right," said Mr. Timson readily enough, and so John began his first day's work in David's office. He was surprised and encouraged to find how much his experience in Rush & Company's office stood him in hand, and managed to acquire in a comparatively short time a pretty fair comprehension of the system which prevailed in "Harum's bank," notwithstanding the incessant divagations of his instructor.

It was decided between Timson and our friend that on the following day the latter should undertake the office work under supervision, and the next morning John was engaged upon the preliminaries of the day's business when his employer came in and seated himself at his desk in the back room. After a few minutes, in which he was busy with his letters, he appeared in the doorway of the front room. He did not speak, for John saw him, and, responding to a backward toss of the head, followed him into the "parlor," and at an intimation of the same silent character shut the doors. Mr. Harum sat down at his desk, and John stood awaiting his pleasure.

"How 'd ye make out yestidy?" he asked. "Git anythin' out of old tongue-tied?" pointing with his thumb toward the front room.

"Oh, yes," said John, smiling, as he recalled the unceasing flow of words which had enveloped Timson's explanations.

"How much longer do you think you'll have to have him 'round?" asked Mr. Harum.

"Well," said John, "of course your customers are strangers to me, but so far as the routine of the office is concerned I think I can manage after to-day. But I shall have to appeal to you rather often for a while until I get thoroughly acquainted with my work."

"Good fer you," said David. "You've took holt a good sight quicker 'n I thought ye would, an' I'll spend more or less time 'round here fer a while, or be where you c'n reach me. It's like this," he continued; "Chet's a helpless kind of critter, fer all his braggin' an' talk, an' I ben feelin' kind o' wambly about turnin' him loose—though the Lord knows," he said with feeling, "'t I've had bother enough with him to kill a tree. But anyway I wrote to some folks I know up to Syrchester to git something fer him to do, an' I got a letter to send him along, an' mebbe they'd give him a show. See?"

"Yes, sir," said John, "and if you are willing to take the chances of my mistakes I will undertake to get on without him."

"All right," said the banker, "we'll call it a heat—and, say, don't let on what I've told you. I want to see how long it'll take to git all over the village that he didn't ask no odds o' nobody. Hadn't ben out o' a job three days 'fore the' was a lot o' chances, an' all 't he had to do was to take his pick out o' the lot on 'em."

"Really?" said John.

"Yes, sir," said David. "Some folks is gaited that way. Amusin', ain't it?—Hullo, Dick! Wa'al?"

"Willis'll give two hunderd fer the sorr'l colt," said the incomer, whom John recognized as one of the loungers in the Eagle bar the night of his arrival.

"E-um'm!" said David. "Was he speakin' of any pertic'ler colt, or sorril colts in gen'ral? I hain't got the only one the' is, I s'pose."

Dick merely laughed. "Because," continued the owner of the "sorril colt," "if Steve Willis wants to lay in sorril colts at two hunderd a piece, I ain't goin' to gainsay him, but you tell him that two-forty-nine ninety-nine won't buy the one in my barn." Dick laughed again.

John made a move in the direction of the front room.

"Hold on a minute," said David. "Shake hands with Mr. Larrabee."

"Seen ye before," said Dick, as they shook hands. "I was in the barroom when you come in the other night," and then he laughed as at the recollection of something very amusing.

John flushed a little and said, a bit stiffly, "I remember you were kind enough to help about my luggage."

"Excuse me," said Dick, conscious of the other's manner. "I wa'n't laughin' at you, that is, not in pertic'ler. I couldn't see your face when Ame offered ye pie an' doughnuts instid of beefsteak an' fixins. I c'd only guess at that; but Ame's face was enough fer me," and Dick went off into another cachinnation.

David's face indicated some annoyance. "Oh, shet up," he exclaimed. "You'd keep that yawp o' your'n goin', I believe, if it was the judgment day."

"Wa'al," said Dick with a grin, "I expect the' might be some fun to be got out o' that, if a feller wa'n't worryin' too much about his own skin; an' as fur's I'm concerned——" Dick's further views on the subject of that momentous occasion were left unexplained. A significant look in David's face caused the speaker to break off and turn toward the door, through which came two men, the foremost a hulking, shambling fellow, with an expression of repellent sullenness. He came forward to within about ten feet of David's desk, while his companion halted near the door. David eyed him in silence.

"I got this here notice this mornin'," said the man, "sayin' 't my note 'd be due to-morrer, an' 'd have to be paid."

"Wa'al," said David, with his arm over the back of his chair and his left hand resting on his desk, "that's so, ain't it?"

"Mebbe so," was the fellow's reply, "fur 's the comin' due 's concerned, but the payin' part 's another matter."

"Was you cal'latin' to have it renewed?" asked David, leaning a little forward.

"No," said the man coolly, "I don't know 's I want to renew it fer any pertic'ler time, an' I guess it c'n run along fer a while jest as 't is." John looked at Dick Larrabee. He was watching David's face with an expression of the utmost enjoyment. David twisted his chair a little more to the right and out from the desk.

"You think it c'n run along, do ye?" he asked suavely. "I'm glad to have your views on the subject. Wa'al, I guess it kin, too, until to-morro' at four o'clock, an' after that you c'n settle with lawyer Johnson or the sheriff." The man uttered a disdainful laugh.

"I guess it'll puzzle ye some to c'lect it," he said. Mr. Harum's bushy red eyebrows met above his nose.

"Look here, Bill Montaig," he said, "I know more 'bout this matter 'n you think for. I know 't you ben makin' your brags that you'd fix me in this deal. You allowed that you'd set up usury in the fust place, an' if that didn't work I'd find you was execution proof anyways. That's so, ain't it?"

"That's about the size on't," said Montaig, putting his feet a little farther apart. David had risen from his chair.

"You didn't talk that way," proceeded the latter, "when you come whinin' 'round here to git that money in the fust place, an' as I reckon some o' the facts in the case has slipped out o' your mind since that time, I guess I'd better jog your mem'ry a little."

It was plain from the expression of Mr. Montaig's countenance that his confidence in the strength of his position was not quite so assured as at first, but he maintained his attitude as well as in him lay.

"In the fust place," David began his assault, "I didn't lend ye the money. I borr'ed it for ye on my indorsement, an' charged ye fer doin' it, as I told ye at the time; an' another thing that you appear to forgit is that you signed a paper statin' that you was wuth, in good and available pusson'ls, free an' clear, over five hunderd dollars, an' that the statement was made to me with the view of havin' me indorse your note fer one-fifty. Rec'lect that?" David smiled grimly at the look of disconcert which, in spite of himself, appeared in Bill's face.

"I don't remember signin' no paper," he said doggedly.

"Jest as like as not," remarked Mr. Harum. "What you was thinkin' of about that time was gittin' that money."

"I'd like to see that paper," said Bill, with a pretence of incredulity.

"You'll see it when the time comes," asserted David, with an emphatic nod. He squared himself, planting his feet apart, and, thrusting his hands deep in his coat pockets, faced the discomfited yokel.

"Do you think, Bill Montaig," he said, with measureless contempt, "that I didn't know who I was dealin' with? that I didn't know what a low-lived, roost-robbin' skunk you was? an' didn't know how to protect myself agin such an'muls as you be? Wa'al, I did, an' don't you stop thinkin' 'bout it—an'," he added, shaking his finger at the object of his scorn, "you'll pay that note or I'll put ye where the dogs won't bite ye," and with that he turned on his heel and resumed his seat. Bill stood for a minute with a scowl of rage and defeat in his lowering face.

"Got any further bus'nis with me?" inquired Mr. Harum. "Anythin' more 't I c'n oblige ye about?" There was no answer.

"I asked you," said David, raising his voice and rising to his feet, "if you had any further bus'nis with me."

"I dunno's I have," was the sullen response.

"All right," said David. "That bein' the case, an' as I've got somethin' to do beside wastin' my time on such wuthless pups as you be, I'll thank you to git out. There's the door," he added, pointing to it.

"He, he, he, he, ho, ho, ha, h-o-o-o-o-o!" came from the throat of Dick Larrabee. This was too much for the exasperated Bill, and he erred (to put it mildly) in raising his arm and advancing a step toward his creditor. He was not swift enough to take the second, however, for David, with amazing quickness, sprang upon him, and twisting him around, rushed him out of the door, down the passage, and out of the front door, which was obligingly held open by an outgoing client, who took in the situation and gave precedence to Mr. Montaig. His companion, who so far had taken no part, made a motion to interfere, but John, who stood nearest to him, caught him by the collar and jerked him back, with the suggestion that it would be better to let the two have it out by themselves. David came back rather breathless and very red in the face, but evidently in exceeding good humor.

"Scat my ——!" he exclaimed. "Hain't had such a good tussle I dunno when."

"Bill's considered ruther an awk'ard customer," remarked Dick. "I guess he hain't had no such handlin' fer quite a while."

"Sho!" exclaimed Mr. Harum. "The' ain't nothin' to him but wind an' meanness. Who was that feller with him?"

"Name 's Smith, I believe," replied Dick. "Guess Bill brought him along fer a witness, an' I reckon he seen all he wanted to. I'll bet his neck's achin' some," added Mr. Larrabee with a laugh.

"How's that?" asked David.

"Well, he made a move to tackle you as you was escortin' Bill out, an' Mr. Lenox there caught him in the collar an' gin him a jerk that'd 'a' landed him on his back," said Dick, "if," turning to John, "you hadn't helt holt of him. You putty nigh broke his neck. He went off—he, he, he, he, ho!—wrigglin' it to make sure."

"I used more force than was necessary, I'm afraid," said Billy Williams's pupil, "but there wasn't much time to calculate."

"Much obliged," said David with a nod.

"Not at all," protested John, laughing. "I have enjoyed a great deal this morning."

"It has ben ruther pleasant," remarked David with a chuckle, "but you mustn't cal'late on havin' such fun ev'ry mornin'."

John went into the business office, leaving the banker and Dick.

"Say," said the latter when they were alone, "that young man o' your'n 's quite a feller. He took care o' that big Smith chap with one hand; an' say, you c'n git round on your pins 'bout 's lively 's they make 'em, I guess. I swan!" he exclaimed, slapping his thigh and shaking with laughter, "the hull thing head-an'-shouldered any show I seen lately." And then for a while they fell to talking of the "sorril colt" and other things.



CHAPTER XV.

When John went back to the office after the noonday intermission it was manifest that something had happened to Mr. Timson, and that the something was of a nature extremely gratifying to that worthy gentleman. He was beaming with satisfaction and rustling with importance. Several times during the afternoon he appeared to be on the point of confiding his news, but in the face of the interruptions which occurred, or which he feared might check the flow of his communication, he managed to restrain himself till after the closing of the office. But scarcely were the shutters up (at the willing hands of Peleg Hopkins) when he turned to John and, looking at him sharply, said, "Has Dave said anythin' 'bout my leavin'?"

"He told me he expected you would stay as long as might be necessary to get me well started," said John non-committally, mindful of Mr. Harum's injunction.

"Jest like him," declared Chet. "Jest like him for all the world; but the fact o' the matter is 't I'm goin' to-morro'. I s'pose he thought," reflected Mr. Timson, "thet he'd ruther you'd find it out yourself than to have to break it to ye, 'cause then, don't ye see, after I was gone he c'd lay the hull thing at my door."

"Really," said John, "I should have said that he ought to have told me."

"Wa'al," said Chet encouragingly, "mebbe you'll git along somehow, though I'm 'fraid you'll have more or less trouble; but I told Dave that as fur 's I c'd see, mebbe you'd do 's well 's most anybody he c'd git that didn't know any o' the customers, an' hadn't never done any o' this kind o' work before."

"Thank you very much," said John. "And so you are off to-morrow, are you?"

"Got to be," declared Mr. Timson. "I'd 'a' liked to stay with you a spell longer, but the's a big concern f'm out of town that as soon as they heard I was at libe'ty wrote for me to come right along up, an' I s'pose I hadn't ought to keep 'em waitin'."

"No, I should think not," said John, "and I congratulate you upon having located yourself so quickly."

"Oh!" said Mr. Timson, with ineffable complacency, "I hain't give myself no worry; I hain't lost no sleep. I've allowed all along that Dave Harum'd find out that he wa'n't the unly man that needed my kind o' work, an' I ain't meanin' any disrispect to you when I say 't—"

"Just so," said John. "I quite understand. Nobody could expect to take just the place with him that you have filled. And, by the way," he added, "as you are going in the morning, and I may not see you again, would you kindly give me the last balance sheets of the two ledgers and the bill-book. I suppose, of course, that they are brought down to the first of the month, and I shall want to have them."

"Oh, yes, cert'nly, of course—wa'al I guess Dave's got 'em," replied Chet, looking considerably disconcerted, "but I'll look 'em up in the mornin'. My train don't go till ten o'clock, an' I'll see you 'bout any little last thing in the mornin'—but I guess I've got to go now on account of a lot of things. You c'n shut up, can't ye?"

Whereupon Mr. Timson made his exit, and not long afterward David came in. By that time everything had been put away, the safe and vault closed, and Peleg had departed with the mail and his freedom for the rest of the day.

"Wa'al," said Mr. Harum, lifting himself to a seat on the counter, "how've you made out? All O.K.?"

"Yes," replied John, "I think so."

"Where's Chet?"

"He went away some few minutes ago. He said he had a good many things to attend to as he was leaving in the morning."

"E-um'm!" said David incredulously. "I guess 't won't take him long to close up his matters. Did he leave ev'rything in good shape? Cash all right, an' so on?"

"I think so," said John. "The cash is right I am sure."

"How 'bout the books?"

"I asked him to let me have the balance sheets, and he said that you must have them, but that he would come in in the morning and—well, what he said was that he would see me in the morning, and, as he put it, look after any little last thing."

"E-um'm!" David grunted. "He won't do no such a thing. We've seen the last of him, you bet, an' a good riddance. He'll take the nine o'clock to-night, that's what he'll do. Drawed his pay, I guess, didn't he?"

"He said he was to be paid for this month," answered John, "and took sixty dollars. Was that right?"

"Yes," said David, nodding his head absently. "What was it he said about them statements?" he inquired after a moment.

"He said he guessed you must have them."

"E-um'm!" was David's comment. "What'd he say about leavin'?"

John laughed and related the conversation as exactly as he could.

"What'd I tell ye," said Mr. Harum, with a short laugh. "Mebbe he won't go till to-morro', after all," he remarked. "He'll want to put in a leetle more time tellin' how he was sent for in a hurry by that big concern f'm out of town 't he's goin' to."

"Upon my word, I can't understand it," said John, "knowing that you can contradict him."

"Wa'al," said David, "he'll allow that if he gits in the fust word, he'll take the pole. It don't matter anyway, long 's he's gone. I guess you an' me c'n pull the load, can't we?" and he dropped down off the counter and started to go out. "By the way," he said, halting a moment, "can't you come in to tea at six o'clock? I want to make ye acquainted with Polly, an' she's itchin' to see ye."

"I shall be delighted," said John.

* * * * *

"Polly," said David, "I've ast the young feller to come to tea, but don't you say the word 'Eagle,' to him. You c'n show your ign'rance 'bout all the other kinds of birds an' animals you ain't familiar with," said the unfeeling brother, "but leave eagles alone."

"What you up to now?" she asked, but she got no answer but a laugh.

From a social point of view the entertainment could not be described as a very brilliant success. Our friend was tired and hungry. Mr. Harum was unusually taciturn, and Mrs. Bixbee, being under her brother's interdict as regarded the subject which, had it been allowed discussion, might have opened the way, was at a loss for generalities. But John afterward got upon terms of the friendliest nature with that kindly soul.



CHAPTER XVI.

Some weeks after John's assumption of his duties in the office of David Harum, Banker, that gentleman sat reading his New York paper in the "wing settin'-room," after tea, and Aunt Polly was occupied with the hemming of a towel. The able editorial which David was perusing was strengthening his conviction that all the intelligence and virtue of the country were monopolized by the Republican party, when his meditations were broken in upon by Mrs. Bixbee, who knew nothing and cared less about the Force Bill or the doctrine of protection to American industries.

"You hain't said nothin' fer quite a while about the bank," she remarked. "Is Mr. Lenox gittin' along all right?"

"Guess he's gittin' into condition as fast as c'd be expected," said David, between two lines of his editorial.

"It must be awful lonesome fer him," she observed, to which there was no reply.

"Ain't it?" she asked, after an interval.

"Ain't what?" said David, looking up at her.

"Awful lonesome," she reiterated.

"Guess nobody ain't ever very lonesome when you're 'round an' got your breath," was the reply. "What you talkin' about?"

"I ain't talkin' about you, 't any rate," said Mrs. Bixbee. "I was sayin' it must be awful lonesome fer Mr. Lenox up here where he don't know a soul hardly, an' livin' at that hole of a tavern."

"I don't see 't you've any cause to complain long's he don't," said David, hoping that it would not come to his sister's ears that he had, for reasons of his own, discouraged any attempt on John's part to better his quarters, "an' he hain't ben very lonesome daytimes, I guess, so fur, 'thout he's ben makin' work fer himself to kill time."

"What do you mean?"

"Wa'al," said David, "we found that Chet hadn't done more 'n to give matters a lick an' a promise in most a year. He done just enough to keep up the day's work an' no more an' the upshot on't is that John's had to put in consid'able time to git things straightened out."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Aunt Polly.

"Keeps him f'm bein' lonesome," remarked her brother with a grin.

"An' he hain't had no time to himself!" she protested. "I don't believe you've made up your mind yet whether you're goin' to like him, an' I don't believe he'll stay anyway."

"I've told more 'n forty-leven times," said Mr. Harum, looking up over his paper, "that I thought we was goin' to make a hitch of it, an' he cert'nly hain't said nuthin' 'bout leavin', an' I guess he won't fer a while, tavern or no tavern. He's got a putty stiff upper lip of his own, I reckon," David further remarked, with a short laugh, causing Mrs. Bixbee to look up at him inquiringly, which look the speaker answered with a nod, saying, "Me an' him had a little go-round to-day."

"You hain't had no words, hev ye?" she asked anxiously.

"Wa'al, we didn't have what ye might call words. I was jest tryin' a little experiment with him."

"Humph," she remarked, "you're alwus tryin' exper'ments on somebody, an' you'll be liable to git ketched at it some day."

"Exceptin' on you," said David. "You don't think I'd try any experiments on you, do ye?"

"Me!" she cried. "You're at me the hull endurin' time, an' you know it."

"Wa'al, but Polly," said David insinuatingly, "you don't know how int'restin' you be."

"Glad you think so," she declared, with a sniff and a toss of the head. "What you ben up to with Mr. Lenox?"

"Oh, nuthin' much," replied Mr. Harum, making a feint of resuming his reading.

"Be ye goin' to tell me, or—air ye too 'shamed on't?" she added with a little laugh, which somewhat turned the tables on her teasing brother.

"Wa'al, I laid out to try an' read this paper," he said, spreading it out on his lap, "but," resignedly, "I guess 't ain't no use. Do you know what a count'fit bill is?" he asked.

"I dunno 's I ever see one," she said, "but I s'pose I do. They're agin the law, ain't they?"

"The's a number o' things that's agin the law," remarked David dryly.

"Wa'al?" ejaculated Mrs. Bixbee after a moment of waiting.

"Wa'al," said David, "the' ain't much to tell, but it's plain I don't git no peace till you git it out of me. It was like this: The young feller's took holt everywhere else right off, but handlin' the money bothered him consid'able at fust. It was slow work, an' I c'd see it myself; but he's gettin' the hang on't now. Another thing I expected he'd run up agin was count'fits. The' ain't so very many on 'em round now-a-days, but the' is now an' then one. He allowed to me that he was liable to get stuck at fust, an' I reckoned he would. But I never said nuthin' about it, nor ast no questions until to-day; an' this afternoon I come in to look 'round, an' I says to him, 'What luck have you had with your money? Git any bad?' I says. 'Wa'al,' he says, colorin' up a little, 'I don't know how many I may have took in an' paid out agin without knowin' it,' he says, 'but the' was a couple sent back from New York out o' that package that went down last Friday.'"

"'What was they?' I says.

"'A five an' a ten,' he says.

"'Where be they?' I says.

"'They're in the draw there—they're ruther int'restin' objects of study,' he says, kind o' laughin' on the wrong side of his mouth.

"'Countin' 'em in the cash?' I says, an' with that he kind o' reddened up agin. 'No, sir,' he says, 'I charged 'em up to my own account, an' I've kept 'em to compare with.'

"'You hadn't ought to done that,' I says.

"'You think I ought to 'a' put 'em in the fire at once?' says he.

"'No,' I says, 'that wa'n't what I meant. Why didn't you mix 'em up with the other money, an' let 'em go when you was payin' out? Anyways,' I says, 'you charge 'em up to profit an' loss if you're goin' to charge 'em to anythin', an' let me have 'em,' I says.

"'What'll you do with 'em?' he says to me, kind o' shuttin' his jaws together.

"'I'll take care on 'em,' I says. 'They mayn't be good enough to send down to New York,' I says, 'but they'll go around here all right—jest as good as any other,' I says, 'long 's you keep 'em movin'.'"

"David Harum!" cried Polly, who, though not quite comprehending some of the technicalities of detail, was fully alive to the turpitude of the suggestion. "I hope to gracious he didn't think you was in earnest. Why, s'pose they was passed around, wouldn't somebody git stuck with 'em in the long run? You know they would." Mrs. Bixbee occasionally surprised her brother with unexpected penetration, but she seldom got much recognition of it.

"I see by the paper," he remarked, "that the' was a man died in Pheladelphy one day last week," which piece of barefaced irrelevancy elicited no notice from Mrs. Bixbee.

"What more did he say?" she demanded.

"Wa'al," responded Mr. Harum with a laugh, "he said that he didn't see why I should be a loser by his mistakes, an' that as fur as the bills was concerned they belonged to him, an' with that," said the narrator, "Mister Man gits 'em out of the draw an' jest marches into the back room an' puts the dum things int' the fire."

"He done jest right," declared Aunt Polly, "an' you know it, don't ye now?"

"Wa'al," said David, "f'm his standpoint—f'm his standpoint, I guess he did, an'," rubbing his chin with two fingers of his left hand, "it's a putty dum good standpoint too. I've ben lookin'," he added reflectively, "fer an honest man fer quite a number o' years, an' I guess I've found him; yes'm, I guess I've found him."

"An' be you goin' to let him lose that fifteen dollars?" asked the practical Polly, fixing her brother with her eyes.

"Wa'al," said David, with a short laugh, "what c'n I do with such an obst'nit critter 's he is? He jest backed into the britchin', an' I couldn't do nothin' with him." Aunt Polly sat over her sewing for a minute or two without taking a stitch.

"I'm sorry you done it," she said at last.

"I dunno but I did make ruther a mess of it," admitted Mr. Harum.



CHAPTER XVII.

It was the 23d of December, and shortly after the closing hour. Peleg had departed and our friend had just locked the vault when David came into the office and around behind the counter.

"Be you in any hurry?" he asked.

John said he was not, whereupon Mr. Harum hitched himself up onto a high office stool, with his heels on the spindle, and leaned sideways upon the desk, while John stood facing him with his left arm upon the desk.

"John," said David, "do ye know the Widdo' Cullom?"

"No" said John, "but I know who she is—a tall, thin woman, who walks with a slight stoop and limp. I noticed her and asked her name because there was something about her looks that attracted my attention—as though at some time she might have seen better days."

"That's the party," said David. "She has seen better days, but she's eat an' drunk sorro' mostly fer goin' on thirty year, an' darned little else good share o' the time, I reckon."

"She has that appearance certainly," said John.

"Yes sir," said David, "she's had a putty tough time, the widdo' has, an' yet," he proceeded after a momentary pause, "the' was a time when the Culloms was some o' the king-pins o' this hull region. They used to own quarter o' the county, an' they lived in the big house up on the hill where Doc Hays lives now. That was considered to be the finest place anywheres 'round here in them days. I used to think the Capitol to Washington must be somethin' like the Cullom house, an' that Billy P. (folks used to call him Billy P. 'cause his father's name was William an' his was William Parker), an' that Billy P. 'd jest 's like 's not be president. I've changed my mind some on the subject of presidents since I was a boy."

Here Mr. Harum turned on his stool, put his right hand into his sack-coat pocket, extracted therefrom part of a paper of "Maple Dew," and replenished his left cheek with an ample wad of "fine-cut." John took advantage of the break to head off what he had reason to fear might turn into a lengthy digression from the matter in hand by saying, "I beg pardon, but how does it happen that Mrs. Cullom is in such circumstances? Has the family all died out?"

"Wa'al," said David, "they're most on 'em dead, all on 'em, in fact, except the widdo's son Charley, but as fur 's the family 's concerned, it more 'n died out—it gin out! 'D ye ever hear of Jim Wheton's calf? Wa'al, Jim brought three or four veals into town one spring to sell. Dick Larrabee used to peddle meat them days. Dick looked 'em over an' says, 'Look here, Jim,' he says, 'I guess you got a "deakin" in that lot,' he says. 'I dunno what you mean,' says Jim. 'Yes, ye do, goll darn ye!' says Dick, 'yes, ye do. You didn't never kill that calf, an' you know it. That calf died, that's what that calf done. Come, now, own up,' he says. 'Wa'al,' says Jim, 'I didn't kill it, an' it didn't die nuther—it jest kind o' gin out.'"

John joined in the laugh with which the narrator rewarded his own effort, and David went on: "Yes, sir, they jest petered out. Old Billy, Billy P.'s father, inheritid all the prop'ty—never done a stroke of work in his life. He had a collidge education, went to Europe, an' all that', an' before he was fifty year old he hardly ever come near the old place after he was growed up. The land was all farmed out on shares, an' his farmers mostly bamboozled him the hull time. He got consid'able income, of course, but as things went along and they found out how slack he was they kept bitin' off bigger chunks all the time, an' sometimes he didn't git even the core. But all the time when he wanted money—an' he wanted it putty often I tell ye—the easiest way was to stick on a morgidge; an' after a spell it got so 't he'd have to give a morgidge to pay the int'rist on the other morgidges."

"But," said John, "was there nothing to the estate but land?"

"Oh, yes," said David, "old Billy's father left him some consid'able pers'nal, but after that was gone he went into the morgidge bus'nis as I tell ye. He lived mostly up to Syrchester and around, an' when he got married he bought a place in Syrchester and lived there till Billy P. was about twelve or thirteen year old, an' he was about fifty. By that time he'd got 'bout to the end of his rope, an' the' wa'n't nothin' for it but to come back here to Homeville an' make the most o' what the' was left—an' that's what he done, let alone that he didn't make the most on't to any pertic'ler extent. Mis' Cullom, his wife, wa'n't no help to him. She was a city woman an' didn't take to the country no way, but when she died it broke old Billy up wus 'n ever. She peaked an' pined, an' died when Billy P. was about fifteen or so. Wa'al, Billy P. an' the old man wrastled along somehow, an' the boy went to collidge fer a year or so. How they ever got along 's they did I dunno. The' was a story that some far-off relation left old Billy some money, an' I guess that an' what they got off'm what farms was left carried 'em along till Billy P. was twenty-five or so, an' then he up an' got married. That was the crownin' stroke," remarked David. "She was one o' the village girls—respectable folks, more 'n ordinary good lookin' an' high steppin', an' had had some schoolin'. But the old man was prouder 'n a cock-turkey, an' thought nobody wa'n't quite good enough fer Billy P., an' all along kind o' reckoned that he'd marry some money an' git a new start. But when he got married—on the quiet, you know, cause he knowed the old man would kick—wa'al, that killed the trick, an' the old man into the bargain. It took the gumption all out of him, an' he didn't live a year. Wa'al, sir, it was curious, but, 's I was told, putty much the hull village sided with the old man. The Culloms was kind o' kings in them days, an' folks wa'n't so one-man's-good's-anotherish as they be now. They thought Billy P. done wrong, though they didn't have nothin' to say 'gainst the girl neither—an' she's very much respected, Mis' Cullom is, an' as fur's I'm concerned, I've alwus guessed she kept Billy P. goin' full as long 's any one could. But 't wa'n't no use—that is to say, the sure thing come to pass. He had a nom'nal title to a good deal o' prop'ty, but the equity in most on't if it had ben to be put up wa'n't enough to pay fer the papers. You see, the' ain't never ben no real cash value in farm prop'ty in these parts. The' ain't ben hardly a dozen changes in farm titles, 'cept by inher'tance or foreclosure, in thirty years. So Billy P. didn't make no effort. Int'rist's one o' them things that keeps right on nights an' Sundays. He jest had the deeds made out and handed 'em over when the time came to settle. The' was some village lots though that was clear, that fetched him in some money from time to time until they was all gone but one, an' that's the one Mis' Cullom lives on now. It was consid'able more'n a lot—in fact, a putty sizable place. She thought the sun rose an' set where Billy P. was, but she took a crotchit in her head, and wouldn't ever sign no papers fer that, an' lucky fer him too. The' was a house on to it, an' he had a roof over his head anyway when he died six or seven years after he married, an' left her with a boy to raise. How she got along all them years till Charley got big enough to help, I swan! I don't know. She took in sewin' an' washin', an' went out to cook an' nurse, an' all that, but I reckon the' was now an' then times when they didn't overload their stomechs much, nor have to open the winders to cool off. But she held onto that prop'ty of her'n like a pup to a root. It was putty well out when Billy P. died, but the village has growed up to it. The's some good lots could be cut out on't, an' it backs up to the river where the current's enough to make a mighty good power fer a 'lectric light. I know some fellers that are talkin' of startin' a plant here, an' it ain't out o' sight that they'd pay a good price fer the river front, an' enough land to build on. Fact on't is, it's got to be a putty valu'ble piece o' prop'ty, more 'n she cal'lates on, I reckon."

Here Mr. Harum paused, pinching his chin with thumb and index finger, and mumbling his tobacco. John, who had listened with more attention than interest—wondering the while as to what the narrative was leading up to—thought something might properly be expected of him to show that he had followed it, and said, "So Mrs. Cullom has kept this last piece clear, has she?"

"No," said David, bringing down his right hand upon the desk with emphasis, "that's jest what she hain't done, an' that's how I come to tell ye somethin' of the story, an' more on't 'n you've cared about hearin', mebbe."

"Not at all," John protested. "I have been very much interested."

"You have, have you?" said Mr. Harum. "Wa'al, I got somethin' I want ye to do. Day after to-morro' 's Chris'mus, an' I want ye to drop Mis' Cullom a line, somethin' like this, 'That Mr. Harum told ye to say that that morgidge he holds, havin' ben past due fer some time, an' no int'rist havin' ben paid fer, let me see, more'n a year, he wants to close the matter up, an' he'll see her Chris'mus mornin' at the bank at nine o'clock, he havin' more time on that day; but that, as fur as he can see, the bus'nis won't take very long'—somethin' like that, you understand?"

"Very well, sir," said John, hoping that his employer would not see in his face the disgust and repugnance he felt as he surmised what a scheme was on foot, and recalled what he had heard of Harum's hard and unscrupulous ways, though he had to admit that this, excepting perhaps the episode of the counterfeit money, was the first revelation to him personally. But this seemed very bad to him.

"All right," said David cheerfully, "I s'pose it won't take you long to find out what's in your stockin', an' if you hain't nothin' else to do Chris'mus mornin' I'd like to have you open the office and stay 'round a spell till I git through with Mis' Cullom. Mebbe the' 'll be some papers to fill out or witniss or somethin'; an' have that skeezicks of a boy make up the fires so'st the place'll be warm."

"Very good, sir," said John, hoping that the interview was at an end.

But the elder man sat for some minutes apparently in a brown study, and occasionally a smile of sardonic cunning wrinkled his face. At last he said: "I've told ye so much that I may as well tell ye how I come by that morgidge. 'Twont take but a minute, an' then you can run an' play," he added with a chuckle.

"I trust I have not betrayed any impatience," said John, and instantly conscious of his infelicitous expression, added hastily, "I have really been very much interested."

"Oh, no," was the reply, "you hain't betrayed none, but I know old fellers like me gen'rally tell a thing twice over while they're at it. Wa'al," he went on, "it was like this. After Charley Cullom got to be some grown he helped to keep the pot a-bilin', 'n they got on some better. 'Bout seven year ago, though, he up an' got married, an' then the fat ketched fire. Finally he allowed that if he had some money he'd go West 'n take up some land, 'n git along like pussly 'n a flower gard'n. He ambitioned that if his mother 'd raise a thousan' dollars on her place he'd be sure to take care of the int'rist, an' prob'ly pay off the princ'ple in almost no time. Wa'al, she done it, an' off he went. She didn't come to me fer the money, because—I dunno—at any rate she didn't, but got it of 'Zeke Swinney.

"Wa'al, it turned out jest 's any fool might 've predilictid, fer after the first year, when I reckon he paid it out of the thousan', Charley never paid no int'rist. The second year he was jest gettin' goin', an' the next year he lost a hoss jest as he was cal'latin' to pay, an' the next year the grasshoppers smote him, 'n so on; an' the outcome was that at the end of five years, when the morgidge had one year to run, Charley'd paid one year, an' she'd paid one, an' she stood to owe three years' int'rist. How old Swinney come to hold off so was that she used to pay the cuss ten dollars or so ev'ry six months 'n git no credit fer it, an' no receipt an' no witniss, 'n he knowed the prop'ty was improving all the time. He may have had another reason, but at any rate he let her run, and got the shave reg'lar. But at the time I'm tellin' you about he'd begun to cut up, an' allowed that if she didn't settle up the int'rist he'd foreclose, an' I got wind on't an' I run across her one day an' got to talkin' with her, an' she gin me the hull narration. 'How much do you owe the old critter?' I says. 'A hunderd an' eighty dollars,' she says, 'an' where I'm goin' to git it,' she says, 'the Lord only knows.' 'An' He won't tell ye, I reckon,' I says. Wa'al, of course I'd known that Swinney had a morgidge because it was a matter of record, an' I knowed him well enough to give a guess what his game was goin' to be, an' more'n that I'd had my eye on that piece an' parcel an' I figured that he wa'n't any likelier a citizen 'n I was." ("Yes," said John to himself, "where the carcase is the vultures are gathered together.")

"'Wa'al,' I says to her, after we'd had a little more talk, 's'posen you come 'round to my place to-morro' 'bout 'leven o'clock, an' mebbe we c'n cipher this thing out. I don't say positive that we kin,' I says, 'but mebbe, mebbe.' So that afternoon I sent over to the county seat an' got a description an' had a second morgidge drawed up fer two hundred dollars, an' Mis' Cullom signed it mighty quick. I had the morgidge made one day after date, 'cause, as I said to her, it was in the nature of a temp'rary loan, but she was so tickled she'd have signed most anythin' at that pertic'ler time. 'Now,' I says to her, 'you go an' settle with old Step-an'-fetch-it, but don't you say a word where you got the money,' I says. 'Don't ye let on nothin'—stretch that conscience o' your'n if nes'sary,' I says, 'an' be pertic'ler if he asks you if Dave Harum give ye the money you jest say, "No, he didn't." That wont be no lie,' I says, 'because I aint givin' it to ye,' I says. Wa'al, she done as I told her. Of course Swinney suspicioned fust off that I was mixed up in it, but she stood him off so fair an' square that he didn't know jest what to think, but his claws was cut fer a spell, anyway.

"Wa'al, things went on fer a while, till I made up my mind that I ought to relieve Swinney of some of his anxieties about worldly bus'nis, an' I dropped in on him one mornin' an' passed the time o' day, an' after we'd eased up our minds on the subjects of each other's health an' such like I says, 'You hold a morgidge on the Widder Cullom's place, don't ye?' Of course he couldn't say nothin' but 'yes.' 'Does she keep up the int'rist all right?' I says. 'I don't want to be pokin' my nose into your bus'nis,' I says, 'an' don't tell me nothin' you don't want to.' Wa'al, he knowed Dave Harum was Dave Harum, an' that he might 's well spit it out, an' he says, 'Wa'al, she didn't pay nothin' fer a good while, but last time she forked over the hull amount. 'But I hain't no notion,' he says, 'that she'll come to time agin.' 'An' s'posin' she don't,' I says, 'you'll take the prop'ty, won't ye?' 'Don't see no other way,' he says, an' lookin' up quick, 'unless you over-bid me,' he says. 'No,' I says, 'I ain't buyin' no real estate jest now, but the thing I come in fer,' I says, 'leavin' out the pleasure of havin' a talk with you, was to say that I'd take that morgidge off'm your hands.'

"Wa'al, sir, he, he, he, he! Scat my ——! At that he looked at me fer a minute with his jaw on his neck, an' then he hunched himself, 'n drawed in his neck like a mud turtle. 'No,' he says, 'I ain't sufferin' fer the money, an' I guess I'll keep the morgidge. It's putty near due now, but mebbe I'll let it run a spell. I guess the secur'ty's good fer it.' 'Yes,' I says, 'I reckon you'll let it run long enough fer the widder to pay the taxes on't once more anyhow; I guess the secur'ty's good enough to take that resk; but how 'bout my secur'ty?' I says. 'What d'you mean?' he says. 'I mean,' says I, 'that I've got a second morgidge on that prop'ty, an' I begin to tremble fer my secur'ty. You've jest told me,' I says, 'that you're goin' to foreclose an' I cal'late to protect myself, an' I don't cal'late,' I says, 'to have to go an' bid on that prop'ty, an' put in a lot more money to save my investment, unless I'm 'bleeged to—not much! an' you can jest sign that morgidge over to me, an' the sooner the quicker,' I says."

David brought his hand down on his thigh with a vigorous slap, the fellow of the one which, John could imagine, had emphasized his demand upon Swinney. The story, to which he had at first listened with polite patience merely, he had found more interesting as it went on, and, excusing himself, he brought up a stool, and mounting it, said, "And what did Swinney say to that?" Mr. Harum emitted a gurgling chuckle, yawned his quid out of his mouth, tossing it over his shoulder in the general direction of the waste basket, and bit off the end of a cigar which he found by slapping his waistcoat pockets. John got down and fetched him a match, which he scratched in the vicinity of his hip pocket, lighted his cigar (John declining to join him on some plausible pretext, having on a previous occasion accepted one of the brand), and after rolling it around with his lips and tongue to the effect that the lighted end described sundry eccentric curves, located it firmly with an upward angle in the left-hand corner of his mouth, gave it a couple of vigorous puffs, and replied to John's question.

"Wa'al, 'Zeke Swinney was a perfesser of religion some years ago, an' mebbe he is now, but what he said to me on this pertic'ler occasion was that he'd see me in hell fust, an' then he wouldn't.

"'Wa'al,' I says, 'mebbe you won't, mebbe you will, it's alwus a pleasure to meet ye,' I says, 'but in that case this morgidge bus'nis 'll be a question fer our executors,' I says, 'fer you don't never foreclose that morgidge, an' don't you fergit it,' I says.

"'Oh, you'd like to git holt o' that prop'ty yourself. I see what you're up to,' he says.

"'Look a-here, 'Zeke Swinney,' I says, 'I've got an int'rist in that prop'ty, an' I propose to p'tect it. You're goin' to sign that morgidge over to me, or I'll foreclose and surrygate ye,' I says, 'unless you allow to bid in the prop'ty, in which case we'll see whose weasel-skin's the longest. But I guess it won't come to that,' I says. 'You kin take your choice,' I says. 'Whether I want to git holt o' that prop'ty myself ain't neither here nor there. Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't, but anyways,' I says, 'you don't git it, nor wouldn't ever, for if I can't make you sign over, I'll either do what I said or I'll back the widder in a defence fer usury. Put that in your pipe an' smoke it,' I says.

"'What do you mean?' he says, gittin' half out his chair.

"'I mean this,' I says, 'that the fust six months the widder couldn't pay she gin you ten dollars to hold off, an' the next time she gin you fifteen, an' that you've bled her fer shaves to the tune of sixty odd dollars in three years, an' then got your int'rist in full.'

"That riz him clean out of his chair," said David. "'She can't prove it,' he says, shakin' his fist in the air.

"'Oh, ho! ho!' I says, tippin' my chair back agin the wall. 'If Mis' Cullom was to swear how an' where she paid you the money, givin' chapter an' verse, and showin' her own mem'randums even, an' I was to swear that when I twitted you with gittin' it you didn't deny it, but only said that she couldn't prove it, how long do you think it 'ould take a Freeland County jury to find agin ye? I allow, 'Zeke Swinney,' I says, 'that you wa'n't born yestyd'y, but you ain't so old as you look, not by a dum sight!' an' then how I did laugh!

"Wa'al," said David, as he got down off the stool and stretched himself, yawning, "I guess I've yarned it enough fer one day. Don't fergit to send Mis' Cullom that notice, an' make it up an' up. I'm goin' to git the thing off my mind this trip."

"Very well, sir," said John, "but let me ask, did Swinney assign the mortgage without any trouble?"

"O Lord! yes," was the reply. "The' wa'n't nothin' else fer him to do. I had another twist on him that I hain't mentioned. But he put up a great show of doin' it to obleege me. Wa'al, I thanked him an' so on, an' when we'd got through I ast him if he wouldn't step over to the 'Eagil' an' take somethin', an' he looked kind o' shocked an' said he never drinked nothin'. It was 'gin his princ'ples, he said. Ho, ho, ho, ho! Scat my ——! Princ'ples!" and John heard him chuckling to himself all the way out of the office.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Considering John's relations with David Harum, it was natural that he should wish to think as well of him as possible, and he had not (or thought he had not) allowed his mind to be influenced by the disparaging remarks and insinuations which had been made to him, or in his presence, concerning his employer. He had made up his mind to form his opinion upon his own experience with the man, and so far it had not only been pleasant but favorable, and far from justifying the half-jeering, half-malicious talk that had come to his ears. It had been made manifest to him, it was true, that David was capable of a sharp bargain in certain lines, but it seemed to him that it was more for the pleasure of matching his wits against another's than for any gain involved. Mr. Harum was an experienced and expert horseman, who delighted above all things in dealing in and trading horses, and John soon discovered that, in that community at least, to get the best of a "hoss-trade" by almost any means was considered a venial sin, if a sin at all, and the standards of ordinary business probity were not expected to govern those transactions.

David had said to him once when he suspected that John's ideas might have sustained something of a shock, "A hoss-trade ain't like anythin' else. A feller may be straighter 'n a string in ev'rythin' else, an' never tell the truth—that is, the hull truth—about a hoss. I trade hosses with hoss-traders. They all think they know as much as I do, an' I dunno but what they do. They hain't learnt no diff'rent anyway, an' they've had chances enough. If a feller come to me that didn't think he knowed anythin' about a hoss, an' wanted to buy on the square, he'd git, fur's I knew, square treatment. At any rate I'd tell him all 't I knew. But when one o' them smart Alecks comes along and cal'lates to do up old Dave, why he's got to take his chances, that's all. An' mind ye," asserted David, shaking his forefinger impressively, "it ain't only them fellers. I've ben wuss stuck two three time by church members in good standin' than anybody I ever dealed with. Take old Deakin Perkins. He's a terrible feller fer church bus'nis; c'n pray an' psalm-sing to beat the Jews, an' in spiritual matters c'n read his title clear the hull time, but when it comes to hoss-tradin' you got to git up very early in the mornin' or he'll skin the eyeteeth out of ye. Yes, sir! Scat my ——! I believe the old critter makes hosses! But the deakin," added David, "he, he, he, he! the deakin hain't hardly spoke to me fer some consid'able time, the deakin hain't. He, he, he!

"Another thing," he went on, "the' ain't no gamble like a hoss. You may think you know him through an' through, an' fust thing you know he'll be cuttin' up a lot o' didos right out o' nothin'. It stands to reason that sometimes you let a hoss go all on the square—as you know him—an' the feller that gits him don't know how to hitch him or treat him, an' he acts like a diff'rent hoss, an' the feller allows you swindled him. You see, hosses gits used to places an' ways to a certain extent, an' when they're changed, why they're apt to act diff'rent. Hosses don't know but dreadful little, really. Talk about hoss sense—wa'al, the' ain't no such thing."

Thus spoke David on the subject of his favorite pursuit and pastime, and John thought then that he could understand and condone some things he had seen and heard, at which at first he was inclined to look askance. But this matter of the Widow Cullom's was a different thing, and as he realized that he was expected to play a part, though a small one, in it, his heart sank within him that he had so far cast his fortunes upon the good will of a man who could plan and carry out so heartless and cruel an undertaking as that which had been revealed to him that afternoon. He spent the evening in his room trying to read, but the widow's affairs persistently thrust themselves upon his thoughts. All the unpleasant stories he had heard of David came to his mind, and he remembered with misgiving some things which at the time had seemed regular and right enough, but which took on a different color in the light in which he found himself recalling them. He debated with himself whether he should not decline to send Mrs. Cullom the notice as he had been instructed, and left it an open question when he went to bed.

He wakened somewhat earlier than usual to find that the thermometer had gone up, and the barometer down. The air was full of a steady downpour, half snow, half rain, about the most disheartening combination which the worst climate in the world—that of central New York—can furnish. He passed rather a busy day in the office in an atmosphere redolent of the unsavory odors raised by the proximity of wet boots and garments to the big cylinder stove outside the counter, a compound of stale smells from kitchen and stable.

After the bank closed he dispatched Peleg Hopkins, the office boy, with the note for Mrs. Cullom. He had abandoned his half-formed intention to revolt, but had made the note not only as little peremptory as was compatible with a clear intimation of its purport as he understood it, but had yielded to a natural impulse in beginning it with an expression of personal regret—a blunder which cost him no little chagrin in the outcome.

Peleg Hopkins grumbled audibly when he was requested to build the fires on Christmas day, and expressed his opinion that "if there warn't Bible agin workin' on Chris'mus, the' 'd ort ter be"; but when John opened the door of the bank that morning he found the temperature in comfortable contrast to the outside air. The weather had changed again, and a blinding snowstorm, accompanied by a buffeting gale from the northwest, made it almost impossible to see a path and to keep it. In the central part of the town some tentative efforts had been made to open walks, but these were apparent only as slight and tortuous depressions in the depths of snow. In the outskirts, the unfortunate pedestrian had to wade to the knees.

As John went behind the counter his eye was at once caught by a small parcel lying on his desk, of white note paper, tied with a cotton string, which he found to be addressed, "Mr. John Lenox, Esq., Present," and as he took it up it seemed heavy for its size.

Opening it, he found a tiny stocking, knit of white wool, to which was pinned a piece of paper with the legend, "A Merry Christmas from Aunt Polly." Out of the stocking fell a packet fastened with a rubber strap. Inside were five ten-dollar gold pieces and a slip of paper on which was written, "A Merry Christmas from Your Friend David Harum." For a moment John's face burned, and there was a curious smarting of the eyelids as he held the little stocking and its contents in his hand. Surely the hand that had written "Your Friend" on that scrap of paper could not be the hand of an oppressor of widows and orphans. "This," said John to himself, "is what he meant when 'he supposed it wouldn't take me long to find out what was in my stocking.'"

* * * * *

The door opened and a blast and whirl of wind and snow rushed in, ushering the tall, bent form of the Widow Cullom. The drive of the wind was so strong that John vaulted over the low cash counter to push the door shut again. The poor woman was white with snow from the front of her old worsted hood to the bottom of her ragged skirt.

"You are Mrs. Cullom?" said John. "Wait a moment till I brush off the snow, and then come to the fire in the back room. Mr. Harum will be in directly, I expect."

"Be I much late?" she asked. "I made 's much haste 's I could. It don't appear to me 's if I ever see a blusteriner day, 'n I ain't as strong as I used to be. Seemed as if I never would git here."

"Oh, no," said John, as he established her before the glowing grate of the Franklin stove in the bank parlor, "not at all. Mr. Harum has not come in himself yet. Shall you mind if I excuse myself a moment while you make yourself as comfortable as possible?" She did not apparently hear him. She was trembling from head to foot with cold and fatigue and nervous excitement. Her dress was soaked to the knees, and as she sat down and put up her feet to the fire John saw a bit of a thin cotton stocking and her deplorable shoes, almost in a state of pulp. A snow-obliterated path led from the back door of the office to David's house, and John snatched his hat and started for it on a run. As he stamped off some of the snow on the veranda the door was opened for him by Mrs. Bixbee. "Lord sakes!" she exclaimed. "What on earth be you cavortin' 'round for such a mornin' 's this without no overcoat, an' on a dead run? What's the matter?"

"Nothing serious," he answered, "but I'm in a great hurry. Old Mrs. Cullom has walked up from her house to the office, and she is wet through and almost perished. I thought you'd send her some dry shoes and stockings, and an old shawl or blanket to keep her wet skirt off her knees, and a drop of whisky or something. She's all of a tremble, and I'm afraid she will have a chill."

"Certain! certain!" said the kind creature, and she bustled out of the room, returning in a minute or two with an armful of comforts. "There's a pair of bedroom slips lined with lamb's wool, an' a pair of woolen stockin's, an' a blanket shawl. This here petticut, 't ain't what ye'd call bran' new, but it's warm and comf'table, an' I don't believe she's got much of anythin' on 'ceptin' her dress, an' I'll git ye the whisky, but"—here she looked deprecatingly at John—"it ain't gen'ally known 't we keep the stuff in the house. I don't know as it's right, but though David don't hardly ever touch it he will have it in the house."

"Oh," said John, laughing, "you may trust my discretion, and we'll swear Mrs. Cullom to secrecy."

"Wa'al, all right," said Mrs. Bixbee, joining in the laugh as she brought the bottle; "jest a minute till I make a passel of the things to keep the snow out. There, now, I guess you're fixed, an' you kin hurry back 'fore she ketches a chill."

"Thanks very much," said John as he started away. "I have something to say to you besides 'Merry Christmas,' but I must wait till another time."

When John got back to the office David had just preceded him.

"Wa'al, wa'al," he was saying, "but you be in a putty consid'able state. Hullo, John! what you got there? Wa'al, you air the stuff! Slips, blanket-shawl, petticut, stockin's—wa'al, you an' Polly ben puttin' your heads together, I guess. What's that? Whisky! Wa'al, scat my ——! I didn't s'pose wild hosses would have drawed it out o' Polly to let on the' was any in the house, much less to fetch it out. Jest the thing! Oh, yes ye are, Mis' Cullom—jest a mouthful with water," taking the glass from John, "jest a spoonful to git your blood a-goin', an' then Mr. Lenox an' me 'll go into the front room while you make yourself comf'table."

"Consarn it all!" exclaimed Mr. Harum as they stood leaning against the teller's counter, facing the street, "I didn't cal'late to have Mis' Cullom hoof it up here the way she done. When I see what kind of a day it was I went out to the barn to have the cutter hitched an' send for her, an' I found ev'rythin' topsy-turvy. That dum'd uneasy sorril colt had got cast in the stall, an' I ben fussin' with him ever since. I clean forgot all 'bout Mis' Cullom till jest now."

"Is the colt much injured?" John asked.

"Wa'al, he won't trot a twenty gait in some time, I reckon," replied David. "He's wrenched his shoulder some, an' mebbe strained his inside. Don't seem to take no int'rist in his feed, an' that's a bad sign. Consarn a hoss, anyhow! If they're wuth anythin' they're more bother 'n a teethin' baby. Alwus some dum thing ailin' 'em, an' I took consid'able stock in that colt too," he added regretfully, "an' I could 'a' got putty near what I was askin' fer him last week, an' putty near what he was wuth, an' I've noticed that most gen'ally alwus when I let a good offer go like that, some cussed thing happens to the hoss. It ain't a bad idee, in the hoss bus'nis anyway, to be willin' to let the other feller make a dollar once 'n a while."

After that aphorism they waited in silence for a few minutes, and then David called out over his shoulder, "How be you gettin' along, Mis' Cullom?"

"I guess I'm fixed," she answered, and David walked slowly back into the parlor, leaving John in the front office. He was annoyed to realize that in the bustle over Mrs. Cullom and what followed, he had forgotten to acknowledge the Christmas gift; but, hoping that Mr. Harum had been equally oblivious, promised himself to repair the omission later on. He would have preferred to go out and leave the two to settle their affair without witness or hearer, but his employer, who, as he had found, usually had a reason for his actions, had explicitly requested him to remain, and he had no choice. He perched himself upon one of the office stools and composed himself to await the conclusion of the affair.



CHAPTER XIX.

Mrs. Cullom was sitting at one corner of the fire, and David drew a chair opposite to her.

"Feelin' all right now? whisky hain't made ye liable to no disorderly conduct, has it?" he asked with a laugh.

"Yes, thank you," was the reply, "the warm things are real comfortin', 'n' I guess I hain't had licker enough to make me want to throw things. You got a kind streak in ye, Dave Harum, if you did send me this here note—but I s'pose ye know your own bus'nis," she added with a sigh of resignation. "I ben fearin' fer a good while 't I couldn't hold on t' that prop'ty, an' I don't know but what you might's well git it as 'Zeke Swinney, though I ben hopin' 'gainst hope that Charley 'd be able to do more 'n he has."

"Let's see the note," said David curtly. "H'm, humph, 'regret to say that I have been instructed by Mr. Harum'—wa'al, h'm'm, cal'lated to clear his own skirts anyway—h'm'm—'must be closed up without further delay' (John's eye caught the little white stocking which still lay on his desk)—wa'al, yes, that's about what I told Mr. Lenox to say fur's the bus'nis part's concerned—I might 'a' done my own regrettin' if I'd wrote the note myself." (John said something to himself.) "'T ain't the pleasantest thing in the world fer ye, I allow, but then you see, bus'nis is bus'nis."

John heard David clear his throat, and there was a hiss in the open fire. Mrs. Cullom was silent, and David resumed:

"You see, Mis' Cullom, it's like this. I ben thinkin' of this matter fer a good while. That place ain't ben no real good to ye sence the first year you signed that morgidge. You hain't scurcely more'n made ends meet, let alone the int'rist, an' it's ben simply a question o' time, an' who'd git the prop'ty in the long run fer some years. I reckoned, same as you did, that Charley 'd mebbe come to the front—but he hain't done it, an' 't ain't likely he ever will. Charley's a likely 'nough boy some ways, but he hain't got much 'git there' in his make-up, not more'n enough fer one anyhow, I reckon. That's about the size on't, ain't it?"

Mrs. Cullom murmured a feeble admission that she was "'fraid it was."

"Wa'al," resumed Mr. Harum, "I see how things was goin', an' I see that unless I played euchre, 'Zeke Swinney 'd git that prop'ty, an' whether I wanted it myself or not, I didn't cal'late he sh'd git it anyway. He put a spoke in my wheel once, an' I hain't forgot it. But that hain't neither here nor there. Wa'al," after a short pause, "you know I helped ye pull the thing along on the chance, as ye may say, that you an' your son 'd somehow make a go on't."

"You ben very kind, so fur," said the widow faintly.

"Don't ye say that, don't ye say that," protested David. "'T wa'n't no kindness. It was jest bus'nis: I wa'n't takin' no chances, an' I s'pose I might let the thing run a spell longer if I c'd see any use in't. But the' ain't, an' so I ast ye to come up this mornin' so 't we c'd settle the thing up without no fuss, nor trouble, nor lawyer's fees, nor nothin'. I've got the papers all drawed, an' John—Mr. Lenox—here to take the acknowlidgments. You hain't no objection to windin' the thing up this mornin', have ye?"

"I s'pose I'll have to do whatever you say," replied the poor woman in a tone of hopeless discouragement, "an' I might as well be killed to once, as to die by inch pieces."

"All right then," said David cheerfully, ignoring her lethal suggestion, "but before we git down to bus'nis an' signin' papers, an' in order to set myself in as fair a light 's I can in the matter, I want to tell ye a little story."

"I hain't no objection 's I know of," acquiesced the widow graciously.

"All right," said David, "I won't preach more 'n about up to the sixthly—How'd you feel if I was to light up a cigar? I hain't much of a hand at a yarn, an' if I git stuck, I c'n puff a spell. Thank ye. Wa'al, Mis' Cullom, you used to know somethin' about my folks. I was raised on Buxton Hill. The' was nine on us, an' I was the youngest o' the lot. My father farmed a piece of about forty to fifty acres, an' had a small shop where he done odd times small jobs of tinkerin' fer the neighbors when the' was anythin' to do. My mother was his second, an' I was the only child of that marriage. He married agin when I was about two year old, an' how I ever got raised 's more 'n I c'n tell ye. My sister Polly was 'sponsible more 'n any one, I guess, an' the only one o' the whole lot that ever gin me a decent word. Small farmin' ain't cal'lated to fetch out the best traits of human nature—an' keep 'em out—an' it seems to me sometimes that when the old man wa'n't cuffin' my ears he was lickin' me with a rawhide or a strap. Fur 's that was concerned, all his boys used to ketch it putty reg'lar till they got too big. One on 'em up an' licked him one night, an' lit out next day. I s'pose the old man's disposition was sp'iled by what some feller said farmin' was, 'workin' all day, an' doin' chores all night,' an' larrupin' me an' all the rest on us was about all the enjoyment he got. My brothers an' sisters—'ceptin' of Polly—was putty nigh as bad in respect of cuffs an' such like; an' my step-marm was, on the hull, the wust of all. She hadn't no childern o' her own, an' it appeared 's if I was jest pizen to her. 'T wa'n't so much slappin' an' cuffin' with her as 't was tongue. She c'd say things that 'd jest raise a blister like pizen ivy. I s'pose I was about as ord'nary, no-account-lookin', red-headed, freckled little cuss as you ever see, an' slinkin' in my manners. The air of our home circle wa'n't cal'lated to raise heroes in.

"I got three four years' schoolin', an' made out to read an' write an' cipher up to long division 'fore I got through, but after I got to be six year old, school or no school, I had to work reg'lar at anything I had strength fer, an' more too. Chores before school an' after school, an' a two-mile walk to git there. As fur 's clo'es was concerned, any old thing that 'd hang together was good enough fer me; but by the time the older boys had outgrowed their duds, an' they was passed on to me, the' wa'n't much left on 'em. A pair of old cowhide boots that leaked in more snow an' water 'n they kept out, an' a couple pairs of woolen socks that was putty much all darns, was expected to see me through the winter, an' I went barefoot f'm the time the snow was off the ground till it flew agin in the fall. The' wa'n't but two seasons o' the year with me—them of chilblains an' stun-bruises."

The speaker paused and stared for a moment into the comfortable glow of the fire, and then discovering to his apparent surprise that his cigar had gone out, lighted it from a coal picked out with the tongs.

"Farmin' 's a hard life," remarked Mrs. Cullom with an air of being expected to make some contribution to the conversation.

"An' yit, as it seems to me as I look back on't," David resumed pensively, "the wust on't was that nobody ever gin me a kind word, 'cept Polly. I s'pose I got kind o' used to bein' cold an' tired; dressin' in a snowdrift where it blowed into the attic, an' goin' out to fodder cattle 'fore sun-up; pickin' up stun in the blazin' sun, an' doin' all the odd jobs my father set me to, an' the older ones shirked onto me. That was the reg'lar order o' things; but I remember I never did git used to never pleasin' nobody. 'Course I didn't expect nothin' f'm my step-marm, an' the only way I ever knowed I'd done my stent fur 's father was concerned, was that he didn't say nothin'. But sometimes the older ones 'd git settin' 'round, talkin' an' laughin', havin' pop corn an' apples, an' that, an' I'd kind o' sidle up, wantin' to join 'em, an' some on 'em 'd say, 'What you doin' here? time you was in bed,' an' give me a shove or a cuff. Yes, ma'am," looking up at Mrs. Cullom, "the wust on't was that I was kind o' scairt the hull time. Once in a while Polly 'd give me a mossel o' comfort, but Polly wa'n't but little older 'n me, an' bein' the youngest girl, was chored most to death herself."

It had stopped snowing, and though the wind still came in gusty blasts, whirling the drift against the windows, a wintry gleam of sunshine came in and touched the widow's wrinkled face.

"It's amazin' how much trouble an' sorrer the' is in the world, an' how soon it begins," she remarked, moving a little to avoid the sunlight. "I hain't never ben able to reconcile how many good things the' be, an' how little most on us gits o' them. I hain't ben to meetin' fer a long spell 'cause I hain't had no fit clo'es, but I remember most of the preachin' I've set under either dwelt on the wrath to come, or else on the Lord's doin' all things well, an' providin'. I hope I ain't no wickeder 'n than the gen'ral run, but it's putty hard to hev faith in the Lord's providin' when you hain't got nothin' in the house but corn meal, an' none too much o' that."

"That's so, Mis' Cullom, that's so," affirmed David. "I don't blame ye a mite. 'Doubts assail, an' oft prevail,' as the hymn-book says, an' I reckon it's a sight easier to have faith on meat an' potatoes 'n it is on corn meal mush. Wa'al, as I was sayin'—I hope I ain't tirin' ye with my goin's on?"

"No," said Mrs. Cullom, "I'm engaged to hear ye, but nobody 'd suppose to see ye now that ye was such a f'lorn little critter as you make out."

"It's jest as I'm tellin' ye, an' more also, as the Bible says," returned David, and then, rather more impressively, as if he were leading up to his conclusion, "it come along to a time when I was 'twixt thirteen an' fourteen. The' was a cirkis billed to show down here in Homeville, an' ev'ry barn an' shed fer miles around had pictures stuck onto 'em of el'phants, an' rhinoceroses, an' ev'ry animul that went into the ark; an' girls ridin' bareback an' jumpin' through hoops, an' fellers ridin' bareback an' turnin' summersets, an' doin' turnovers on swings; an' clowns gettin' hoss-whipped, an' ev'ry kind of a thing that could be pictered out; an' how the' was to be a grand percession at ten o'clock, 'ith golden chariots, an' scripteral allegories, an' the hull bus'nis; an' the gran' performance at two o'clock; admission twenty-five cents, children under twelve, at cetery, an' so forth. Wa'al, I hadn't no more idee o' goin' to that cirkis 'n I had o' flyin' to the moon, but the night before the show somethin' waked me 'bout twelve o'clock. I don't know how 't was. I'd ben helpin' mend fence all day, an' gen'ally I never knowed nothin' after my head struck the bed till mornin'. But that night, anyhow, somethin' waked me, an' I went an' looked out the windo', an' there was the hull thing goin' by the house. The' was more or less moon, an' I see the el'phant, an' the big wagins—the drivers kind o' noddin' over the dashboards—an' the chariots with canvas covers—I don't know how many of 'em—an' the cages of the tigers an' lions, an' all. Wa'al, I got up the next mornin' at sun-up an' done my chores; an' after breakfust I set off fer the ten-acre lot where I was mendin' fence. The ten-acre was the farthest off of any, Homeville way, an' I had my dinner in a tin pail so't I needn't lose no time goin' home at noon, an', as luck would have it, the' wa'n't nobody with me that mornin'. Wa'al, I got down to the lot an' set to work; but somehow I couldn't git that show out o' my head nohow. As I said, I hadn't no more notion of goin' to that cirkis 'n I had of kingdom come. I'd never had two shillin' of my own in my hull life. But the more I thought on't the uneasier I got. Somethin' seemed pullin' an' haulin' at me, an' fin'ly I gin in. I allowed I'd see that percession anyway if it took a leg, an' mebbe I c'd git back 'ithout nobody missin' me. 'T any rate, I'd take the chances of a lickin' jest once—fer that's what it meant—an' I up an' put fer the village lickity-cut. I done them four mile lively, I c'n tell ye, an' the stun-bruises never hurt me once.

"When I got down to the village it seemed to me as if the hull population of Freeland County was there. I'd never seen so many folks together in my life, an' fer a spell it seemed to me as if ev'rybody was a-lookin' at me an' sayin', 'That's old Harum's boy Dave, playin' hookey,' an' I sneaked 'round dreadin' somebody 'd give me away; but I fin'ly found that nobody wa'n't payin' any attention to me—they was there to see the show, an' one red-headed boy more or less wa'n't no pertic'ler account. Wa'al, putty soon the percession hove in sight, an' the' was a reg'lar stampede among the boys, an' when it got by, I run an' ketched up with it agin, an' walked alongside the el'phant, tin pail an' all, till they fetched up inside the tent. Then I went off to one side—it must 'a' ben about 'leven or half-past, an' eat my dinner—I had a devourin' appetite—an' thought I'd jest walk round a spell, an' then light out fer home. But the' was so many things to see an' hear—all the side-show pictures of Fat Women, an' Livin' Skelitons; an' Wild Women of Madygasker, an' Wild Men of Borneo; an' snakes windin' round women's necks; hand-orgins; fellers that played the 'cordion, an' mouth-pipes, an' drum an' cymbals all to once, an' such like—that I fergot all about the time an' the ten-acre lot, an' the stun fence, an' fust I knowed the folks was makin' fer the ticket wagin, an' the band begun to play inside the tent. Be I taxin' your patience over the limit?" said David, breaking off in his story and addressing Mrs. Cullom more directly.

"No, I guess not," she replied; "I was jest thinkin' of a circus I went to once," she added with an audible sigh.

"Wa'al," said David, taking a last farewell of the end of his cigar, which he threw into the grate, "mebbe what's comin' 'll int'rest ye more 'n the rest on't has. I was standin' gawpin' 'round, list'nin' to the band an' watchin' the folks git their tickets, when all of a suddin I felt a twitch at my hair—it had a way of workin' out of the holes in my old chip straw hat—an' somebody says to me, 'Wa'al, sonny, what you thinkin' of?' he says. I looked up, an' who do you s'pose it was? It was Billy P. Cullom! I knowed who he was, fer I'd seen him before, but of course he didn't know me. Yes, ma'am, it was Billy P., an' wa'n't he rigged out to kill!"

The speaker paused and looked into the fire, smiling. The woman started forward facing him, and clasping her hands, cried, "My husband! What'd he have on?"

"Wa'al," said David slowly and reminiscently, "near's I c'n remember, he had on a blue broad-cloth claw-hammer coat with flat gilt buttons, an' a double-breasted plaid velvet vest, an' pearl-gray pants, strapped down over his boots, which was of shiny leather, an' a high pointed collar an' blue stock with a pin in it (I remember wonderin' if it c'd be real gold), an' a yeller-white plug beaver hat."

At the description of each article of attire Mrs. Cullom nodded her head, with her eyes fixed on David's face, and as he concluded she broke out breathlessly, "Oh, yes! Oh, yes! David, he wore them very same clo'es, an' he took me to that very same show that very same night!" There was in her face a look almost of awe, as if a sight of her long-buried past youth had been shown to her from a coffin.

Neither spoke for a moment or two, and it was the widow who broke the silence. As David had conjectured, she was interested at last, and sat leaning forward with her hands clasped in her lap.

"Well," she exclaimed, "ain't ye goin' on? What did he say to ye?"

"Cert'nly, cert'nly," responded David, "I'll tell ye near 's I c'n remember, an' I c'n remember putty near. As I told ye, I felt a twitch at my hair, an' he said, 'What be you thinkin' about, sonny?' I looked up at him, an' looked away quick. 'I dunno,' I says, diggin' my big toe into the dust; an' then, I dunno how I got the spunk to, for I was shyer 'n a rat, 'Guess I was thinkin' 'bout mendin' that fence up in the ten-acre lot's much's anythin',' I says.

"'Ain't you goin' to the cirkis?' he says.

"'I hain't got no money to go to cirkises,' I says, rubbin' the dusty toes o' one foot over t' other, 'nor nothin' else,' I says.

"'Wa'al,' he says, 'why don't you crawl under the canvas?'

"That kind o' riled me, shy 's I was. 'I don't crawl under no canvases,' I says. 'If I can't go in same 's other folks, I'll stay out,' I says, lookin' square at him fer the fust time. He wa'n't exac'ly smilin', but the' was a look in his eyes that was the next thing to it."

"Lordy me!" sighed Mrs. Cullom, as if to herself. "How well I can remember that look; jest as if he was laughin' at ye, an' wa'n't laughin' at ye, an' his arm around your neck!"

David nodded in reminiscent sympathy, and rubbed his bald poll with the back of his hand.

"Wa'al," interjected the widow.

"Wa'al," said David, resuming, "he says to me, 'Would you like to go to the cirkis?' an' with that it occurred to me that I did want to go to that cirkis more'n anythin' I ever wanted to before—nor since, it seems to me. But I tell ye the truth, I was so far f'm expectin' to go't I really hadn't knowed I wanted to. I looked at him, an' then down agin, an' began tenderin' up a stun-bruise on one heel agin the other instep, an' all I says was, bein' so dum'd shy, 'I dunno,' I says. But I guess he seen in my face what my feelin's was, fer he kind o' laughed an' pulled out half-a-dollar an' says: 'D' you think you could git a couple o' tickits in that crowd? If you kin, I think I'll go myself, but I don't want to git my boots all dust,' he says. I allowed I c'd try; an' I guess them bare feet o' mine tore up the dust some gettin' over to the wagin. Wa'al, I had another scare gettin' the tickits, fer fear some one that knowed me 'd see me with a half-a-dollar, an' think I must 'a' stole the money. But I got 'em an' carried 'em back to him, an' he took 'em an' put 'em in his vest pocket, an' handed me a ten-cent piece, an' says, 'Mebbe you'll want somethin' in the way of refreshments fer yourself an' mebbe the el'phant,' he says, an' walked off toward the tent; an' I stood stun still, lookin' after him. He got off about a rod or so an' stopped an' looked back. 'Ain't you comin'?' he says.

"'Be I goin' with you?" I says.

"'Why not?' he says, ''nless you'd ruther go alone,' an' he put his finger an' thumb into his vest pocket. Wa'al, ma'am, I looked at him a minute, with his shiny hat an' boots, an' fine clo'es, an' gold pin, an' thought of my ragged ole shirt, an' cotton pants, an' ole chip hat with the brim most gone, an' my tin pail an' all. 'I ain't fit to,' I says, ready to cry—an'—wa'al, he jest laughed, an' says, 'Nonsense,' he says, 'come along. A man needn't be ashamed of his workin' clo'es,' he says, an' I'm dum'd if he didn't take holt of my hand, an' in we went that way together."

"How like him that was!" said the widow softly.

"Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, I reckon it was," said David, nodding.

"Wa'al," he went on after a little pause, "I was ready to sink into the ground with shyniss at fust, but that wore off some after a little, an' we two seen the hull show, I tell ye. We walked 'round the cages, an' we fed the el'phant—that is, he bought the stuff an' I fed him. I 'member—he, he, he!—'t he says, 'mind you git the right end,' he says, an' then we got a couple o' seats, an' the doin's begun."



CHAPTER XX.

The widow was looking at David with shining eyes and devouring his words. All the years of trouble and sorrow and privation were wiped out, and she was back in the days of her girlhood. Ah, yes! how well she remembered him as he looked that very day—so handsome, so splendidly dressed, so debonair; and how proud she had been to sit by his side that night, observed and envied of all the village girls.

"I ain't goin' to go over the hull show," proceeded David, "well 's I remember it. The' didn't nothin' git away from me that afternoon, an' once I come near to stickin' a piece o' gingerbread into my ear 'stid o' my mouth. I had my ten-cent piece that Billy P. give me, but he wouldn't let me buy nothin'; an' when the gingerbread man come along he says, 'Air ye hungry, Dave? (I'd told him my name), air ye hungry?' Wa'al, I was a growin' boy, an' I was hungry putty much all the time. He bought two big squares an' gin me one, an' when I'd swallered it, he says, 'Guess you better tackle this one too,' he says, 'I've dined.' I didn't exac'ly know what 'dined' meant, but—he, he, he, he!—I tackled it," and David smacked his lips in memory.

"Wa'al," he went on, "we done the hull programmy—gingerbread, lemonade—pink lemonade, an' he took some o' that—pop corn, peanuts, pep'mint candy, cin'mun candy—scat my ——! an' he payin' fer ev'rythin'—I thought he was jest made o' money! An' I remember how we talked about all the doin's; the ridin', an' jumpin', an' summersettin', an' all—fer he'd got all the shyniss out of me for the time—an' once I looked up at him, an' he looked down at me with that curious look in his eyes an' put his hand on my shoulder. Wa'al, now, I tell ye, I had a queer, crinkly feelin' go up an' down my back, an' I like to up an' cried."

"Dave," said the widow, "I kin see you two as if you was settin' there front of me. He was alwus like that. Oh, my! Oh, my! David," she added solemnly, while two tears rolled slowly down her wrinkled face, "we lived together, husban' an' wife, fer seven year, an' he never give me a cross word."