THE planter alighted from the dusty-little train under the crumbling brick car-shed at Darley, and, turning his heavy hand-luggage over to the negro porter, he walked across the grass to the steps of the Johnston House. Here he was met by Jim Thornton, the dapper young clerk, who always had a curled mustache and oiled hair smoothed flatly down over his brow.
“Oh, here you are, right side up, Captain Duncan!” he cried, cordially. “You can't stay away from those level acres of yours very long at a time.”
“No, Jim,” the short, thick-set man smiled, as he took the extended hand; “as soon as I heard spring had opened, I got a bad case of homesickness, and we left Florida. My wife and daughter came a week ago. I had to stop on business in Jacksonville. I always like to be here in planting season; my men never seem to know exactly what I want done when I am away. Jim, I've got a lot of fine land out there between the river and the mountains.”
“I reckon you have,” laughed the clerk, as he led his guest into the hotel office. “There's a neighbor of yours over there at the stove, old Tom Mayhew, who runs the big store—Mayhew & Floyd's—at Springtown.”
“Oh, I know him mighty well,” said Duncan. “How are you, Mayhew? What are you doing away from your beat? I thought you'd be behind that counter such fine weather as this.”
“Trade's dull,” said the merchant, who was a tall, spare-made man, about sixty-five years of age, with snow-white hair and beard. “Farmers are all at the plough, and that's where they ought to be, Duncan, if they expect to pay anything on their debts this fall. I had to lay in some stock, and ran down to Atlanta day before yesterday. My young partner, Nelson Floyd, usually does the replenishing, but the books got out of whack and I left him to tussle with them; he's got a better head for figures than I have. I've just sent to the livery-stable for a horse and buggy to take me out; how are you going?”
“Why, I hardly know,” answered the planter, as he took off his straw hat and wiped his bald head with a silk handkerchief. “I telegraphed Lawson, my head overseer, to send somebody to meet me, and I was just wondering—”
“Oh, you'll be attended to all right, Captain Duncan,” said the clerk, with a laugh, as he stood at the register behind the counter. “Pole Baker was in here last night asking if you had arrived. He said he had brought a buggy and was going to drive you back. You will make it all right if Pole sobers up long enough to get out of town. He was thoroughly 'how-come-you-so' last night. He was in Asque's bar raising holy Cane. The marshal ordered Billy to close at twelve, but Pole wouldn't hear to it, and they came in an inch of having a fight. I believe they would if Mrs. Johnston hadn't heard it and come down. Pole has more respect for women than most men, and as soon as he saw her at the door he hushed up and went to bed.”
“He's as straight as a shingle this morning, captain,” put in Charlie Smith, a mulatto porter, who was rolling a pair of trucks across the room laden with a drummer's enormous, brass-bound trunk. “He was up before day asking if you got in durin' the night.”
“Well, I'm glad he's sobered up if he's to take me out,” said the planter. “He's about the biggest dare-devil out our way. You know him, don't you, Mayhew?”
“Know him? Humph! to the extent of over three hundred dollars. My partner thinks the sun rises and sets in him and never will close down on him. They are great friends. Floyd will fight for him at the drop of a hat. He says Pole has more manhood in him to the square inch than any man in the county, white or black. He saw him in a knock-down-and-drag-out row in the public square last election. They say Pole whipped three bigger men than he is all in a bunch, and bare-handed at that. Nobody knows to this day how it started. Nelson doesn't, but I heard it was some remark one of the fellows made about Nelson himself. You know my partner had a rather strange start in life—a poor boy with nobody to see to his bringing-up, but that's a subject that even his best friends don't mention to him.”
The captain nodded understanding. “They tell me Pole used to be a moonshiner,” he said; “and I have heard that he was the shrewdest one in the mountains. His wife got him to quit it. I understand he fairly worships the ground she walks on, and there never was a better father to his children.”
“He thinks well enough of them when he's at himself,” said Mayhew, “but when he's drinking he neglects them awfully. I've known the neighbors to feed them two weeks on a stretch. He's got a few enemies out our way. When he quit moon-shining, he helped some of the government officers find some stills over there. That was funny! Pole held off from the job that was offered him for a month, during which time he sent word everywhere through the mountains that he would give all his old friends plenty of time to shut up and quit making whiskey, but after his month was up he would do all he could against any law-breakers. He had to testify against several who are now at large, and they certainly have it in for him. He'd have been shot long ago if his enemies wasn't afraid of him. But they will do him one of these days; you may mark my prediction. He is as cool and collected in time of danger as General Lee used to be. By gum, I saw him actually save the lives of twenty of the best citizens of this town about a year ago.”
“You don't mean it!” exclaimed the planter. “That's what he did, captain,” Jim Thornton cried out from behind the counter. “You bet your life that was a ticklish time. I wasn't here, but I heard of it.”
“No, you wasn't on duty then,” said Mayhew. “I remember that, because Mrs. Johnston had to attend to the office herself. It happened, captain, that a squad of negro soldiers, commanded by a white officer, owing to some wash-out on the road this side of Chattanooga, had to lay over here all day, and they got about half drunk and started in to paint the town. They marched up and down Main Street, two abreast, looking in the stores and making fun of everybody and everything they saw. Finally hell got in them as big as house afire, and they come right in here, forty strong. The leader, a tall, black buck, over six feet high and weighing about two hundred, went up to Mrs. Johnston at the counter and said they wanted dinner. The old lady, feeble and gray-headed as she is, isn't a child. She knew exactly what it meant, and she was as white as a sheet, but she told the rascal quietly that her house did not entertain colored people.
“'That's what I've heard,' the negro said, 'but we are going to eat here to-day or know the reason why.'”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Duncan, “he ought to have been shot.”
“Well,” went on Mayhew, “while she was trying to put him off, somebody ran for the white officer and told him to go order his men out, and he did start in this direction, but it was with a sneer and several questions about why his men couldn't eat in any hotel in America, and so forth, and when he got here in the office he just stood around and took no steps to stop the trouble at all. He sidled over to the cigar-case and stood there twisting his yellow mustache and turning his nose up, but he wouldn't give the command, and that made the negroes more unruly. Mrs. Johnston appealed to him, telling him it was his duty to clear her house of his drunken men, but he simply gave her no satisfaction. However, you can bet trouble was brewing. The news had spread like wildfire down the street, and every merchant and clerk that was any man at all shoved a pistol in his pocket and quietly slid into this room. They didn't seem to have any business here, and it was plain that the captain, who was a Northern man, had no idea he was so near an ambush; but a battle hung by a single hair. Both factions was armed, and one shot would have produced a hundred. The white citizens all had their lips set tight together, and not one had a thing to say to any other. They were all here for simple business, and each man was going to act on his own responsibility. The diningroom was open, and one or two drummers had gone in to dinner, and every white man's eye was on the door. They seemed to have made up their minds, one and all, that the first negro that made a break in that direction would never cross the threshold. I've been in war and carnage, but, by gum! that was the most ticklish situation I ever faced.
“Just about that time I saw Pole Baker run in, panting and out of breath. He had been doing a job of whitewashing down at the wagon-yard and had on a pair of somebody's old overalls that wouldn't meet at the waist and struck him about the knees. He'd lost his hat in his hurry, and his long, bushy hair was all tangled. 'Have you got a spare gun?' he asked me, his lip shaking, his eyes bulging out. I told him I didn't have anything but a pocket-knife and might need that, and he plunged into the bar-room and tried to borrow a pistol from Billy Asque, but Billy was on the way out with his in his hip-pocket, and Pole come back frothing at the mouth and begun to look under that stove there.
“'What you looking for?' said I. And he belched up an oath and said: 'Damn it, what you think I'm looking for—a feather bed? I'm looking for something to hit that black whelp with that's leaning over the register threatening that poor old lady.'
“But he couldn't lay his hand on a thing, and it looked like he was about to cry. Then things got more serious. The negroes had bunched together, and we saw plainly that their plan was to make a break in a body for the dining-room. I saw Pole throw his big head back like our general used to do when things had reached a crisis.
“'If something isn't done, and done quick,' I heard him say to himself, 'some of the best citizens of this town will lose their lives, and all for a gang of drunken niggers. Something's got to be done, Mr. Mayhew,' he said to me.
“'Yes, but what?—that's the question,' said I.
“Then I saw him act. Without a single weapon in his hand, he stalked as straight as an arrow through the gang of negroes, elbowing them right and left, and went up to the captain and clamped his hand on his shoulder so heavy that I heard it clear across the room.
“'Looky' here, you damned white coward!' he said, 'you order them coons out of here in five seconds or, by God, I'll knock every tooth in your head down your throat, and wedge 'em in with your gums. Quick, order, I say!'
“The chap was about Pole's height, but he looked like a sapling beside a knotted oak, and he stared through his cigar smoke in astonishment. But Pole's left hand came down with a ringing slap on his shoulder-straps that almost brought the fellow to his knees, and Pole's big fist slid up close to his eyes, and then drew back for a sledge-hammer lick. The fellow blinked, and then with a growl and a sickly look about the mouth he gave the order. The negroes looked at him in astonishment, but Pole waved his big right hand and said, 'Get out! get out of here, and that mighty quick!' They moved slow, to be sure, but they went, the officer standing to one side looking plumb whipped. They had all gone down the steps, and the captain, mad and sullen, was about to follow, when suddenly Pole reached out and caught him by the collar and yanked him right back into the crowd that was surging forward.
“'Say, you've got to listen to a speech,' Pole said, still holding to his coat. 'I want to tell you that for a soldier you are the damnedest jackass that ever stood on its hind-legs in blue pants. You are a pretty excuse to send out even in charge of a set of ignorant coons. If it hadn't been for me calling a halt on this thing you'd 'a' had to haul your company to headquarters in a refrigerator-car, and you'd 'a' had that uniform changed to one of tar and feathers. Now, you go on, and when you strike another mountain town you will know what you are up against,' and with that Pole led the chap, who was pretty well scared by that time, to the steps and gave him a shove towards the train. Pole saved the day, and when that crowd of Darley men realized what a riot had been averted they gathered around him and began to praise him extravagantly. Billy Askew ran into his bar and came out with his old dog-eared ledger open at Pole's account, and he held it up and tore the page out. 'No man,' said he, 'can owe me for whiskey that's got that sort of a body to put it in, and Pole Baker from this day on is at liberty to stick his mouth to every bung-hole in my shop.'
“And that night Pole was so drunk that the marshal started to lock him up, but the gang stood to him. They put him to bed up-stairs in the bridal-chamber, and sat around him till morning, singing battle-songs and raising the devil generally.”
“I see him coming now, Mr. Mayhew,” said the clerk. “Captain, he walks steady enough. I reckon he'll take you through safe.”
The tall countryman, about thirty-five years of age, without a coat, his coarse cotton shirt open at the neck, a slouched hat on his massive head and his tattered trousers stuffed into the tops of his high boots, came in. He wore a brown, sweeping mustache, and his eyebrows were unusually heavy. On the heel of his right boot he wore an old riding spur, very loosely strapped.
“How are you, Captain Duncan?” he said to the planter, as he extended his brawny hand. “You've come back to God's country, heigh?”
“Yes, Baker,” the planter returned, with a genial smile. “I had to see what sort of chance you fellows stand for a crop this year. I understand Lawson sent you over for me and my baggage. I'm certainly glad he engaged a man about whom I have heard such good reports.”
“Well, I don't know about that, captain,” said Pole, his bushy brows meeting in a frown of displeasure, and his dark eyes flashing. “I don't know as I'm runnin' a hack-line, or totin' trunks about fer the upper-ten set of humanity. I'm a farmer myself, in a sort of way—smaller'n you are, but a farmer. I was comin' this way yesterday, and was about to take my own hoss out of the field, where he had plenty to do, when Lawson said: 'Baker, bein' as you are goin' to make the trip anyways, I'd feel under obligations ef you'd take my rig and fetch Captain Duncan back when you come.' By gum, to tell you the truth, I've just come in to say to you, old hoss, that ef you are ready right now, we'll ride out together; ef not, I'll leave yore rig and go out with Nathan Porter. I say engaged! I'm not goin' to get any money out o' this job.”
“Oh, I meant no offence at all, Baker,” said the planter, in no little embarrassment, for the group was smiling.
“Well, I reckon you didn't,” said Pole, slightly mollified, “but it's always a good idea fer two men to know exactly where they stand, and I'm here to say I don't take off my hat to no man on earth. The only man I'd bow down to died two thousand years ago.”
“That's the right spirit,” Duncan said, admiringly. “Now, I'm ready if you are, and it's time we were on the move. Those two valises are mine, and that big overcoat tied in a bundle.”
“Here, Charlie!” Pole called out to the porter, “put them things o' Duncan's in the back end o' the buggy an' I'll throw you a dime the next time I'm in town.”
“All right, boss,” the mulatto said, with a knowing wink and smile at Mayhew. “They'll be in by the time you get there.”
While the planter was at the counter saying goodbye to the clerk, Pole looked down at Mayhew. “When are you goin' out?” he asked.
“In an hour or so,” answered the merchant, as he spat down into a cuspadore. “I'm waiting now for a turnout, and I've got some business to attend to.”
“Collections to make, I'll bet my hat,” Pole laughed. “I thought mighty few folks was out on Main Street jest now; they know you are abroad in the land, an' want to save the'r socks.”
“Do you reckon that's it, Baker?” said Mayhew, as he spat again. “I thought maybe it was because they was afraid you'd git on the war-path, and wanted to keep their skins whole.”
The clerk and the planter laughed. “He got you that time, Pole,” the latter said, with a smile.
“I'll acknowledge the corn,” and the mountaineer joined in the laugh good-naturedly. “To look at the old skinflint, settin' half asleep all the time, a body wouldn't think his tongue had any life to it. But I've seen the dem thing wiggle before. It was when thar was a trade up, though.”
AS they were driving into the country road, just beyond the straggling houses in the outskirts of the town, going towards the mountains, which lay along the western horizon like blue clouds settling to earth, the planter said:
“I've seen you fishing and hunting with Mayhew's young partner, Nelson Floyd. You and he are rather intimate, are you not?”
“Jest about as friendly as two men can be,” said Pole, “when one's rising in the world an' t'other is eternally at a stand-still or goin' down like a round rock on the side of a mountain. Or maybe I ought to say, when one of 'em has had the pluck to educate hisse'f, an' t'other hardly knows B from a bull's foot. I don't know, captain, why Nelson Floyd's friendly to me. I like him beca'se he is a man from his toe-nails to the end o' the longest hair on his head.”
“I've heard a lot of good things about him,” remarked the planter, “and I understand, too, that he has his faults.”
“They're part of his manhood,” said Pole, philosophically. “Show me a feller without faults, and I'll show you one that's too weak to have 'em. Nelson's got some o' the dust o' the broad road on his coat, an' yet I'd take his place in the general stampede when old Gabe blows his trumpet at the millennium a sight quicker than I'd stand in the shoes o' some o' these jack-leg preachers. I tell you, Captain Duncan, ef the Lord's goin' to make favorites o' some o' the long-faced hypocrits I know, that is robbin' widows an' orphans in the week an' prayin' an' shoutin' on Sunday to pull the wool over folks' eyes, me an' Him won't gee in the hereafter. You know some'n about that boy's start in life, don't you, captain?”
“Not much, I must own,” answered the planter.
“Thar it is,” said Pole, with a condemning sneer; “ef the pore boy had belonged to one o' the big families in yore ring out in Murray—the high an' mighty, that owned niggers, you'd 'a' heard all about him. Captain, nobody on earth knows how that feller has suffered. All his life he's wanted to make some'n of hisse'f, an' has absolutely, to my certain knowledge, had more to contend with than any man alive. He don't even know the exact date of his birth, an' ain't plumb-sure that his name really is Floyd. You see, jest at the close of the war a woman—so sick she could hardly walk—come through the Union lines in East-Tennessee with a baby in her arms. Accordin' to report, she claimed that her name was Floyd, an' called the baby 'Nelson.' She put up at a mountain cabin for the night, a shack whar some pore razor-back whites lived by name o' Perdue. Old man Perdue was a lyin', treacherous scamp, a bushwhacker and a mountain outlaw, an' his wife was a good mate to him. Nelson's mammy, as I say, was tuck in, but thar wasn't no doctor nigh, an' very little to eat, an' the next mornin' she was ravin' out of her head, and late that day she died. I'm tellin' you now all that Nelson Floyd ever was able to find out, as it come down to him from one person's recollection to another's. Well, the woman was buried somers, nobody knows whar, an' old Mrs. Perdue kept the baby more beca'se she was afeard to put it out o' the way than fer any pity fer it. She had a whole litter of brats of her own goin' about winter an' summer in the'r shirt-tails, an' so she left Nelson to scratch fer hisself. Then the authorities made it hot fer Perdue on some charges agin 'im, and he left the child with another mountain family by name o' Scott and moved clean out of the country. The Scotts couldn't remember much more than hearsay about how Nelson got thar, an' they didn't care, though they tried to raise the boy along with three of their own. He had a tough time of it, for he was a plucky little devil, and had a fight with somebody mighty nigh every day. And as he growed up he naturally fell into bad company, or it fell into him like everything else did, an' he tuck to drinkin' an' finally become a regular young outlaw; he was a bloodthirsty rowdy before he was fifteen; shot at one man fer some cause or other an' barely escaped bein' put up fer life—nothin' but bein' so young got 'im off. But one day—now I'm givin' it to you jest as Nelson told me—one day he said he got to thinkin' about the way he was a-goin', and all of his own accord he made up his mind to call a halt. He wanted to cut clean off from his old set, an' so he went to Mayhew, at Springtown, and told him he wanted to git work in the store. Old Mayhew would skin a flea fer its hide an' tallow, an', seein' his money in the boy, he bound 'im to an agreement to work fer his bare board an' clothes fer three years.”
“Low enough wages, certainly!” exclaimed the planter.
“Yes, but Nelson didn't grumble, and Mayhew will tell you hisself that thar never was sech a worker sence the world was made. He was a general hand at ever'thing, and as bright as a new dollar and as quick as a steel-trap. The Lord only knows when or how he did it, fer nobody ever seed a book in his hands in business hours, but he l'arned to read and write and figure. An' that wasn't all. Old Mayhew was sech an old skinflint, and so hard on folks who got in his debt, that nobody traded at his shebang except them that couldn't go anywhars else; but lo and behold! Nelson made so many friends that they begun to flock around 'im from all directions, an' the business of the house was more than doubled. Mayhew knowed the cause of it, fer lots o' customers throwed it up to 'im. The prosperity was almost too much fer the old skunk; in fact, he got mighty nigh scared at it, and actually tried to dam the stream o' profit. To keep up sech a business, big credit had to be extended, and it was a new venture fer the cautious old scamp. But Nelson had perfect faith in all his friends, and thar it stood—a beardless boy holdin' forth that it was the old man's chance of a lifetime to git rich, and Mayhew half believin' it, crazy to act on Nelson's judgment, an' yet afraid it would be ruination. That was at the close of the boy's three-year contract. He was then about twenty year old, and I was in the store 'and heard the talk between 'em. We was all a-settin' at the big wood stove in the back end—me an' the old man, an' Nelson, and Joe Peters, a clerk, who is still there but was then workin' on trial. I shall never forget that night as long as I live. I gloried in Nelson's spunk to sech an extent I could 'a' throwed up my hat an' hollered.
“'I've been waitin' to have a talk with you, Mr. Mayhew,' the boy said. 'Our contract is out today, and you and me disagree so much about runnin' the business that I hardly know what I ought to do an' not stand in my own light. We've got to make a fresh contract, anyway.'
“'I knowed that was comin',' old Mayhew said, with one o' his big, hoggish grunts. 'People for miles around have made it the'r particular business to fill you up with ideas about what you are wuth. I've thought some about lettin' you go an' see ef me an' Joe cayn't keep things a-movin'; but you know the trade round here, an' I want to do the fair thing. What do you think yore time's wuth?” Pole laughed. “The old skunk was usin' exactly the same words he'd 'a' used ef he'd been startin' in to buy a load o' produce an' wanted to kill expectation at the outset.
“'I. want fifty dollars a month, under certain conditions'' the boy said, lookin' the old skinflint straight in the eye.
“'Fifty—huh! yo're crazy—stark, starin' crazy, plumb off yore base!' the old man said, his lip twisted up like it is when he's mad. 'I see myse'f payin' a beardless boy a Broadway salary to work in a shack like this out here in the mountains.'
“'Well, I'll jest be obliged to quit you then,' Nelson said, as steady as a mill-pond on a hot day in August, 'an' I'd sorter hate to do it. Moore & Trotter at Darley offer me that fer the fust six months, with an increase later.'
“'Moore & Trotter!' the old skunk grunted loud enough to be heard clean to the court-house across the street. They was the only firm in this end o' the state that controlled as much custom as Mayhew did, an' it struck the old chump under the ribs. He got up from his chair an' walked clean down to the front-door. It was shet an' locked; but thar was a lamp on the show-case nigh whar he stopped, an' I could see his old face a-workin' under the influence o' good an' evil. Purty soon he grunted, an' come back, thumpin' his old stick agin barrels an' boxes along the way.
“'How am I goin' to know whether Moore & Trotter offered you that much or not?' he axed.
“'Beca'se I said so,' Nelson told 'im, an' his dark eyes was flashin' like lightnin'. He stood up an' faced the old codger. 'I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Mayhew,' he let fly at 'im, 'ef you don't know whether I'm tellin' the truth or not you'd better not keep me, fer a man that will lie will steal. I say they offered me fifty dollars. I've got the'r written proposition in my pocket, but I'll be hanged ef I show it to you!'”
“Good!” exclaimed the planter.
“Well, it knocked the old man clean off his feet,” Pole went on. “He sat down in his chair again, all of a tremble, an' white about the mouth. Stingy folks git scared to death at the very idea o' payin' out money, anyway, an' stingy don't fit that old cuss. Ef Noah Webster had knowed him he'd 'a' made another word fer that meanin'. I don't know but he'd simply 'a' spelled out the old man's name an' 'a' been done with it.”
“What final answer did Mayhew give the young man, Baker?” asked the planter, in a tone which indicated no little interest.
“Why, he jest set still fer a while,” said Pole, “an' me an' Joe Peters was a-wonderin' what he'd say. He never did anything sudden. Ef he ever gits to heaven he'll feel his way through the gate an' want to know ef thar's any other entrance. I seed 'im keep a woman standin' in the store once from breakfast to dinner time while he was lookin' fer a paper o' needles she'd called fer. Every now an' then he'd quit huntin' fer the needles an' go an' wait on some other customer, an' then come back to 'er. She was a timid sort o' thing, an' didn't seem to think she had the right to leave, bein' as she had started the search. Whenever she'd go towards the door to see ef her hoss was standin', he'd call 'er back an' ax 'er about 'er crap an' tell 'er not to be in a hurry, that Rome wasn't built in a day, an' the like. You know the old cuss has some education. Finally he found the needles an' tuck another half an' hour to select a scrap o' paper little enough to wrap 'em up in. But you axed me what Nelson said to 'im. Huh! the boy was too good a trader to push a matter like that to a head. He'd throwed down the bars, an' he jest waited fer the old man to come into the grass of his own accord. Finally Mayhew axed, as indifferent as he could under all his excitement: 'When do you intend to answer the letter you say you got from Moore & Trotter?'
“'I expect to answer it to-night,' Nelson said. 'I shall tell 'em I appreciate the'r offer an' will run over an' see 'em day after to-morrow.'”
“Good! very well said, Baker,” laughed Captain Duncan. “No wonder the young man's got rich. You can't keep talent like that down. But what did old Mayhew say?”
“It was like pullin' eye-teeth,” answered Pole. “But he finally come across. 'Well,' said he, 'I reckon you kin make yorese'f as useful to me as you kin to them, an' ef you are bent on ridin' me to death, after I picked you up, an' give you a start, an' l'arnt you how to do business, I reckon I'll have to put up with it.'
“'I don't feel like I owe you anything,' said Nelson, as plucky as a banker demandin' good security on a loan. 'I've worked for you like a slave for three years for my bare livin' an' my experience, an' from now on I am goin' to work for number one. I said that I'd stay for fifty dollars a month on certain conditions.'
“'Conditions?' the old man growled. 'What conditions do you mean?'
“'Why, it's jest this,' said Nelson. 'I've had my feelin's, an' the feelin's o' my friends, hurt time after time by you turnin' 'em away without credit, when I knowed they would meet the'r obligations. Now, ef I stay with you, it is with the distinct understandin' that I have the authority to give or refuse credit whenever I see fit.'
“That knocked the old man off his perch ag'in. He wilted an' sat thar as limp as a dish-rag. Joe Peters worships the ground Nelson walks on, an', as much as he fears the old man, he busted out in a big chuckle an' rubbed his hands together. Besides, he knowed Nelson was talkin' fer the interest o' the business. He'd seed no end o' good customers sent off fer no reason in the world than that Mayhew was scared o' his shadow.
“'I'll never consent to that, anyway,' Mayhew said, mighty nigh clean whipped out.
“'Well, Moore & Trotter will,' Nelson said. 'That's one o' the things laid down in the'r proposition.' An' the boy went to the desk an' drawed out a sheet o' paper an' dipped his pen in the ink. The old man set quiverin' awhile, an' then got up an' went an' stood behind the boy. 'Put down yore pen,' said he, with a deep sigh from away down inside of 'im. 'It would ruin me fer you to move to Darley—half the trade would follow you. Go ahead, I'll keep you, an' run the risk.'”
The planter had been listening attentively, and he now said, admiringly: “Even at that early age the boy was showing the talent that developed later. It wasn't long after that, I believe, before he became the old man's partner.”
“The next year,” answered Pole. “He saved every dollar of his wages and made some good investments that turned out money. It wasn't a big slice of the business at fust, but he owns a half now, an', countin' his outside interests, he's wuth as much as old Mayhew. He's rich already, captain.”
“So I've heard the women say,” smiled the planter. “Women always keep track of well-to-do unmarried men.”
“It hain't 'spiled Nelson one bit, nuther,” added Baker. “He's the same unselfish friend to me as he ever was, and I hain't hardly got a roof to cover me an' mine. But as solid as he always was, he had a serious back-set about three years ago, and all his well-wishers thought it was goin' to do him up.”
“You mean when he took to drinking,” said Captain Duncan, interrogatively.
“Yes, that's what I mean. He'd formed the habit when he was a boy, and along with his prosperity an' late work-hours it begun to fasten its claws on 'im like it has on some other folks I know, captain. He had a lot o' night work to do, an' Thigpen's bar was right 'j'inin' the store. Nelson used to slide in at the back-door whenever the notion struck 'im; and he made the trail hot, I tell you. Old Mayhew kept a sharp eye on 'im, an' every now an' then he'd git powerful blue over the way things was a-goin'. Finally the old cuss got desperate an' called a halt. He had a straight talk with Nelson, an' told 'im they would have to divide the'r interests, that he wasn't a drinkin' man hisse'f, an' he didn't want to be yoked to a feller that was soaked half the time. It fetched the boy to his senses. He come over to my house that night an' called me out to the fence.
“'I want to make a deal with you, Pole,' said he.
“'With me?' says I. 'What sort of a deal?'
“'Why,' said he, 'I've made up my mind to swear off fer good an' all, an' I want you to jine me.'
“I agreed all right,” Pole laughed. “In fact, I was sorter in that business; I'd promised every preacher an' temperance worker in the county to quit, an' I couldn't refuse a friend what I was dispensin' so freely right an' left. So I said, said I: 'All right, Nelson, I'm with you.'”
“And how did it come out?” questioned the planter, as he bowed to a wagonful of farmers going in an opposite direction.
“His vaccination tuck,” Pole smiled. “He had a mighty sore arm fer a week or so, but he helt out. As fer me, I was so dem glad to see his success in abstainin' that I started in to celebrate. I did try, though. One mornin' I went in the store an' seed Nelson have sech a clean, prosperous look an' so well satisfied with his stand that I went out with fresh resolutions. What did I do? I went to the bar-room an' bought four pint bottles o' red rye an' tuck 'em home with me. I set 'em all in a straight row on the mantel-shelf, nigh the edge, in front o' the clock, an' was standin' lookin' at 'em when Sally, my wife, come in. She seed the display, an' jest set kerflop down in her chair an' begun to whimper.
“'You hold on!' said I; 'don't you cross a foot-log till the tree's down. I'm tryin' a new dicker. I've always heard that “familiarity breeds contempt,” an' I've also heard that “the hair o' the dog is good fer the bite.” Now, I've tried my level best to quit liquor by stayin' away from it, an' I'm a-goin' to see ef I cayn't do it with its eye on me all the time.' Well, sir, the sweet little woman—she's a sweet, dear little creature, Captain Duncan, ef I do say it myse'f.”
“I've always heard so, Baker,” the planter said. “She's very popular with your neighbors.”
“An' I'm jest t'other way,” said Pole. “Well, Sally she got up an' kissed me, an' said that somehow she felt like my plan would work.”
“And did it?—I mean”—the captain recalled Pole's spree of only the night before—“I mean, did it work for any length of time?”
“I was goin' on to tell you,” answered the mountaineer. “That night fer the fust time sence my marriage I woke smack dab in the middle o' the night, an' as I laid thar in the room filled with moonlight I couldn't see a blessed thing but that row o' bottles, an' then my mouth set in to waterin' at sech a rate that I got afeard I'd ketch my death from sleepin' on a wet pillow. It was certainly a struggle with the flesh. I'd put my thirst, captain, when she's good an' dry, ag'in any that ever tickled a human throat. It ud take the blue ribbon at a convention o' drunkards. It's a rale thing; it kin walk, an' talk, an' kick, an' squirm, but it won't be dictated to. Finally Sally woke up an' said:
“'What's the matter, Pole? Hain't you comfortable?'
“'Comfortable the devil!' said I—I'm usually polite to Sally, but I felt like that wasn't no time an' place to talk about little matters. 'Comfortable nothin',' said I. 'Sally, ef you don't take that “doghair” out o' this house an' hide it, I'll be as drunk as a b'iled owl in ten minutes.'
“'Dog-hair?' said she, an' then the little woman remembered, an' she got up. I heard the bottles tinkle like sorrowful good-bye bells callin' wanderin' friends back to the fold as she tuck 'em up an' left. Captain, I felt jest like”—Pole laughed good-naturedly—“I felt like thar was a mean, stinkin' plot agin the best friends I ever had. I actually felt sorry fer them thar bottles, an' I got up an' stood at the window an' watched Sally as she tuck 'em away out in the lonely moonlight to the barn. I seed 'er climb over the fence o' the cow-lot an' go in at the side whar I kept my hay an' fodder an' roughness fer my cattle. Then I laid down in bed ag'in.”
“You acted right,” said the planter; “and you deserve credit for putting your foot down so firmly on what you felt was so injurious, even, even”—the captain came back again to reality—“even if you didn't remain firm very long afterwards.”
“Well, I'll tell you one thing—” The ex-moonshiner laughed again, and his eyes twinkled. “It tuck Sally longer, it seemed to me, to git to sleep after she got back than it ever had in all her life. Of all times on earth, she wanted to talk. But I shet her off. I made like I was breathin' good an' deep, an' then she set in, too. What did I do? Captain Duncan, I spent the best half o' that night out in the barn lookin' fer hens' nests. I found two, an' had to be put to bed at sun-up.”
The planter laughed. “There is one good thing about the situation, Baker,” he said, “and that is your making a joke of it. I believe you will get the under-hold of the thing some day and throw it over. Coming back to your friend Floyd, it's true he gave up whiskey, but if reports are reliable he has another fault that is quite as bad.”
“Oh, you mean all that talk about that girl,” answered the mountaineer.
“Yes, Baker, a reputation of that sort is not a desirable thing in any community. I know that many brainy and successful men hold that kind of thing lightly, but it will down anybody who tampers with it.”
“Now, look here, captain,” Pole said, sharply; “don't you be an old woman! 'Ain't you got more sense 'an to swallow everything that passes among idle gossips in these mountains? Nelson Floyd has got a backbone full o' the fire o' youth an' is a hot-blooded young chap, but he's, to my positive knowledge, one o' the cleanest boys I ever come across. To tell you the truth, I don't believe he ever made but that one slip. It got out, unfortunately, an' beca'se he was rich an' prominent it raised a regular whirlwind o' talk an' exaggeration. If it had happened to half a dozen other young men round about here, not a word would 'a' been said.”
'“Oh, I see,” smiled the planter, “he's not as black as he's painted, then.”
“Not by a jugful,” said the farmer. “I tell you he's all right, an' folks will know it 'fore long.”
SPRINGTOWN was about twelve miles west of Darley, only a mile from Captain Duncan's house, and half a mile from Pole Baker's humble cottage and small farm. The village had a population of about two hundred souls. It was the county-seat, and the court-house, a simple, ante-bellum brick structure, stood in the centre of the public square, around which were clustered the one-storied shops, lawyer's offices, cotton warehouses, hotel, and general stores.
Chief among the last mentioned was the well-known establishment of Mayhew & Floyd. It was a long, frame building, once white but now a murky gray, a tone which nothing but the brush of time and weather could have given it.
It was only a week since Captain Duncan's talk with Pole Baker, and a bright, inspiring morning, well suited to the breaking of the soil and the planting of seed. The village was agog with the spirit of hope. The post-office was filled with men who had come for their mail, and they stood and chatted about the crops on the long veranda of the hotel and in the front part of Mayhew & Floyd's store. Pole Baker was in the store talking with Joe Peters, the clerk, about seed potatoes, when a tall countryman, in the neighborhood of forty-five years of age, slouched in and leaned heavily against the counter.
“I want a box o' forty-four cartridges,” he said, drawing out a long revolver and rapping on the counter with the butt of it.
“What! you goin' squirrel huntin'?” Peters laughed and winked at Pole. “That gun's got a long enough barrel to send a ball to the top o' the highest tree in these mountains.”
“You slide around behind thar an' git me them cartridges!” retorted the customer. “Do yore talkin' to somebody else. I'll hunt what an' whar I want to, I reckon.”
“Oh, come off yore perch, Jeff Wade!” the clerk said, with another easy laugh. “You hain't nobody's daddy! But here you are. Forty cents a box, full count, every one warranted to make a hole an' a noise. Want me to charge 'em?”
“No, I don't; do you hear me?—I don't! An', what's more, I want to know exactly how much I owe this dern house. I've been to a dozen moneylenders 'fore I found what I wanted, but I got it, an' I want to pay what I owe Mayhew & Floyd.” Just then Pole Baker stepped up to the man's side, and, looking under the broad brim of his hat, he said:
“Looky' here, Jeff Wade, what you shootin' off yore mouth fer? I 'lowed at fust that you was full, but you hain't drinkin', at least you don't seem to have no bottle on yore person.”
“Drinkin' hell! No, I'm not drinkin', an', what's more, I don't intend to let a drap pass down my throat till I've done my duty to me an' mine. Say, you look good an' see ef I'm drinkin'! See ef you think a man that's in liquor would have as steady a nerve as I've got. You watch me! Maybe it'll show you what I'm able to do.”
Turning, he stalked out of the store, and Peters and Pole followed, watching him in wonder. He strode across the street to the court-house, loading his revolver as he went. Reaching the closed door of the building, he took an envelope from his pocket and fastened it to the panel by thrusting the blade of his big pocket-knife into it several times. The spectators heard the hollow, resounding blows like the strokes of a carpenter's hammer, and then Wade turned and came back towards them.
“By gum, he's off his nut!” said Peters, seriously. “He's as crazy as a bed-bug.”
“It's my opinion he's jest comin' to his senses,” Pole mused, a troubled look in his eyes. “Yes, that's about it; he's jest wakin' up, an' the whole county will know it, too. By gum, I hate this—I hate it!”
“You hate what?” asked Peters, his eyes on the farmer, who was now quite near them. Pole made no reply, for Wade was by his side on the brick walk beneath the wooden shed in front of the store, his revolver swinging at his side.
“You fellows keep yore eye on that envelope,” said Wade, and he cocked his revolver.
“Look here, don't make a damn fool o' yorese'f,” said Pole Baker, and he laid a remonstrating hand on the iron arm of the gaunt mountaineer. “You know it's agin the ordinance. You know you'll git into trouble; you listen to the advice of a friend. Put up that gun an' go home!”
“I'm my own boss, damn it!” snarled the man with the weapon.
“Yes, an' a dern fool, too,” answered Baker.
“Well, that's my lookout.” Wade glared over his shoulder into the store and raised his voice significantly. “I want to show this damn town how easy it will be fer me to put three shots into the blackest heart that ever pumped human blood.”
“You'd better mind what yo're about, Jeff Wade.” Pole Baker was pale, his lips were tight, his eyes flashing.
“I know what I'm about. I'm tryin' to draw a coward from his den. I'm not shore—I'm not dead shore, mind you—but I'm mighty nigh it. Ef the guilty stand an' hear what I'm a-sayin' an' don't take it up, they are wuss than hell-tainted. You watch that white mark.”
The bystanders, several comprehending, stood rigid. Pole Baker stared. Wade raised his Revolver, aimed steadily at the mark, and fired three shots in quick succession.
“Thar!” said the marksman, with grim triumph; “as bad as my sight is, I kin see 'em from here.”
“By gum, they are thar!” exclaimed Peters, with a strange, inquiring look into Pole Baker's set face. “They are thar, Pole.”
“You bet they are thar, an' some'll be in another spot 'fore long,” said Wade. “Now, Peters, you go in the house an' bring me my account. I've got the money.”
Wonderingly, the clerk obeyed. Pole went into the store behind him, and, as Peters stood at the big ledger writing, Pole stepped up to Nelson Floyd, who sat near a window in the rear with a newspaper in front of him.
“Did you hear all that, Nelson?” the farmer asked.
“Did I? Of course I did. Wasn't it intended for—” The young merchant glanced furtively at Peters and paused. His handsome, dark face was set as from tense, inward struggle.
There was a pause. Peters went towards the front, a written account drying in the air as he waved it to and fro.
“I was about to ask you if—” the young merchant began, but Pole interrupted him.
“Hush, listen!”
There was the sound of clinking coin on the counter below. The cast-iron bell on the cash-drawer rang harshly as the clerk put the money away.
“Thar, I'm even with this dirty shebang!” It was Jeff Wade's raised voice. “An' I kin act when the proper time comes. Oh, you all know what I'm talkin' about! Nobody kin hide a thing in these mountains. But you'll understand it better, ef it ever comes into yore own families. I never had but one little sister—she was all the Lord ever allowed me to have. She was married not more'n a month ago an' went off to Texas with a man who believes in 'er an' swears he will make her a good husband an' protector. But no sooner was the pore little thing gone than all this talk set in. It was writ out to her, an' she writ back to me to stop it. She admitted it was true, but wouldn't lay the blame. Folks say they know, but they won't talk. They are afeard o' the influence o' money an' power, I reckon, but it will git out. I have my suspicions, but I'm not yet dead shore; but I will be, an' what I done fer that scrap o' paper I will do fer that man, ef God don't paralyze this right arm. Ef the black-hearted devil is within the sound o' my voice at this minute, an' stays still, he's not only the thief of woman's happiness, but he's wuss than a coward. He's a sneakin' son of—”
Nelson Floyd, his face rigid, sprang up and went into Joe Peters's little bedroom, which was cut off in one corner of the store, and, opening the top drawer of an old bureau, he took out a revolver. Turning, he met in the door-way the stalwart form of Pole Baker.
“Put down that gun, Nelson! put it down!” Pole commanded. “Jeff Wade's deliberately set this trap to draw you into it, an' the minute you walk down thar it will be a public acknowledgment, an' he'll kill you 'fore you kin bat an eye.”
“No doubt,” said Nelson Floyd, “but the fellow has his rights. I could never draw a free breath if I let this pass. I owe it to the poor devil, Pole, and I'll pay. That has always been my rule. I'll pay. Stand aside!”
“I'll be damned ef I do.” Pole stood his ground firmly. “You must listen to reason. It's deliberate death.”
“Get out of the way, Pole; don't make me mad,” said Floyd. “I'm going down. I'd expect him to pay me, and I shall him.”
“Stop! You are a fool—you are a damned hotheaded simpleton, Nelson Floyd. Listen to me.” Pole caught the revolver and held on to the barrel of it while the young merchant clutched the butt. “Listen to me, I say. Are you goin' back on a helpless little woman? After you have had yore fun, an' the pore little trick gets married to a man who believes in her, an' goes away off an' is on a fair road to happiness, are you, I say, a-goin' to publicly advertise her shame, an', no doubt, bust up a contented home?”
“Great God, Pole!” exclaimed Floyd, as he sank onto the edge of Peters's bed, “do you think, if I give Wade satisfaction it will—”
“Will it? It will be in every paper from Maine to Californy. Meddlesome devils will mark the articles an' mail 'em to the gal's husband. A lot o' folks did the'r level best to bust up the match, anyway, by talkin' to him about you an' others.”
Nelson Floyd stared at the floor and slowly nodded his head.
“I'm caught in a more degrading trap than the one Wade set for me,” he declared, bitterly. “My acts have branded me as a coward and left me without power to vindicate myself. That's one of the ways Providence has of punishing a poor devil. A man may have a good impulse, but can't act upon it owing to the restrictions laid on him by his very sins.”
Pole looked down into the store.
“Nevermind,” he said, gloomily. “Wade's gone.”
Floyd dropped the revolver into the drawer of the bureau, and went back to his desk.
“It's only a question of time, Pole,” he said. “He suspects me now, but is not sure. It won't be long before the full story will reach him, and then we'll have to meet. As far as I am concerned, I'd rather have had it over with. I've swallowed a bitter pill this mornin', Pole.”
“Well, it wasn't a lead one.” Baker's habitual sense of humor was rising to the surface. “Most any sort o' physic's better'n cold metal shoved into the system through its own hole.”
There was a step in the store. Pole looked down again.
“It's old Mayhew,” he said. “I'm powerful glad he was late this mornin', Nelson. The old codger would have seed through that talk.”
“Yes, he would have seen through it,” answered Floyd, despondently, as he opened a big ledger and bent over it. Mayhew trudged towards them, his heavy cane knocking against the long dry-goods counter.
“I'll have the law on that fellow,” he growled, as he hung his stick on its accustomed nail behind the stove. “No rampageous dare-devil like that can stand right in my front-door and shoot for mere amusement at the county court-house. This isn't a fort yet, and the war is over, thank the Lord.”
Pole glanced at Floyd.