John walked to the front door with Mrs. Cullom, but she declined with
such evident sincerity his offer to carry her bundle to the house that
he let her out of the office and returned to the back room. David was
sitting before the fire, leaning back in his chair with his hands thrust
deep in his trousers pockets. He looked up as John entered and said,
"Draw up a chair."
John brought a chair and stood by the side of it while he said, "I want
to thank you for the Christmas remembrance, which pleased and touched me
very deeply; and," he added diffidently, "I want to say how mortified I
am--in fact, I want to apologize for--"
"Regrettin'?" interrupted David with a motion of his hand toward the
chair and a smile of great amusement. "Sho, sho! Se' down, se' down.
I'm glad you found somethin' in your stockin' if it pleased ye, an' as
fur's that regret o' your'n was concerned--wa'al--wa'al, I liked ye all
the better for't, I did fer a fact. He, he, he! Appearances was ruther
agin me, wasn't they, the way I told it."
"Nevertheless," said John, seating himself, "I ought not to have--that
is to say, I ought to have known--"
"How could ye," David broke in, "When I as good as told ye I was
cal'latin' to rob the old lady? He, he, he, he! Scat my ----! Your face
was a picture when I told ye to write that note, though I reckon you
didn't know I noticed it."
John laughed and said, "You have been very generous all through, Mr.
Harum."
"Nothin' to brag on," he replied, "nothin' to brag on. Fur 's Mis'
Cullom's matter was concerned, 't was as I said, jest payin' off an old
score; an' as fur 's your stockin', it's really putty much the same.
I'll allow you've earned it, if it'll set any easier on your stomach."
"I can't say that I have been overworked," said John with a slight
laugh.
"Mebbe not," rejoined David, "but you hain't ben overpaid neither, an' I
want ye to be satisfied. Fact is," he continued, "my gettin' you up here
was putty consid'able of an experiment, but I ben watchin' ye putty
close, an' I'm more'n satisfied. Mebbe Timson c'd beat ye at figurin'
an' countin' money when you fust come, an' knowed more about the
pertic'ler points of the office, but outside of that he was the biggist
dumb-head I ever see, an' you know how he left things. He hadn't no
tack, fer one thing. Outside of summin' up figures an' countin' money he
had a faculty fer gettin' things t'other-end to that beat all. I'd tell
him a thing, an' explain it to him two three times over, an' he'd say
'Yes, yes,' an', scat my ----! when it came to carryin' on't out, he
hadn't sensed it a mite--jest got it which-end-t'other. An talk! Wa'al,
I think it must 'a' ben a kind of disease with him. He really didn't
mean no harm, mebbe, but he couldn't no more help lettin' out anythin'
he knowed, or thought he knowed, than a settin' hen c'n help settin'.
He kep' me on tenter-hooks the hull endurin' time."
"I should say he was honest enough, was he not?" said John.
"Oh, yes," replied David with a touch of scorn, "he was honest enough
fur 's money matters was concerned; but he hadn't no tack, nor no sense,
an' many a time he done more mischief with his gibble-gabble than if
he'd took fifty dollars out an' out. Fact is," said David, "the kind of
honesty that won't actually steal 's a kind of fool honesty that's
common enough; but the kind that keeps a feller's mouth shut when he
hadn't ought to talk 's about the scurcest thing goin'. I'll jest tell
ye, fer example, the last mess he made. You know Purse, that keeps the
gen'ral store? Wa'al, he come to me some months ago, on the quiet, an'
said that he wanted to borro' five hunderd. He didn't want to git no
indorser, but he'd show me his books an' give me a statement an' a
chattel morgidge fer six months. He didn't want nobody to know 't he was
anyway pushed fer money because he wanted to git some extensions, an' so
on. I made up my mind it was all right, an' I done it. Wa'al, about a
month or so after he come to me with tears in his eyes, as ye might say,
an' says, 'I got somethin' I want to show ye,' an' handed out a letter
from the house in New York he had some of his biggist dealin's with,
tellin' him that they regretted"--here David gave John a nudge--"that
they couldn't give him the extensions he ast for, an' that his paper
must be paid as it fell due--some twelve hunderd dollars. 'Somebody 's
leaked,' he says, 'an' they've heard of that morgidge, an' I'm in a
putty scrape,' he says.
"'H'm'm,' I says, 'what makes ye think so?'
"'Can't be nothin' else,' he says; 'I've dealt with them people fer
years an' never ast fer nothin' but what I got it, an' now to have 'em
round up on me like this, it can't be nothin' but what they've got wind
o' that chattel morgidge,' he says.
"'H'm'm,' I says. 'Any o' their people ben up here lately?' I says.
"'That's jest it,' he says. 'One o' their travellin' men was up here
last week, an' he come in in the afternoon as chipper as you please,
wantin' to sell me a bill o' goods, an' I put him off, sayin' that I had
a putty big stock, an' so on, an' he said he'd see me agin in the
mornin'--you know that sort of talk,' he says.
"'Wa'al,' I says, 'did he come in?'
"'No,' says Purse, 'he didn't. I never set eyes on him agin, an' more'n
that,' he says, 'he took the first train in the mornin', an' now,' he
says, 'I expect I'll have ev'ry last man I owe anythin' to buzzin'
'round my ears.'
"'Wa'al,' I says, 'I guess I see about how the land lays, an' I reckon
you ain't fur out about the morgidge bein' at the bottom on't, an' the'
ain't no way it c'd 'a' leaked out 'ceptin' through that dum'd
chuckle-head of a Timson. But this is the way it looks to me--you hain't
heard nothin' in the village, have ye?' I says.
"'No,' he says. 'Not _yit_,' he says.
"'Wa'al, ye won't, I don't believe,' I says, 'an' as fur as that drummer
is concerned, you c'n bet,' I says, 'that he didn't nor won't let on to
nobody but his own folks--not till _his_ bus'nis is squared up, an'
more 'n that,' I says, 'seein' that your trouble 's ben made ye by one
o' my help, I don't see but what I'll have to see ye through,' I says.
'You jest give me the address of the New York parties, an' tell me what
you want done, an' I reckon I c'n fix the thing so 't they won't bother
ye. I don't believe,' I says, 'that anybody else knows anythin' yet, an'
I'll shut up Timson's yawp so 's it'll stay shut.'"
"How did the matter come out?" asked John, "and what did Purse say?"
"Oh," replied David, "Purse went off head up an' tail up. He said he was
everlastin'ly obliged to me, an'--he, he, he!--he said 't was more 'n he
expected. You see I charged him what I thought was right on the 'rig'nal
deal, an' he squimmidged some, an' I reckon he allowed to be putty well
bled if I took holt agin; but I done as I agreed on the extension
bus'nis, an' I'm on his paper for twelve hunderd fer nothin', jest
because that nikum-noddy of a Timson let that drummer bamboozle him into
talkin'. I found out the hull thing, an' the very day I wrote to the New
York fellers fer Purse, I wrote to Gen'ral Wolsey to find me somebody to
take Timson's place. I allowed I'd ruther have somebody that didn't know
nobody, than such a clackin' ole he-hen as Chet."
"I should have said that it was rather a hazardous thing to do," said
John, "to put a total stranger like me into what is rather a
confidential position, as well as a responsible one."
"Wa'al," said David, "in the fust place I knew that the Gen'ral wouldn't
recommend no dead-beat nor no skin, an' I allowed that if the raw
material was O.K., I could break it in; an' if it wa'n't I should find
it out putty quick. Like a young hoss," he remarked, "if he's sound an'
kind, an' got gumption, I'd sooner break him in myself 'n not--fur's my
use goes--an' if I can't, nobody can, an' I get rid on him. You
understand?"
"Yes," said John with a smile.
"Wa'al," continued David, "I liked your letter, an' when you come I
liked your looks. Of course I couldn't tell jest how you'd take holt,
nor if you an' me 'd hitch. An' then agin, I didn't know whether you
could stan' it here after livin' in a city all your life. I watched ye
putty close--closter 'n you knowed of, I guess. I seen right off that
you was goin' to fill your collar, fur's the work was concerned, an'
though you didn't know nobody much, an' couldn't have no amusement to
speak on, you didn't mope nor sulk, an' what's more--though I know I
advised ye to stay there fer a spell longer when you spoke about
boardin' somewhere else--I know what the Eagle tavern is in winter;
summer, too, fer that matter, though it's a little better then, an' I
allowed that air test 'd be final. He, he, he! Putty rough, ain't it?"
"It is, rather," said John, laughing. "I'm afraid my endurance is pretty
well at an end. Elright's wife is ill, and the fact is, that since day
before yesterday I have been living on what I could buy at the
grocery--crackers, cheese, salt fish, canned goods, _et cetera_."
"Scat my ----!" cried David. "Wa'al! Wa'al! That's too dum'd bad! Why on
earth--why, you must be _hungry_! Wa'al, you won't have to eat no salt
herrin' to-day, because Polly 'n I are expectin' ye to dinner."
Two or three times during the conversation David had gone to the window
overlooking his lawn and looked out with a general air of observing the
weather, and at this point he did so again, coming back to his seat with
a look of satisfaction, for which there was, to John, no obvious reason.
He sat for a moment without speaking, and then, looking at his watch,
said: "Wa'al, dinner 's at one o'clock, an' Polly's a great one fer
bein' on time. Guess I'll go out an' have another look at that pesky
colt. You better go over to the house 'bout quarter to one, an' you c'n
make your t'ilet over there. I'm 'fraid if you go over to the Eagle
it'll spoil your appetite. She'd think it might, anyway."
So David departed to see the colt, and John got out some of the books
and busied himself with them until the time to present himself at
David's house.