One day in spring, in the lazy, odorous hush of the afternoon, the usual
number of loafers were standing on the platform, waiting for the train.
The sun was going down the slope toward the hills, through a warm April
haze.
"Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. "Here comes Mrs.
Sanford and the ducklings."
Everybody looked.
"Ain't goin' off, is she?"
"Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford."
"Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store."
"Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?"
"Yes; went away about New-Year's."
Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each hand, nodding and smiling
to friends--for all seemed friends. She looked very resolute and
business-like in her plain, dark dress, with a dull flame of color at the
throat, while the broad hat she wore gave her face a touch of piquancy
very charming. Evidently she was in excellent spirits, and laughed and
chatted in quite a care-free way.
She was now an institution at the Siding. Her store had grown in
proportions yearly, until it was as large and commodious as any in the
town. The drummers for dry-goods all called there, and the fact that she
did not sell any groceries at all did not deter the drummers for grocery
houses from calling to see each time if she hadn't decided to put in a
stock of groceries.
These keen-eyed young fellows had spread her fame all up and down the
road. She had captured them, not by beauty, but by her pluck, candor,
honesty, and by a certain fearless but reserved camaraderie. She was not
afraid of them, or of anybody else, now.
The train whistled, and everybody turned to watch it as it came pushing
around the bluff like a huge hound on a trail, its nose close to the
ground. Among the first to alight was Sanford, in a shining new silk hat
and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling gaily as he fought his way
through the crowd to his wife's side. "Hello!" he shouted. "I thought I'd
see you all here."
"W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?"
"A swell! Well, who's got a better right? A man wants to look as well as
he can when he comes home to such a family."
"Hello, Jim! That plug 'll never do."
"Hello, Vance! Yes; but it's got to do. Say, you tell all the fellers
that's got anything ag'inst me to come around to-morrow night to the
store. I want to make some kind of a settlement."
"All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend?"
"That's what I am," he beamed, as he walked off with his wife, who was
studying him sharply.
"Jim, what ails you?"
"Nothin'; I'm all right."
"But this new suit? And the hat? And the necktie?"
He laughed merrily--so merrily, in fact, that his wife looked at him the
more anxiously. He appeared to be in a queer state of intoxication--a
state that made him happy without impairing his faculties, however. He
turned suddenly and put his lips down toward her ear. "Well, Nell, I
can't hold in any longer. We've struck it!"
"Struck what?"
"Well, you see that derned fool partner o' mine got me to go into a lot
o' land in the copper country. That's where all the trouble came. He got
awfully let down. Well, he's had some surveyors to go up there lately and
look it over, and the next thing we knew the Superior Mining Company came
along an' wanted to buy it. Of course we didn't want to sell just then."
They had reached the store door, and he paused.
"We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The girls will look out for
things till I get back."
They walked on together, the children laughing and playing ahead.
"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for twenty thousand
dollars."