FOR GOOD AND SUFFICIENT REASONS
Foster the tinker traversed Maine
From Elkinstown to Kittery Point,
With a rattling pack and a rattling brain,
And a general air of “out of joint.”
A gaunt, old chap with a shambling gait,
A battered hat and rusty clothes,
With grimy digits in sorry state,
And a smooch on the end of his big red nose.
That was the way that Foster went--
Mixture of shrewdness and folly blent,
Mending the pots and pans as ordered,
But leaving the leak in his nob unsoldered.
--From “Ballads of the Wayfarers.”
Hiram was on the porch in his favourite attitude, his chair tipped
against the wall, his tall hat on the back of his head, his thumb hooked
into the armhole of his vest. He rolled his cigar across his tongue and
looked at his brother with a sidewise, suspicious glance as the Squire
sat down on the edge of the platform. The lawyer remembered suddenly
that he had seen that look on Hiram’s face frequently of late. It was
the wary expression of a man who feared that he might be called on to
defend himself.
“I thought I’d run up to the house and sit down for a spell, Hime. The
loafers down there get on my nerves once in a while.”
The Squire noted the instant relief on Hiram’s face. The cigar rolled
back to the other corner of his mouth and perked itself with new
assurance.
“I don’t blame you, Phin. That’s why I keep away from Brickett’s. I can
jaw ’em off the premises, here, when they get to bothering me.”
The old woman whom Hiram had insisted on adding to the household as maid
of all work snapped her dishcloth at the ell window and began chatting
with “Figger-Four” Avery, who was varnishing one of the vans. Avery sat
down on the cart tongue and gave her his full attention.
“Avery is a fair sample of ’em,” continued Hiram, jerking his head to
indicate his servitor. “There ought to be only three days in the week
for fellers like him and the rest round here--a rainy day, Sunday and
pay-day.”
“It wears on a man like Avery to get up before breakfast and work
between meals,” observed the Squire, drily.
At this little jest of his brother’s, Hiram recovered all his composure.
It was evident that the Squire wasn’t bringing that dreaded “bone to
pick,” he reflected.
“I’m goin’ to have old Skip-bug, there, give the whole outfit a
goin’-over, new gilding, new paint, varnish, and a clean scour. Prob’ly
I’ll be takin’ to the road again next season, Phin,” he said, with a
sigh. “I’ve been studyin’ it over for quite a spell. I’m get-tin’ to
realise every day that you’ve drifted your way and I’ve drifted mine,
and the things I talk about don’t hit you and the things you talk
about----”
“I’m a pretty dry, prosy chap to be a companion to one who has seen the
world as you’ve seen it,” the Squire finished the sentence.
“No, it ain’t that, Phin,” blustered Hiram. “The idea is you’ve got
education and I ain’t, and I never shall have. There’s only brass
and bellow to me, slam-bang like a circus band. So I guess I’ll have
Hop-and-fetch-it give the gear a slickin’ and I’ll be movin’ on.” He set
his hat down over his eyes and smoked hard.
The Squire did not reply for a time. He had unclasped his jack-knife and
was meditatively jabbing it into the decayed wood of the porch platform.
“The Looks are no great hands to make a lot of soft talk to each other
or anybody else, Hime,” he said at last. “But I want to say to you that
I really hoped you were home to settle here. Half of the house is yours
to do with as you like. Neither of us will bother the other one--I
hope!”
Hiram gave him another of his suspicious side-glances.
“I’ve heard that you have been making quite a number of investments in
town and were looking for more, and so I supposed you had decided to
camp here. I wish you would, Hime.”
“Well, I don’t like to have money ’round idle, that’s all,” growled
his brother. He waited a moment and then, studying the Squire from the
corner of his eye, he said:
“I suppose the old fools ’round here are makin’ all kinds of talk
about my lettin’ out a little money. I ain’t said anything to you about
it ’cause I reckoned you had business enough of your own to think
about.”
“And I find enough in my own affairs to keep me busy, Hime. But”--he
turned his gaze full upon his brother--“I’ve found time to wonder why
you’ve been trying to _borrow_ money from old Sum Badger.” Hiram growled
an oath, brought his chair down on its four legs with a clatter, and
half rose, with a malignant eye boring the back of Avery, who was
unsuspiciously swabbing his brush on the side of the van.
“Oh, it isn’t Figger-Four’s mouth this time, Hime. I’ve been drawing up
Sum’s will and he told me about it and left his notes with me.”
Now that the Squire’s gaze showed that he understood the situation,
Hiram’s apprehensiveness gave place to bravado.
“And what do you think of that town note that shows that your high
and mighty treasurer is a--is--well, whatever the law name is, I say
‘thief’?”
“I am perfectly well able to attend to the business of my clients, and I
am not prepared to discuss their private affairs just yet,” returned the
Squire, tartly. “It comes pretty near bein’ a town affair, and as I’ve
never gained residence anywhere else and am a voter here and have got
investments here, it comes pretty near bein’ my affair, too.”
“There are good and sufficient reasons why I don’t want this old family
feud carried on any longer, Hiram.” The lawyer stood up, clacked his
knife’s blade shut and shoved it into his pocket.
“And I know what the reasons are and I say you’re a devilish fool to
have ’em,” cried his brother.
“I have lived in this town all my life, Hiram”--the Squire preserved his
temper, though the other was already bristling with wrath. “I intend to
live here much longer. I am ready to resent injury just as quickly
as you are. But this keeping alive an old fight, when there have been
provocations on both sides, is folly and will lower us both in the
estimation of the public. I say, you are not going to tramp over
innocent persons to get at the object of your grudge.”
Hiram stood up and kicked his chair off the porch.
“Allow me to remind you--not to twit, but to speak the plain truth--that
you seem to have waked up pretty late to the fact that you had any
vengeance to attend to in this town.”
“And that’s just it,” shouted Hiram. “I stayed away and let the
wickin’ be put to you and father. You’ve been ground into the dirt and
mallywhacked and spit on, just on account of me. The Look fam’ly has
been muck under foot for some folks. And even now, after all that’s past
and gone, that old wolf would have my ha’slet out of me if he could get
it. There’s a debt due to the Looks, compound int’rest piled on compound
int’rest, and by the jumped-up Judas Is-carrot, I’m goin’ to collect it,
Phin. You may as well stand out of the way.”
He strode about the little yard before the porch.
“And besides all that, he’s stealin’ from this town, and you know it,”
cried Hiram, stopping in his march for a moment.
“There’s other redress for that besides persecution,” replied the
Squire. “It isn’t our business as Seth Look’s boys.”
“It _is_ our bus’ness. And it’s more yours than it is mine. You’re the
agent of this town. You’re the man the people trust to see that Palermo
gets what’s her just dues. You know she is bein’ robbed. Now, Phin, you
either go to work and find out why old Coll Willard is borrowin’ money
secretly on town’s notes, and you put it before the people in the right
and proper way as you know how to do, or, by mighty, I’ll do it my way
and then you’ll see how you stand before the people--you that’s hidin’ a
note that you know is crooked.”
Hiram stopped before his brother and breathed hard in his passion. And
now the Squire’s repression began to give way. The obstinacy of this
stormy petrel of the Look family was maddening.
But, fortunately for both, the unhappy quarrel was interrupted. For some
moments there had been approaching behind the alders at the turn of the
highway a queer medley of sound--squeaking of whiffle-tree, yawling of
dry axle and over all a peculiar moaning. Now a vehicle like a van came
in sight. The brothers stood and watched it as it approached them. Avery
came hobbling with brush in hand and gaped his surprise.
“Well, P’lermo’s took this time, sartin sure,” he gasped.
’Twas almost a little house on wheels. An elbow of stove funnel stuck
out of one side. An old chaise-top was fastened by strings and wire over
a seat in front. Dust and mud covered everything with striated coatings,
a mask eloquent of wanderings over many soils.
A bony horse, knee-sprung and wheezy, dragged the van at the gait of a
caterpillar.
Under the chaise-top was a hunched-up elderly man, gaunt but huge of
frame, his knees almost at his chin. Long, grizzled hair fluffed over
his shoulders, and little puffs of white whiskers stood out from his
tanned cheeks. A fuzzy beaver hat barely covered the bald spot on his
head. The reins were looped around his neck. Between his hands, huge
as hams, moaned and sucked and snuffled and droned a much-patched
accordion. To its accompaniment the man sang words that he fitted to the
tune of “Old Dog Tray,” trolling lustily at the end of each verse, “An
honest friend is old hoss Joe.”
“Whoa, there! Whup!” screamed Hiram’s parrot, swinging by one foot.
“Ain’t you kind of workin’ a friend to the limit, and a little plus?”
inquired Hiram, sarcastically. The old horse, at the parrot’s command,
had stopped before the gate, legs straddled, head down, the dust rising
in little puffs as he breathed.
“Joachim loves music,” said the stranger, with a mild smile. “He’ll
travel all day if I’ll only play and sing to him.”
“Love of music will be the death of Joachim, then,” commented Hiram,
briefly.
“Is there a hostelry near by?” asked the other, lifting his tall beaver
hat politely. In the atmosphere of rough-and-ready Palermo the little
action seemed an exaggeration. With satirical courtesy Hiram lifted his
hat--and at the psychological moment the only “plug” hats in the whole
town of Palermo saluted each other.
“There’s a hossery down the road, and a mannery, too, all run by old
Fyles.”
“Crack ’em down, gents,” rasped the parrot. “Twenty can play as well
as one.”
The man under the chaise-top pricked up his ears and cast a rather
startled look at the plug hat in the yard. Plug hat in the yard seemed
suddenly to recognise some affinity or comradeship in plug hat under the
chaise-top. The Squire saw only another of those fantastic wanderers who
occasionally went dragging through the village, peddling their wares.
He backed slowly to the porch and sat down. His brother trudged out
into the road and walked around the outfit, his nose elevated with a
curiosity that was almost canine.
At last he planted himself in the highway before the man of the
chaise-top, his knuckles on his hips, his eye flashing under brows
wrinkled with thought, and stared long and silently.
“Who be I?” he demanded at last.
The stranger surveyed him for a long time, his head drooping lower and
lower, until it was hugged between his shoulders.
“You,” he huskily ventured, “so I should jedge, though I ain’t seen you
for a good many years, you--I should say--you----”
“Well, up and out with it!”
“You are Look’s Leviathan Circus and Menagerie, H. Look, Proprietor.”
“You win a cigar,” assented Hiram, with a snap of his head. “And as for
you, you’re Sime Peak, billed as Mounseer Hercules, and I’m glad you
called when you came along.”
There was a grim significance under his words that made the stranger
flinch.
“Let’s see!” pursued Hiram, his eyes narrowing, “it’s quite a while to
remember back, but didn’t you throw up your job with me kind o’ sudden?”
The man on the van scratched a trembling forefinger through a cheek
tuft.
“I don’t exactly recollect how the--how the change came about,” he
faltered.
“Well, I do!” Hiram came close and wagged a forefinger up at the man.
“You ducked out across country the night of that punkin freshet, when I
was mud-bound in that pennyr’yal settlement and the elephant was afraid
of the bridges. And you took my dancin’, turkey outfit and a cage of
monkeys and a few other things that didn’t belong to you, and--_her!_”
He almost shouted the last word, and then looked around with sudden
apprehension that he was overheard by his brother. But the Squire sat
on the porch without apparent interest. “What became of her, Sime Peak?”
demanded Hiram, hissing the words at him. He seized a spoke of the old,
dished wheel and shook the vehicle impatiently. The spoke came away in
his hand.
“Never mind it,” quavered the man. “It ain’t nothin’. We’re all comin’
to pieces, me and the whole caboodle. But don’t hit me with it.”
He was eyeing the spoke in Hiram’s clutch.
“What did you steal her for, Sime Peak?”
“There isn’t anything sure about her goin’ away with me,” the other
protested weakly.
Hiram yanked away another spoke in the vehemence of his emotions.
“Don’t you lie to me!” he snarled. “The both of you done me when I was
tied up with my circus clear’n to the hubs in mud. Mounseer Hercules of
the curly hair!” he snorted, and ran a sneering gaze over the outfit.
“She wouldn’t chase you very fur now. You took her, I say, a girl I’d
lifted off the streets and made the champion lady rider of--and was
goin’ to marry and thought more of”--another cautious look at the
Squire, “yess’r, thought more of than I did of anyone else in the world.
What did you do with her?”
“Well, I was startin’ and she wanted to go along and so I took her
aboard. She seemed to want to get away from your show, as near as
I could find out.” The giant hugged his knees together and blinked
appealingly.
“It must be a bang-up livin’ you’re givin’ her.” Again Hiram
disdainfully surveyed the equipage.
“Seems as if you hadn’t heard the latest news,” broke in Peak, his face
suddenly clearing of the puckers of apprehension. “She never stuck to
me no time--honest to Gawd, Look. She only made believe she was goin’ to
marry me. It was so I’d take her along. She ducked out with ev’ry
cent of the sixteen hundred I’d saved up and run away with Signor
Dellybunko--or whatever his name was--who was waiting for her along the
road. Honest, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of her since, nor I don’t ever
want to,” he rattled on eagerly, “and I’ve still got the letter that she
left for me, and I’ll prove what I say. She said in it that she’d been
plannin’ to do the same thing with you, but she had made up her mind
that you wasn’t as easy as I was and she couldn’t work you.”
Hiram’s shoulders straightened and he pulled his trailing moustaches
with a bit of swagger.
“She was out just to do someone so’s she and Dellybunko could get away
with the stuff,” insisted Peak.
“She says so in the letter, and you was smart and I was easy--that’s
all!”
“It’s the old army game, gents!” squawked the parrot. He cracked his
beak against the bars of the cage.
Hiram shoved his hands into his pockets and with a sort of meditative
air of conscious superiority kicked another spoke out of the wheel.
“Hadn’t you just as soon tear pickets off’n the fence, there, or
something of that sort?” wistfully asked Peak. “This is all I’ve got
left, and, honestly, I’ve never had no great courage to do anything
since she run away with that sixteen hundred. I never had no great
enterprise and ability like you’ve got, anyway. I just went all to
pieces.”
He scrubbed his raspy palms on his upcocked knees.
“I didn’t really want to run away with her, Hiram, but she bossed me
into it. I never was no hand to stand up for my rights. I could lift
weights and let ‘em crack a marble block on my chest, but anyone with a
limber tongue could allus talk me ’round--and I guess they allus can.
I wish she’d stuck to you and let me alone.” His big hands trembled on
his knees, and his weak face with its flabby chops had the wistful look
one sees on a foxhound’s visage. “When did you give up the road?” he
asked, evidently willing to change the subject.
“Haven’t given it up,” snapped Hiram, scowling. “There’s the waggons
over there, and the round-top and seats are stored, and I’ve got my
elephant. I’m liable to buy a lemon and a square hunk of glass and start
out again ’most any time.”
Hiram couldn’t help winking his good eye at his old partner in
“shenanigan,” though his face hardened again the moment after. Peak
chuckled fulsome appreciation, Still eager to placate, he said:
“I don’t suppose you really have to.” He blinked watery eyes at Hiram’s
big watch chain with its bunch of charms, and at the ring on his thick
finger, with its blazing stone.
“Forty thousand or so in the bank and plenty more out at int’rest,”
returned Hiram. He put both thumbs into the armholes of his vest. Then
with the patronising air of the “well-fixed” he inquired:
“How are you gettin’ your three squares nowadays?”
“Lecture on Lost Arts and Free Love, mesmerise and cure stutterin’ in
one secret lesson, pay in advance,” Peak explained listlessly. “But
there ain’t the three squares in no such graft in these times. I ain’t
got your head. I wish I’d been as sharp as you are and never let a woman
whiffle me into a scrape.” Hiram glowed with the same warmth that he
felt when “Figger-Four” daily regaled him with stories of how Myra
Willard made life miserable for Kleber with her tongue and her folly.
This gossip had been “Figger-Four’s” first recommendation to the notice
of the showman, and Avery had sagaciously pursued it. Hiram now looked
up at the man on the van with a pride that was gloomy, but none the less
apparent.
“Nobody ever come it over me,” he said in low tones, with a side glance
to see that Avery didn’t overhear. “Still, another way you look at it,
she did come it over me and so did----” He suddenly checked himself.
“But she didn’t come it over you,” insisted Peak. “I’m the one she come
it over, and look at me!” He made a despairing gesture that embraced all
his pathetic belongings. “You’re the one that’s come out ‘unrivalled,
stupendous and triumphant,’ as your full sheeters used to say. If I was
any help in steerin’ her away I’m humbly glad of it, Hime, for I allus
liked you.”
This gradual assuming of the rôle of benefactor was not entirely to
Hiram’s taste, as his frown indicated, but the constant iteration of
admiration for his shrewdness and good fortune was having its effect.
The old grudge ached less. It was like having opodeldoc stuffed into a
bad tooth. Hiram felt as though he would like to listen to a lot more of
that comforting talk. Moreover, his showman’s heart was hungry for
some of that association of the old days and for a chance to swap old
stories.
“Sime,” he cried with a heartiness that surprised even himself, “you’re
a poor old devil that’s been abused, and you seem to be all in.” He
surveyed the wheezy horse and kicked another spoke from the wheel.
“Crack ’em down, crack ’em down, gents!” squalled the parrot.
“If it wasn’t for Absalom, there, to holler that to me with an
occasional ‘Hey, Rube!’ I don’t believe I could stay in this
God-forsaken place fifteen minutes. There’s no one here that can talk
about anything except ensilage and new-milk cows. Now, what say, Sime?
Store your old traps along o’ mine, squat down and take it comfortable
a little while. I reckon that you and me can find a few things to talk
about that really amount to something.”
The man on the van unhooked the reins from around his neck and let them
fall to the ground. But he still hesitated to climb down.
“I should hate to feel that I was a burden on you,” he faltered. “But
if there’s any stutterers around here I might earn a little something on
the side to help out on my board.”
“Me with forty thousand in the bank takin’ board money from an old
friend, or lettin’ a guest of mine graft for his livin’?” snorted Hiram.
“Not by a blame sight! You just shut up and h’ist yourself down here and
help me unharness old Polyponeesus.”
Hiram introduced his guest to his brother with curt brevity.
“And I guess I’ll do as you hinted this mornin’ about takin’ the other
half of the house, Phin,” he said. “I don’t want any friends of mine to
be underfoot for you. As long as you suggested splittin’ off, I’ll do
it. Old Aunt What’s-Her-Name can do for both of us.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Hime,” said the Squire, earnestly. “Your
friends are my friends and we can all get along comfortably together
just as we are.”
“I’d ruther have the side-show privilege than a share in the big show,”
persisted the stubborn relative; “it’s your proposition, and I can
take a hint.” The presence of Peak and his mute suggestion of the old
associations were already having their effect on Hiram’s undisciplined
temperament. He had begun to wonder before this if getting acquainted
again with a brother after so many years was altogether a success. He
had been a bit ashamed in spite of Phineas’s candid forgiveness; this
calm, earnest, educated man made him feel ill at ease. Suddenly, he
realised perfectly why he had clutched at this stroller and hauled him
into this haven.
Hiram always acted first and reflected afterwards. He knew now that he
had seized upon this man to hold him between his brother and himself, as
he would have interposed a shield. He had anticipated that his brother
would interfere in his resolution to “make Coll Willard curl.” For weeks
he had been dreading the hour when Phineas would come to him for an
understanding. No man knew better than he what the Look grit was, and as
he had fully made up _his_ mind to carry out his plan of vengeance, and
realised that the Squire would as vigorously oppose him, he had been
trembling each noon and night for many days, as he sat upon the porch
and watched the lawyer’s approach.
Now he stood up close beside the amiable giant.
“Sime and me is pretty close chums, Phin,” he said, “and we shall be
together all the time talkin’ mighty busy, and it ain’t in no ways right
for us to be gabblin’ round where you be and takin’ your mind off’n your
business. So I’ll have another cook-stove set up in my part and we won’t
trouble you a mite.”
He took Peak by the arm and drew him away with some eagerness.
“I want you to come in and see if Imogene remembers you, Sime. Then
we’ll look over the carts.”
Avery had been crowding up closely, mutely appealing for an
introduction. His jealousy was aroused by the attention that was shown
to this new arrival, and he followed them toward the barn as they
started away.
“Say, look-a-here, Figger-Four,” said Hiram, whirling on him and
speaking with a gruffness that wounded Avery’s devoted heart, “you get
back onto your job, there, and you mind it dern close from this time on.
I don’t want you trailin’ me no more. You keep your place after this.”
The cripple stood gazing after Hiram until he had slammed the barn door
behind him. Then he settled slowly down upon his short leg and turned to
the Squire a face on which there was astonishment as well as grief.
“Seems like I never seen a changeabler man,” he observed.
The lawyer looked at the discarded companion a little while, and the
poor fellow’s distress was so sincere that he pitied him, even in his
own sorrow.
“Don’t mind it too much, Avery,” he said. “Hiram has had a good many
things happen in his life to sour him and spoil his disposition. Some
day he’ll find out who his real friends are and then you and I will have
our innings.”
He put his hands behind his back and walked into the house, and Avery
went on with his varnishing. At first his strokes were slow and his
face was melancholy. But as he pondered on his insult, his brush flicked
faster and soon he was slapping away at a lively gait, keeping time to a
song that he hummed, the last two lines running:
“Good boy Phin, he don’t raise time,
But pepper sass is hot and hell’s in Hime."-