“You know that I have been elected first selectman of this town?”
“Yes, Uncle Deck. I’m glad the citizens--”
“Yah, for the citizens! First and last, it has cost me five thousand
dollars to get this office. And it’s for their own good I worked to get
it--and they thought it was only to satisfy my grudge. That’s all
the credit a man gets from the fools who vote. But I’m in this office
now--I’m headed straight for my mark--and the man who gets in my way
will be bored like a cheese target! Do you hear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They know enough in this town to keep out of my way! I have trained
’em. You don’t dare to come back here, do you--my own nephew--and get
in my way?”
“I’m only attending to my business.”
“Meaning by that you’re thinking of buying a wood-lot from Zebulon
Kingsley?”
Secretly I was sort of laughing at myself. Here I was, inviting a lot
of trouble by insisting on doing something which was a positive
impossibility, so it seemed then as I jingled my coins in my pocket.
“I have my business the same as you have yours, sir. I didn’t know--”
“You did know!” he shouted. “And if you are such a renegade as to forget
what has been done to your family by that skunk, you know _now_--for I’m
telling you! You can’t do business with Zebulon Kingsley. I say it!” He
pounded his fist on his breast.
I kept still. I was trying to work out in my mind some sensible idea as
to what I really did intend to do in the matter of that wood-lot.
My uncle leaned toward me over the table in the town office, propping
himself on one fist and pounding softly and slowly with the other. His
lips were rolled back and he growled his words deep down in his throat,
almost in a whisper.
“I know what he is, now. I’ve got the stuff on him. I’ve had to work
slow. I’ve had to convince two devilish steers on the board of selectmen
without telling ’em what I’m after. But I’ve got ’em. And he is
headed for hell and I’m after him. And he knows it now and that’s the
best of it! Because I’m taking my time while he is thinking it over!
Oh, my gad! if only your father could have lived till now to see how the
devilish old gouger and robber is getting his! And he is paying for your
mother’s tears and sweat with drops of his blood. And he is paying me,
too. I stay up nights to see that lamp in his office window. And you
say, do you, that you have come here to hand over money to Zebulon
Kingsley? To the man who filed your father’s heart in two with a
mortgage?”
“It’s only in the way of ordinary trade,” I ventured. I was wondering
why I was continuing to provoke my uncle. But I knew I needed to start
considerable of a smoke to screen my real condition from him.
“There is to be no trade between you,” raged my uncle. “No money from
you shall touch that scoundrel’s hands!” Just at that moment I was more
sure of that than he was.
My uncle gave me a little opportunity to do some thinking, for he went
to the office safe and pulled out a bottle and drank.
I wondered what kind of a hold he had on Judge Kingsley. My curiosity
was aflame. It was not believable that he could ruin the judge
financially, for the Kingsleys had possessed wealth for many
generations. Celene Kingsley, as the petted daughter of our village
aristocrat, was too far above me for any hopes to bear fruit, even
though they budded. But what would the Kingsleys be after my uncle had
worked out his revenge, of whose success he seemed to be so sure?
“I know there has been trouble between the families, Uncle Deck,” I
said. “I know we were not used right in money matters. But what is it
you’re going to do to Judge Kingsley? What is your grip on him?”
He wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand and set back the bottle.
“None of your d------d business!”
“I don’t like to go into anything blindfolded. I have business to
consider, and I’ll have to make explanations.
“You’ll get off better by making ’em to the men who have hired you
than by explaining to me, if you don’t do what I tell you to do.”
“But I’m no kid any longer. I’m running my own affairs, sir. If you
can’t let me in on the plans of this thing--”
He advanced on me, waggling his fist. “You’re a devil of a fellow to
come and pump me for secrets, you are! What do you want to do--run to
him again like you did in the case of that hoss trade? Do you think I
have forgotten that?”
“No, and I know you never will, sir.”
“And so I say now, ask no questions and do as I tell you.”
I edged toward the door, for I was pretty well mixed up in my own
thoughts and did not care to get into any more of a row with my
uncle--and all needlessly.
“Are you giving me your word?” he demanded.
“I’m not promising anything until I can think it over and decide on
what’s best to be done, Uncle Deck.”
“You’ll decide now before you leave this office.”
He started toward me, but the key was in the door, and I turned it and
stood ready to leave.
“You have come back here to fight me, have you? A Sidney fighting his
own and nearest blood kin, eh?” He came close and made threatening
gestures. I put my arm across his breast and slowly pushed him back;
I gave him good opportunity to note that the arm was a sizable one and
mighty hard.
“You plug-hatted dude!” he frothed. “Forgetting the duty you owe to your
own because you have had a whirl in the city!”
“I am no dude, Uncle Deck, and calling me names and treating me like a
brat, as you used to do, isn’t going to get you anything!”
“You are not standing with your own family.”
“I can be loyal to my family, but I’m not going to-shut my eyes and jump
into a row just because you tell me it’s your row.”