The whispered conference between Hiram Strong and the storekeeper could
not be heard by the curious crowd around the cold stove; nor did it last
for long.
Caleb Schell finally closed his ledger and put it away. Hiram shook
hands with him and walked out.
On the platform outside, which was illuminated by a single smoky
lantern, a group of small boys were giggling, and they watched Hiram
unhitch the old horse and climb into the spring wagon with so much
hilarity that the young farmer expected some trick.
The horse started off all right, he missed nothing from the wagon, and
so he supposed that he was mistaken. The boys had merely been laughing
at him because he was a stranger.
But as Hiram got some few yards from the hitching rack, the seat was
suddenly pulled from under him, and he was left sprawling on his back in
the bottom of the wagon.
A yell of derision from the crowd outside the store assured him that
this was the cause of the boys' hilarity. Luckily his old horse was of
quiet disposition, and he stopped dead in his tracks when the seat flew
out of the back of the wagon.
A joke is a joke. No use in showing wrath over this foolish amusement of
the crossroads boys. But Hiram got a little the best of them, after all.
The youngsters had scattered when the “accident” occurred. Hiram,
getting out to pick up the seat, found the end of a strong hemp line
fastened to it. The other end was tied to the hitching rack in front of
the store.
Instead of casting off the line from the seat, Hiram walked back to the
store and cast that end off.
“At any rate, I'm in a good coil of hemp rope,” he said to one of the
men who had come out to see the fun. “The fellow who owns it can come
and prove property; but I shall ask a few questions of him.”
There was no more laughter. The young farmer walked back to his wagon,
set up the seat again, and drove on.
The roadway was dark, but having been used all his life to country
roads at night, Hiram had no difficulty in seeing the path before him.
Besides, the old horse knew his way home.
He drove on some eighth of a mile. Suddenly he felt that the wagon
was not running true. One of the wheels was yawing. He drew in the old
horse; but he was not quick enough.
The nigh forward wheel rolled off the end of the axle, and down came the
wagon with a crash!
Hiram was thrown forward and came sprawling--on hands and knees--upon
the ground, while the wheel rolled into the ditch. He was little hurt,
although the accident might have been serious.
And in truth, he knew it to be no accident. A burr does not easily work
off the end of an axle. He had greased the old wagon just before he
started for the store, and he knew he had replaced each nut carefully.
This was a deliberately malicious trick--no boy's joke like the tying of
the rope to his wagon seat. And the axle was broken. Although he had
no lantern he could see that the wagon could not be used again without
being repaired.
“Who did it?” was Hiram's unspoken question, as he slowly unharnessed
the old horse, and then dragged the broken wagon entirely out of the
road so that it would not be an obstruction for other vehicles.
His mind set instantly upon Pete Dickerson. He had not seen the boy
when he came out of the crossroads store. If the fellow had removed this
burr, he had done it without anybody seeing him, and had then run home.
The young farmer, much disturbed over this incident, mounted the back
of the old horse, and paced home. He only told Mrs. Atterson that he had
met with an accident and that the light wagon would have to be repaired
before it could be used again.
That necessitated their going to town on Monday in the heavy wagon. And
Hiram dragged the spring wagon to the blacksmith shop for repairs, on
the way.
But before that, the enemy in the dark had struck again. When Hiram
went to the barnyard to water the stock, Sunday morning, he found that
somebody had been bothering the pump.
The bucket, or pump-valve, was gone. He had to take it apart, cut a new
valve out of sole leather, and put the pump together again.
“We'll have to get a cross dog, if we remain here,” he told Mrs.
Atterson. “There is somebody in the neighborhood who means us harm.”
“Them Dickersons!” exclaimed Mrs. Atterson.
“Perhaps. That Pete, maybe. If I once caught him up to his tricks I'd
make him sorry enough.”
“Tell the constable, Hi,” cried Sister, angrily.
“That would make trouble for his folks. Maybe they don't know just how
mean Pete is. A good thrashing--and the threat of another every time he
did anything mean--would do him lots more good.”
This wasn't nice Sunday work, but it was too far to carry water from the
house to the horse trough, so Hiram had to repair the pump.
On Monday morning he routed out Sister and Mr. Camp at daybreak. He had
been up and out for an hour himself, and on a bench under the shed he
had heaped two or three bushels of radishes which he had pulled and
washed, ready for bunching.
He showed his helpers how the pretty scarlet balls were to be bunched,
and found that Sister took hold of the work with nimble fingers, while
Mr. Camp did very well at the unaccustomed task.
“I don't know, Hi,” said Mrs. Atterson, despondently, “that it's worth
while your trying to sell any of the truck, if we're going to leave here
so soon.”
“We haven't left yet,” he returned, trying to speak cheerfully. “And you
might as well get every penny back that you can. Perhaps an arrangement
can be made whereby we can stay and harvest the garden crop, at any
rate.”
“You can make up your mind that that Pepper man won't give us any
leeway; he isn't that kind,” declared Mother Atterson, with conviction.
Hiram made a quick sale of the radishes at several of the stores, where
he got eighteen cents a dozen bunches; but some he sold at the big
boarding-school--St. Beris--at a retail price.
“You can bring any other fresh vegetables you may have from time
to time,” the housekeeper told him. “Nobody ever raised any early
vegetables about Scoville before. They are very welcome.”
“Once we get a-going,” said Hiram to Mrs. Atterson, “you or Sister can
drive in with the spring wagon and dispose of the surplus vegetables.
And you might get a small canning outfit--they come as cheap as fifteen
dollars--and put up tomatoes, corn, peas, beans, and other things. Good
canned stuff always sells well.”
“Good Land o' Goshen, Hiram!” exclaimed the old lady, in desperation.
“You talk jest as though we were going to stay on the farm.”
“Well, let's go and see Mr. Strickland,” replied the young farmer, and
they set out for the lawyer's office.
Mrs. Atterson sat in the ante-room while Hiram asked to speak with the
old lawyer in private for a minute. The conference was not for long, and
when Hiram came back to his employer he said:
“Mr. Strickland has sent his junior clerk out for Pepper. He thinks we'd
better talk the matter over quietly. And he wants to see the option,
too.”
“Oh, Hiram! There ain't no hope, is there?” groaned the old lady.
“Well, I tell you what!” exclaimed the young fellow, “we won't give in
to him until we have to. Of course, if you refuse to sign a deed he
can go to chancery and in the end you will have to pay the costs of the
action.
“But perhaps, even at that, it might be well to hold him off until you
have got the present crop out of the ground.”
“Oh, I won't go to law,” said Mrs. Atterson, decidedly. “No good ever
come of that.”
After a time Mr. Strickland invited them both into his private office.
The attorney spoke quietly of other matters while they waited for
Pepper.
But the real estate man did not appear. By and by Mr. Strickland's clerk
came back with the report that Pepper had been called away suddenly on
important business.
“They tell me he went Saturday,” said the clerk. “He may not be back
for a week. But he said he was going to buy the Atterson place when he
returned--he's told several people around town so.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Strickland, slowly. “Then he has left that threat
hanging, like the Sword of Damocles--over Mrs. Atterson's head?”
“I don't know nothin' about that sword, Mr. Strickland, nor no
other sword, 'cept a rusty one that my father carried when he was a
hoss-sodger in the Rebellion,” declared Mother Atterson, nervously. “But
if that Pepper man's got one belonging to Mr. Damocles, I shouldn't be
at all surprised. That Pepper looked to me like a man that would take
anything he could lay his hands on--if he warn't watched!”
“Which is a true and just interpretation of Pepper's character, I
believe,” observed the lawyer, smiling.
“And we've got to give up the farm at his say-so--at any time?” demanded
the old lady.
“If his option is good,” said Mr. Strickland. “But I want to see the
paper--and I can assure you, Mrs. Atterson, that I shall subject it to
the closest possible scrutiny.
“There is a possibility that Pepper's option may be questioned before
the courts. Do not build too many hopes on this,” he added, quickly,
seeing the old lady's face light up.
“You have a very good champion in this young man,” and the lawyer nodded
at Hiram.
“He suspected all was not right with the option and he has dug up the
fact that the witness to your uncle's signature, and the man before whom
the paper was attested, both believed the option was for a short time.
“Caleb Schell's book shows that it was for thirty days. Uncle Jeptha
undoubtedly thought it was for that length of time and therefore the
option expired several days before he died.
“Mr. Pepper may have fallen under temptation. He considered heretofore,
like everybody else, that the railroad would pass us by in this section.
Pepper gambled twenty dollars on its coming along the boundary of the
Atterson farm--between you and Darrell's tract--and thought he had lost.
“Then suddenly the railroad board turned square around and voted for the
condemnation of the original route. Pepper remembered the option he had
risked twenty dollars on. If it was originally for thirty days, it was
void, of course; but Uncle Jeptha is dead, and he hopes perhaps, that
nobody else will dispute the validity of it.”
“It's a forgery, then?” cried Mrs. Atterson.
“It may be a forgery. We do not know,” said the lawyer, hastily. “At any
rate, he has the paper, and he is a shrewd rascal.”
Mrs. Atterson's face was a study.
“Do you mean to tell me we have got to lose the farm?” she demanded.
“My dear lady, that I cannot tell you. I must see this option. We must
put it to the test----”
“But Schell and Pollock will testify that the option was for thirty
days,” cried Hiram.
“Perhaps. To the best of their remembrance and belief, it was for
thirty days. A shrewd lawyer, however--and Pepper would employ a shrewd
one--would turn their evidence inside out.
“No evidence--in theory, at least--can controvert a written instrument,
signed, sealed, and delivered. Even Cale Schell's memoranda book cannot
be taken as evidence, save in a contributory way. It is not direct. It
is the carelessly scribbled record, in pencil, of a busy man.
“No. If Pepper puts forward the option we have got to see if that
option has been tampered with--the paper itself, I mean. If the fellow
substituted a different instrument, at the time of signing, from the one
Uncle Jeptha thought he signed, you have no case--I tell you frankly, my
dear lady.”
“Then, it ain't no use. We got to lose the place, Hiram,” said Mrs.
Atterson, when they left the lawyer's office.
“I wouldn't lose heart. If Pepper is scared, he may not trouble you
again.”
“It's got ten months more to run,” said she. “He can keep us guessin' all
that time.”
“That is so,” agreed Hiram, nodding thoughtfully. “But, of course, as
Mr. Strickland says, by raising a doubt as to the validity of the option
we can hold him off for a while--maybe until we have made this year's
crop.”
“It's goin' to make me lay awake o' nights,” sighed the old lady. “And
I thought I'd got through with that when I stopped worryin' about the
gravy.”
“Well, we won't talk about next year,” agreed Hiram. “I'll do the best I
can for you through this season, if Pepper will let us alone. We've got
the bottom land practically cleared; we might as well plough it and put
in the corn there. If we make a crop you'll get all your money back and
more. Mr. Strickland told me privately that the option, unless it read
that way, would not cover the crops in the ground. And I read the option
carefully. Crops were not mentioned.”
So it was decided to go ahead with the work as already planned;
but neither the young farmer, nor his employer, could look forward
cheerfully to the future.
The uncertainty of what Pepper would eventually do was bound to be in
their thought, day and night.