Just before quitting-time Tallow and Binney came back to the mill and we
all went into the office to find out what they had found out.
“Where’d you l-leave Wiggamore?” says Mark.
“Hotel,” says Binney. “Went up to his room to git ready for supper.”
“How’d you git along?”
“Fine,” says Tallow. “We found Wiggamore and another man just leaving
the hotel, and we walked along right behind. They done a lot of talking
about rainfall and dams and power, and then mentioned our dam, and
Wiggamore says there was a little difficulty there, but it wasn’t
worryin’ him, ’cause he figgered to be able to git our property about
whenever he wanted to. ‘What’s worryin’ me more,’ says he, ‘is that
piece across the river. They call it the Piggins Meadow,’ he says. Then
he says to the other man: ‘That’s why I got you down here. I look to you
to take care of it. We’re going to see Miss Piggins now. I’ve explained
about it before.’
“‘Yes,’ says the other man.
“Well, we mogged along till we come to Miss Piggins’s house, and they
went up and rapped on the door. Binney and I walked past, and then come
back over the side fence and got under the parlor window, because we
knew Miss Piggins would take them in there like she always does
partic’lar company. I guess maybe there’s three or four folks gets into
that parlor in a year. She’s awful choice of it. Anyhow, she took
Wiggamore in, and we could hear plain what was said, on account of her
bein’ deef and Wiggamore and his man havin’ to holler. Miss Piggins
always hollers, anyhow, so we was safe to hear all that was said:
“‘Miss Piggins,’ says Wiggamore, as loud as he could beller, ‘we’ve come
about that land across the river.’
“‘Hand across the river?’ says she. ‘What _be_ you talkin’ about,
anyhow? Hand, did you say?’
“‘Land,’ says Wiggamore, ’most bustin’ his throat.
“‘Meadow,’ says his friend, yellin’ louder than he did.
“‘Widow?’ says Miss Piggins. ‘I hain’t no widow. I’m a old maid and I’m
proud of it. ’Tain’t ’cause I _have_ to be, neither. I’ve had chances
enough, goodness knows, but I hain’t never seen the man that I’d work
and slave for the way wimmin does.’
“She was goin’ on at a great rate, gettin’ up more steam every minute,
and Wiggamore and his friend was lookin’ at each other like they wanted
to up and hit somebody with a club. But they couldn’t stop her. She was
gettin’ things off’n her mind about men, and she was bound to git ’em
off. I’ll bet she went on for fifteen minutes without takin’ a breath.
Then she stopped up sudden and says, ‘What was you wantin’ to see me
about?’
“‘Your land,’ says Wiggamore so’s you could’a’ heard him to Sunfield.
“‘My hand? What about my hand?’ Then she sort of giggled and lopped her
head over and acted like a kitten that sees a mouse, only don’t want to
let on it sees it. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘I don’t hardly know you, and I
hain’t had sich a thought in my mind. ’Tain’t scarcely usual to come
askin’ for a lady’s hand with company along,’ says she.
“‘Sufferin’ mackerel!’ says Wiggamore. ‘She thinks I’m wanting to marry
her!’ Then he got up and walked over to her real close and yelled in her
ear.
“‘I’m married,’ says he. ‘I’ve a wife.’
“‘Oh,’ says she. ‘It’s your friend, eh? What’s his name? How come he to
want to marry me?’
“‘He doesn’t,’ says Wiggamore. ‘We came to talk business. We want to buy
your little farm across the river.’
“‘My arm across the river? Be you crazy? My arm hain’t long enough to go
across no river.’
“‘Farm,’ says Wiggamore. ‘Land. Pasture. Meadow.’
“‘Oh!’ says she.
“‘We want to buy it,’ says Wiggamore.
“‘It hain’t for sale,’ says she.
“‘Everythin’s for sale—if you get the right price,’ says Wiggamore.
“‘Nice?’ says she. ‘Why is it nice? ’Tain’t nothin’ but a field where we
turn out the hogs. Nothin’ nice about it.’
“‘Price,’ says Wiggamore. ‘Money.’
“‘It hain’t for sale,’ says she.
“‘Wouldn’t you rather have good money than that old meadow that’s good
for nothing but to pasture pigs?’
“‘To be sure,’ says she, ‘but ’tain’t for sale.’
“‘Why not?’
“‘It was left to me and my brother George,’ says she, ‘and I can’t sell
it without him. Neither kin he sell it without me. We both own it,’ says
she.
“‘But you would be willing to sell if George would?’
“‘Certain,’ says she.
“‘Where’s George?’ he says.
“‘If you was to tell me that,’ says she, ‘I calc’late I’d be a heap
obleeged. I hain’t seen hide nor hair of him this six months.’
“‘He’s gone away?’
“‘You might call it that,’ says she. ‘It was on account of a hog.’
“‘But where did he go?’
“‘Hain’t I jest tellin’ you I don’t know? It was on account of a hog he
went.’
“‘What about the hog?’
“‘Why, seems like he come home one night with a hog. It was a fine hog
and fat,’ says she. ‘George he told me he got attracted by that hog and
jest had to own it. Well, next day along comes a man lookin’ for that
hog, and the sheriff was with him. He let on the hog was his and that
George jest up and _took_ the hog and run off with it. Wa-al, when
George seen the sheriff come into the front door, he went out of the
back door, and that’s the last I’ve seen or heard of him.... Seems like
a lot of fuss to be makin’ over a hog.’
“‘And you don’t know where he is?’
“‘No more ’n I know where General Jackson’s aunt’s sister’s apple butter
is kept.’
“‘But couldn’t you find him?’
“‘How’d I find him? Tell me that. Stick my head out of the winder and
holler? Lemme tell you, when a man up and steals a hog and goes away on
account of the sheriff comin’ to call, he hain’t goin’ to be found if he
kin help it. George never did think much of sheriffs, and if you was so
much as to mention jail to him, he’d fair have a conniption fit.’
“‘If I fix it up with the man that owned the hog and with the sheriff,
will you try to find him?’
“‘You go fix it first,’ says she. ‘But I hain’t the least notion where
to look. Maybe he’s up and skedaddled for Africa or Chiny or one of them
places. He was always talkin’ about goin’ to see them Chinee folks.
Seems like he was a heap int’rested into ’em.’
“Well, Wiggamore and his friend looked at each other and waggled their
heads, and got up to go. ‘If you hear from George,’ says Wiggamore, ‘you
let me know. We want to buy that piece of land and we’ll pay well for
it.’
“‘Hain’t no well on it,’ says she. ‘We jest use it for the hogs.’
“Then Wiggamore and the man got out as fast as they could, lookin’ like
somebody had just stole their dinner from under their noses. They
stopped at the gate and used up a lot of language sayin’ disagreeable
things about George and Miss Piggins, and alludin’ to folks that stole
hogs and interfered with business.
“‘You got to find George,’ says Wiggamore. ‘That is your job from this
minute. Keep after him and find him. You know as well as I do that we’ve
got to have that land. The engineers say it is the only place where we
can put up our power-house. All the rest of this project falls down if
we can’t get that meadow.’
“Then they went back to the hotel and went up to their rooms, and here
we be.”
“F-fine,” says Mark. “You done a good job. I should ’a’ found out about
this before. Zadok found it out p-pretty quick.”
“Zadok?” says I.
“To be sure. It’s what he was talkin’ about. It’s the answer to his
riddle. Power-house and what a feller’s got to have he can’t git along
without.” He stopped a minute, and then says: “Fellers, the most
important thing in the world for us r-right now is George Piggins. Yes,
sir, we got to find him, and find him b-before Wiggamore does.”
“Why?” says I.
“To git that p-pasture.”
“What we want with any pastures? We hain’t keepin’ no hogs.”
“Plunk,” says Mark, “sometimes you s’prise me. Honest you do. There’s
t-times when I figger you hain’t got enough brains to wad a gun. Listen,
if we git s-somethin’ Wiggamore’s _got_ to have, what then?”
“I dunno,” says I.
“Why, he’s got to have it, hain’t he? And if he’s got to have it, he’s
got to p-p-pay for it whatever we ask. Because he’s _got_ to have it. If
we git that meadow we’re in a position to t-trade with him, and make a
little money into the b-bargain.”
“I guess so,” says I.
“Well,” says he, “our job is to f-f-find George, and f-find him quick.”
“How?” says Binney.
“Not by t-t-talkin’ about it,” says Mark, “but by l-lookin’. If I know
George Piggins he hain’t far off. He hain’t the kind of a coot to go
many m-miles from home.”
“Calc’late Miss Piggins knows?”
“No,” says Mark. “George would be mighty scairt, and he wouldn’t tell
her, knowin’ how she loves to w-w-waggle her tongue. He’d be afraid of
her l-lettin’ it out.”
Well, that didn’t look like much of a job—to find George Piggins. All we
had to do was to search the United States and Canada and Mexico and
Europe and Asia and Africa and Australia and a few other places for a
man that you wouldn’t notice much, anyhow. That’s the kind of a fellow
George was. You could look right at him without noticing him. He just
didn’t count. He was the kind of man that would steal a hog, and when
you’ve said that you’ve said quite considerable. George was one of them
sloping folks. His forehead kind of sloped back into his hair and his
chin sloped back into his collar and his shoulders sloped forward into
his neck and his knees sloped in toward each other. There wasn’t
anything bad about George even if he did steal a hog. He wasn’t the
stealing kind, regular, but he didn’t ever do a thing in a hard way when
he could do it easier, and he probably found it was easier to get that
hog by swiping it than it would have been to buy it. He was a regular
rabbit except that he couldn’t jump. He might fall off of something, but
he’d never jump off it. Why, he didn’t even have a nickname. Folks
called him George all his life, or maybe Georgie. Imagine a grown man
being called Georgie! Whew! It’s enough to give you a stummick-ache.
And that’s the kind of fellow we had to find. If he had been a big man
with red hair and a hook nose and that sort of thing, it wouldn’t have
been so hard. But to find a fellow that you’d pass on the street without
realizing that you passed anybody—well, that was different.
“Most likely,” says I, “he’s burrowing like a rabbit. Bet he hasn’t done
more than poke his nose out since he hid up.”
“One t-t-thing George has got to do,” says Mark, “and that’s eat.”
Mark would be sure to think of that. It was surprising how much his mind
turned to eating. Somehow almost any subject you might mention would
make him think of grub.
We talked it over quite a spell, but didn’t arrive at any notion of what
to do. Then we went home to supper, but we met at Mark’s house in the
evening and went for a walk.
We went slow down-town, because we weren’t heading any place in
particular, and we stopped at the pump awhile to listen to Uncle Ike
Bond argue politics with anybody that came along. I guess Uncle Ike knew
more about politics than anybody in the world, and it’s a funny thing to
me he never mixed into them and got to be governor or something, but he
never did. He said his mission in life was to see that folks caught
trains, and that was enough for _him_. There’s no telling how many
trains folks would have missed if it hadn’t been for Uncle Ike, but he
was always on hand long enough ahead so that even Miss Pitcher, that was
never on time for anything, and always lost her pocketbook just as she
was starting out, would have plenty of leeway to get all fixed for
going. We didn’t stay long, because Uncle Ike swung off into some kind
of an argument about what kind of a man ought to be elected constable.
Without having any particular idea where we were heading for, we went up
the street, and the first thing we knew we were looking down at the mill
and the dam, and we stopped and looked her over kind of proud-like. It
does make you sort of proud to look at something you’re running
yourself. I never thought much of Silas Doolittle Bugg’s mill till I got
mixed up with it, but after that it seemed to me like it was one of the
biggest and remarkablest mills in the country.
“Fine mill,” says I.
“You bet,” says Binney. “There hain’t many mills like that.”
“It’s a m-m-money-maker,” says Mark, “when it’s run r-right.” That was
Mark, always thinking about the practical end of it.
“Hey!” says Tallow. “What was that?”
“What?” says I.
“I thought I seen something flash down there—like a match or a candle or
somethin’.”
“G’wan!” says Binney. “Firefly, most likely.”
“’Twan’t, neither, no firefly,” says he. “There—look!”
Sure as shooting, there was some kind of a light, but it didn’t look
like it was on the ground. It looked sort of up in the air—as if it was
somewheres up toward the top of the mill.
“It’s flyin’,” says Binney.
Mark he didn’t say anything, but looked mighty sharp. In a minute the
flash came again, and Mark says: “’Tain’t f-f-flyin’. It’s inside the
mill. We s-seen it when it passed a winder or a crack or somethin’.
Somebody’s p-p-prowlin’ around there.”
“Let’s git the constable,” says I.
“Constable n-nothin’,” says he. “No tellin’ where that old coot is, and
by the time we got him located, no t-t-tellin’ what might happen. I’m
goin’ down there to find out. You kin come or you kin stay.”
“I guess,” says Tallow, “that if you kin stand it, we kin.”
“Got your flash-light?” says I.
“No,” says Mark.
“All right,” says I, “but I hain’t what you might call tickled to death
about skirmishin’ around that mill in the pitch dark. There hain’t even
a moon.”
“All right,” says Binney. “You wait here.”
That made me mad. “I guess,” says I, “if a little runt like you kin
monkey around in the dark without swallerin’ his Adam’s apple, I kin do
about as well,” and I started off ahead of them just to show them that I
had as much sand as anybody.
“Hold up!” says Mark. “Don’t go p-p-plungin’ down there like a buck
sheep. Go cautious. We want to sneak up without bein’ seen. Here’s the
idee. That there is a haunted castle where there’s a wicked magician
l-l-livin’, and he’s goin’ to cast some kind of a spell on the king
we’re workin’ for. We got jobs with a king to p-pertect him from all
evil. See? And we got word this here m-magician is up to somethin’
underhand. Maybe he’s goin’ to turn the king into a statue made out of
lard or somethin’, and then run off with the p-p-princess and swipe the
kingdom. Now, we hain’t got no magic, so all we kin do is sneak up on
him when he hain’t lookin’ and grab him before he can make any magic
passes and gag him before he can utter any magic words. That’s the
notion. When we got him tied up and bound and all t-t-that, we kin lock
him in a dungeon with n-nothin’ to eat but bread and water till the
magic is starved out of him.”
“Kin you starve magic out of a feller?” says Tallow.
“You kin s-s-starve ’most anythin’ out,” says Mark.
“All right,” says I. “Let’s git at it. That king may be turnin’ to lard
this minute, and what good is a king that hain’t nothin’ but a lump of
lard?”
“Use him for pie crust,” says Tallow, who wasn’t much on imagining
things.
Well, we moseyed down to the mill.
“We’ll s-s-separate into two parties,” says Mark. “Plunk and me will go
up the log-slide at this end of the m-m-mill. Tallow and Binney kin come
in from the other end. That way we’ll catch him between us.”
So we done that. Mark and I crept cautious around to the log-slide and
went up it, and it was a job for a cat in that darkness. Once we was
inside the mill it was a lot worse. I’ve been in the dark once or twice,
but that’s the first time I was ever in dark that was so dark you had to
push it away from you. Honest, I could reach out and grab chunks of it,
and it felt like it would pack like snow.
When we got inside we stopped and listened, but there wasn’t a sound.
Then Mark whispered in my ear: “Go along s-soft. That there magician’s
got ears like a cat.”
“Kin he see in the dark?” says I.
“You bet,” says he.
“Wisht I had that gift,” says I, for just then I banged my shin against
a timber and it hurt like all-git-out.
We knew that mill pretty well by heart, and found our way around without
falling down any holes or sitting down on any saws. Pretty soon I heard
a soft, stealthy kind of a noise right over in front of me, and I
grabbed Mark’s arm. Mark heard it, too, because he reached out and
touched me, as much as to tell me to keep still. Then we went ahead.
Pretty soon I reached for Mark and I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t hear
him. Well, if you think that wasn’t a lonesome feeling I’ll eat a brick.
But I was in for it, and I wasn’t going to turn tail and scoot if that
mill was so crowded with magicians that they was stepping on one
another’s toes, so I went ahead a step at a time, stopping to listen
about every minute.
Then I felt that something was close to me. Now if you’ve never been in
the dark and had that feeling, why, you don’t know what it is to be
scairt. I _knew_ something was there and that it was alive, and I
wondered if whatever it was knew that I was there and if it was getting
ready to pounce on me. I hardly breathed. Then I heard just the barest
_scrape_. It was moving, and it wasn’t more than five foot away. I
didn’t move. It come closer and closer and closer. Well, sir, I had
about all I could stand. Then something brushed right against my arm and
I grabbed.
I had to grab. That was all there was to it. Whatever it was grabbed
back. It was somebody alive; anyhow it felt alive, especially when it
swatted me right in the stummick. That made me mad and I kind of forgot
about being scairt and started in to git even. I didn’t even think of
hollering for help to Mark Tidd.
The other fellow didn’t make a sound, and I didn’t. We went down on the
floor and rolled over and over, each trying mighty hard to git the
other, and both doing a pretty good job. I know I was being all mussed
up and I’ll bet the other fellow wasn’t happy. Not if many of the licks
I aimed at him landed.
Then I got him down and plumped onto him hard. He was panting, but when
he see he was licked he sort of wheezed:
“Tallow—help.”
Well, I wanted to slam him in the nose. “Binney Jenks,” says I, “what in
tunket d’you mean? Why didn’t you say who you was?”
“Why didn’t you?” says he.
“Anyhow,” says I, “I’ll bet you wasn’t as scairt as I was.”
“I was scairter,” says he. “And you’ve mauled me fierce.”
“I hain’t what you could call neat and in order,” says I.
And then somebody touched me on the shoulder and says, “Keep s-s-still.”
It was Mark Tidd.
We searched all over that floor in the dark and didn’t find a thing.
Then we started up to the kind of attic above, and just as we was going
up the stairs we saw a flash of light again. It was up there.
Well, there wasn’t anything to do but go along, so we did. Binney
stumbled on the steps and made a noise like two freight-engines coming
together. The light skittered just once, and then went out, but we heard
a rustling that sounded sort of like rats running inside partition
walls. You know that kind of a sound.
There wasn’t any use being cautious any more, so we jumped up there as
fast as we could, and went plunging every which way in the dark. I guess
we felt over every inch of that place, but not a thing did we find. We
even went down to the office and got some matches and searched with
them. But not a hide or a hair of a magician or anybody else did we
discover—not until we were just ready to give it up. Then Mark stooped
over and picked up something.
“Any of you d-d-drop this?” says he.
We all looked at it. It was one of them curved-bladed pruning-knives. It
didn’t belong to any of us.
“The handle’s warm,” says Mark. “Somebody’s had it in his hand or his
p-p-pocket, and not long ago.”
It was like he said, so we hunted some more, but there wasn’t a soul.
Whoever had been there had vanished like he was a fog.
“That’s the way magicians does,” says Mark. “He’s put on his invisible
cap. Most likely he’s s-s-standin’ right here lookin’ at us this
minute.”
We stayed around awhile longer, because we hated to give up, but after a
while we saw it wasn’t any use, so we went home. But we all felt kind of
queer. It was a mighty funny thing—that magician disappearing like
that—with no place to disappear to.