THE CANDY ROUTE
"Hossy," said Calvin as he drove out of the yard, "what do you think of
that young woman?"
(Mary Sands was nearer forty than thirty, but she will be young at
seventy.) The brown horse shook his head slightly as Calvin flicked the
whip past his ear.
"Well, there you're mistaken!" said Calvin. "There's where you show your
ignorance, hossy. I tell you that young woman is A 1 and clipper built
if ever I see such. Yes, sir! ship-shape and Bristol fashion, live-oak
frame, and copper fastenin's, is what I call Miss Hands, and a singular
name she's got. Most prob'ly she'll be changin' it to Sill one of these
days, and one of them two lobsters will be a darned lucky feller. I
wonder which she'll take. I wonder why in Tunkett she should want either
one of 'em. I wonder--hello!"
[Illustration: "CALVIN REGARDED THEM BENEVOLENTLY."]
He checked the brown horse. A small boy was standing on a gate-post and
shouting vigorously.
"What say, sonny?" said Calvin.
"Be you the candy man?" cried the child.
"That's what! be you the candy boy? lozenges, tutti-frutti and pepsin
chewin' gum, chocolate creams, stick candy--what'll you have, young
feller?"
"I want a stick of checkerberry!" said the boy.
"So do I!" cried a little girl in a pink gingham frock, who had run out
from the house and climbed on the other gate-post. She was a pretty
curly little creature, and the boy was an engaging compound of flaxen
hair, freckles and snub nose. Calvin regarded them benevolently, and
pulled out a drawer under the seat of the wagon.
"Here you are!" he said, taking out a glass jar full of enchanting red
and white sticks.
"Best checkerberry in the State of Maine; cent apiece!" and he held out
two sticks.
The children's eyes grew big and tragic. "We ain't got any money!" said
the boy, sadly.
"Not _any_ money!" echoed the little girl.
"Then what in time did you ask for it for?" asked Calvin rather
irritably.
"I didn't!" said the boy. "I just said I wanted it."
Calvin looked from him to the girl, and then at the candy,
helplessly.
"Well, look here!" he said. "Say! where do hossy and me come in? We've
got to get our livin', you see."
"Could you get much living out of two sticks?" asked the little girl.
Calvin looked again at the round wistful eyes.
"This ain't no kind of way to do business!" he remonstrated. "You've got
to airn it some way, you know. Tell you what! Let me see which can
holler loudest, and I'll give you a stick apiece."
The babes closed their eyes, threw back their heads, and bellowed to the
skies.
"That's first rate!" said Calvin. "Good lung power there, young uns! go
it again!"
The children roared like infant bulls of Bashan. At this moment the door
of the house flew open and a woman appeared wild-eyed.
"What's the matter?" she cried. "Susy, be you hurt? Eben, has something
bit you?"
"Don't you be scairt, Marm!" said Calvin affably. "They was just showin'
off their lung power, and they've got a first rate article of it."
The woman's eyes flashed, and she hurried toward the gate. "You come
along and be spanked!" she cried to the children; "scarin' me into
palpitations, and your Aunt Mandy layin' in a blue ager! And as for
you," she addressed Calvin directly, "the best thing you can do is to
get out of this the quickest you know how. When I want peddlers round
here I'll let you know."
The children were hurried into the house, shrieking now in good earnest,
but clutching their candy sticks. Calvin gazed after them ruefully.
"Well, hossy, that didn't seem to work real good, did it?" he said.
"Fact is, we ain't got the hang of this business, no way, shape or
manner. Try to please the kids and you get 'em a spankin' instead. Well,
they got their candy anyway. 'Pears as if their Ma needed somethin',
howsomever."
He sat pondering with his eyes fixed anxiously on the house; finally he
rummaged among his drawers, and taking out a small package, he climbed
laboriously out over the wheel, and making his way up to the house,
knocked at the door. The woman opened it with a bounce, and snorted when
she saw him.
Calvin bent toward her confidentially, his face full of serious anxiety.
"Say, lady!" he said gravely; "I'd like to make you a present of these
cardamom seeds. They do say they're the best thing goin' for the temper;
kind o' counter-irritant, y' know; bite the tongue, and--"
The door banged in his face. He smiled placidly, and returning to his
wagon clambered in again and chirruped cheerily to the brown horse.
"Gitty up, hossy!" he said. "I feel a sight better now. Gitty up!"
They jogged on for some time, Calvin mostly silent, though now and then
he broke out into song.
"Now Renzo was a sailor;
That's what Renzo was, tiddy hi!
He surely warn't a tailor,
So haul the bowline, haul!
He went adrift in Casco Bay,
Mate to a mud-scow haulin' hay,
And he come home late for his weddin' day,
So haul the bowline, haul!"
Rounding a curve in the road, he saw a man walking in the same direction
in which he was going; a young man, slight and wiry, walking with quick,
jerky strides. Calvin observed him.
"That young feller's in a hurry, hossy," he said. "See him? he's takin'
longer steps than what his legs are, and that's agin' natur'. What say
about givin' him a lift, hey?"
The brown horse, his ear being flicked, shook his head decidedly. "Sho!"
said Calvin, "you don't mean that, hossy. Your bark--well, not exactly
bark--is worse than your--not precisely bite, but you know what I mean.
He's in a hurry, and he's in trouble too, and you and me ain't neither
one nor 'tother. Say!" he called as he came within hailing distance.
"Want a lift?"
The man stopped with a start, and turned a pale face on Calvin. He had
red hair, and his blue eyes burned angrily.
"Yes!" he said. Calvin stopped, and he jumped quickly into the wagon.
Calvin looked at him expectantly a moment; then "Much obliged!" he said.
"Real accommodatin' of you!"
The young man colored like a girl. "I beg your pardon!" he said. "I'm
forgetting my manners and everything else, I guess. Much obliged to you
for takin' me up. I'm in a terrible hurry!" he added, looking doubtfully
at the brown horse, who was jogging peacefully along.
"Four legs is better than two!" said Calvin. "Gitty up, hossy! He makes
better time than what he appears to, hossy does. He's a better ro'der
than you be. We'll git there!"
"How far you goin'?" asked the man.
"Oh, down along a piece!" said Calvin. "Where be you?"
"I'm going to Tinkham," said the red-haired man with angry emphasis; "to
Lawyer Filcher. If there was any lawyer nearer I'd go to him."
"I want to know!" said Calvin sociably. "Insurance?"
"No!" the man broke out. "I'm goin' to get a bill!"
Now in our part of the country a "bill" means a bill of divorce. Calvin
shook his head with sympathetic interest.
"Sho!" he said. "A young feller like you? now ain't that a pity?"
"I can't stand it any longer!" the lad cried, and his hands worked with
passion. "Nor yet I won't, I tell you. No man would. This ends it. We
was mismated from the first, and this is the last."
"Well!" said Calvin. "Ain't that a pity now? If it's so, it's so, and
mebbe a bill is the best thing. Awful homely, is she?"
The lad turned upon him, and his blue eyes flashed.
"Homely?" he said roughly. "What you talkin' about? she was Katie
Hazard."
"Nice name!" said Calvin. "Come from these parts?"
"I guess you don't!" retorted the lad, "or you wouldn't have to be told.
She was called the prettiest girl in the county when I married her, and
she hasn't got over it yet."
"You don't say!" said Calvin placidly. "Well, good looks is pleasant, I
always maintain; I'd full rather have a woman good-lookin' if other
things is 'cordin' to. I suppose likely she's a poor cook? A man has to
have his victuals, you know!"
"She's the best cook in the State!" said the young man doggedly. "I'd
back her riz bread or doughnuts or pies against any woman's from
Portland to 'Roostick."
"Quite a ways," said Calvin. "S'pose likely she's slack, hey? house
cluttered up? calicker wrapper and shoes down at the heel? that kind?"
The blue eyes flared at him. "I don't want none o' this kind o' talk!"
he said sharply. "Slack! I'd sooner eat off Katie's kitchen floor than
any other woman's parlor table that ever I see. You find me a speck o'
dust or a spot o' dirt round our house and I'll find you a blue hen."
"I see!" said Calvin. "Another fellow, is there?"
"No!" shouted the young man, and he turned savagely on Calvin. "I'd like
to know why you're sayin' this kind of thing, when you never see nor
heard of me nor my wife before."
"Well!" said Calvin comfortably. "I've been wonderin' ever since you got
in whether you was an ill-used man or a darned fool, and now I've found
out. Why, you loony, if you've got a wife like all that, why in Tunkett
are you goin' to get a bill?"
His voice rang out like a ship's trumpet. The lad shrunk down in his
seat, and his face grew dogged and set.
"We was mismated, I tell you!" he said. "She's got a temper!"
"Well, how about you?" asked Calvin. "You ain't got that red hair for
nothin', son."
"I know! I have one too," the lad admitted; "and each one stirs the
other up and makes it worse. It's no use, I tell you! We get jawin' and
the house won't hold us both, so I'm going to clear out."
"Sho!" said Calvin.
They were silent for a few moments, the young husband brooding over his
wrongs, Calvin meditating. At last he said slowly, "Young feller, I
ain't no lawyer, nor yet wishful to be; but I expect I can cure your
case."
"What do you mean?" asked the lad.
"I expect I can cure your case," Calvin repeated deliberately, "for less
money by a good sight, and more agreeable all round. Lemme see! two and
two is four, and seven times four is twenty-eight, and two more--yes,
sir! I'll undertake to cure your case for thirty cents, and do it
handsome."
He opened a drawer, and after a careful inspection took out two small
objects which he held up. "See them?" he said. "This is your article.
All Day Suckers, they're called, and well named. The candy fills the
mouth and yet don't crowd it any; the stick is to hold on by, and take
it out when necessary. Pure sugar, no glucose in it; not a mite! Pure
sugar, cream o' tartar killed, and flavored with fruit surrup. Now,
young feller, you take fourteen of them suckers. They're two cents
apiece, that's two for every day in the week. Every time you two find
you're beginnin' to jaw, in goes your sucker, and you keep it there till
you feel pleasant again. Keep that up for a week, and finish up at the
end with a Purity Kiss--fifteen cents a dozen, call it two cents apiece,
and I'll lay my next lo'd--what's that?"
A sharp rattle was heard. Both men turned round, and saw a light wagon
whirling toward them. The horse was galloping; the driver, a young woman
in a cloud of red gold hair, was urging him on with whip and voice.
"Well!" said Calvin Parks.
"Great hemlock!" cried the young man. "Katie, stop!" He leaped out over
the wheel, and set off running toward the advancing wagon. The young
woman pulled up with a jerk.
"Joe!" she cried. "Oh, Joe! come back! I--I'm sorry I bit you!"
She jumped out--over the wheel too--and the two red heads flamed
together.
Calvin gazed for a moment, then turned round with a smile.
"I guess they won't need them suckers after all!" he said. "Gitty up,
hossy!"