I
Mr. Peterson Fluker, generally called Pink, for his fondness for
as stylish dressing as he could afford, was one of that sort of
men who habitually seem busy and efficient when they are not. He
had the bustling activity often noticeable in men of his size, and
in one way and another had made up, as he believed, for being so
much smaller than most of his adult acquaintance of the male sex.
Prominent among his achievements on that line was getting married
to a woman who, among other excellent gifts, had that of being
twice as big as her husband.
“Fool who?” on the day after his marriage he had asked, with a look
at those who had often said that he was too little to have a wife.
They had a little property to begin with, a couple of hundreds of
acres, and two or three negroes apiece. Yet, except in the natural
increase of the latter, the accretions of worldly estate had been
inconsiderable till now, when their oldest child, Marann, was some
fifteen years old. These accretions had been saved and taken care
of by Mrs. Fluker, who was as staid and silent as he was mobile and
voluble.
Mr. Fluker often said that it puzzled him how it was that he made
smaller crops than most of his neighbors, when, if not always
convincing, he could generally put every one of them to silence in
discussions upon agricultural topics. This puzzle had led him to
not unfrequent ruminations in his mind as to whether or not his
vocation might lie in something higher than the mere tilling of the
ground. These ruminations had lately taken a definite direction,
and it was after several conversations which he had held with his
friend Matt Pike.
Mr. Matt Pike was a bachelor of some thirty summers, a foretime
clerk consecutively in each of the two stores of the village, but
latterly a trader on a limited scale in horses, wagons, cows, and
similar objects of commerce, and at all times a politician. His
hopes of holding office had been continually disappointed until
Mr. John Sanks became sheriff, and rewarded with a deputyship some
important special service rendered by him in the late very close
canvass. Now was a chance to rise, Mr. Pike thought. All he wanted,
he had often said, was a start. Politics, I would remark, however,
had been regarded by Mr. Pike as a means rather than an end. It
is doubtful if he hoped to become governor of the state, at least
before an advanced period in his career. His main object now was to
get money, and he believed that official position would promote him
in the line of his ambition faster than was possible to any private
station, by leading him into more extensive acquaintance with
mankind, their needs, their desires, and their caprices. A deputy
sheriff, provided that lawyers were not too indulgent in allowing
acknowledgment of service of court processes, in postponing levies
and sales, and in settlement of litigated cases, might pick up
three hundred dollars, a good sum for those times, a fact which Mr.
Pike had known and pondered long.
It happened just about then that the arrears of rent for the
village hotel had so accumulated on Mr. Spouter, the last occupant,
that the owner, an indulgent man, finally had said, what he had
been expected for years and years to say, that he could not wait
on Mr. Spouter forever and eternally. It was at this very nick, so
to speak, that Mr. Pike made to Mr. Fluker the suggestion to quit
a business so far beneath his powers, sell out, or rent out, or
tenant out, or do something else with his farm, march into town,
plant himself upon the ruins of Jacob Spouter, and begin his upward
soar.
Now Mr. Fluker had many and many a time acknowledged that he had
ambition; so one night he said to his wife:
“You see how it is here, Nervy. Farmin’ somehow don’t suit my
talons. I need to be flung more ’mong people to fetch out what’s
in me. Then thar’s Marann, which is gittin’ to be nigh on to a
growd-up woman; an’ the child need the s’iety which you ’bleeged to
acknowledge is sca’ce about here, six mile from town. Your brer Sam
can stay here an’ raise butter, chickens, eggs, pigs, an’—an’—an’
so forth. Matt Pike say he jes’ know they’s money in it, an’
special with a housekeeper keerful an’ equinomical like you.”
It is always curious the extent of influence that some men have
upon wives who are their superiors. Mrs. Fluker, in spite of
accidents, had ever set upon her husband a value that was not
recognized outside of his family. In this respect there seems a
surprising compensation in human life. But this remark I make only
in passing. Mrs. Fluker, admitting in her heart that farming was
not her husband’s forte, hoped, like a true wife, that it might be
found in the new field to which he aspired. Besides, she did not
forget that her brother Sam had said to her several times privately
that if his brer Pink wouldn’t have so many notions and would
let him alone in his management, they would all do better. She
reflected for a day or two, and then said:
“Maybe it’s best, Mr. Fluker. I’m willin’ to try it for a year,
anyhow. We can’t lose much by that. As for Matt Pike, I hain’t the
confidence in him you has. Still, he bein’ a boarder and deputy
sheriff, he might accidentally do us some good. I’ll try it for a
year providin’ you’ll fetch me the money as it’s paid in, for you
know I know how to manage that better’n you do, and you know I’ll
try to manage it and all the rest of the business for the best.”
To this provision Mr. Fluker gave consent, qualified by the claim
that he was to retain a small margin for indispensable personal
exigencies. For he contended, perhaps with justice, that no man in
the responsible position he was about to take ought to be expected
to go about, or sit about, or even lounge about, without even a
continental red in his pocket.
The new house—I say _new_ because tongue could not tell the amount
of scouring, scalding, and whitewashing that that excellent
housekeeper had done before a single stick of her furniture went
into it—the new house, I repeat, opened with six eating boarders at
ten dollars a month apiece, and two eating and sleeping at eleven,
besides Mr. Pike, who made a special contract. Transient custom
was hoped to hold its own, and that of the county people under the
deputy’s patronage and influence to be considerably enlarged.
In words and other encouragement Mr. Pike was pronounced. He could
commend honestly, and he did so cordially.
“The thing to do, Pink, is to have your prices reg’lar, and make
people pay up reg’lar. Ten dollars for eatin’, jes’ so; eleb’n for
eatin’ _an_’ sleepin’; half a dollar for dinner, jes’ so; quarter
apiece for breakfast, supper, and bed, is what I call reason’ble
bo’d. As for me, I sca’cely know how to rig’late, because, you
know, I’m a’ officer now, an’ in course I natchel _has_ to be away
sometimes an’ on expenses at ’tother places, an’ it seem like some
’lowance ought by good rights to be made for that; don’t you think
so?”
“Why, matter o’ course, Matt; what you think? I ain’t so powerful
good at figgers. Nervy is. S’posen you speak to her ’bout it.”
“Oh, that’s perfec’ unuseless, Pink. I’m a’ officer o’ the law,
Pink, an’ the law consider women—well, I may say the law, _she_
deal ’ith _men_, not women, an’ she expect her officers to
understan’ figgers, an’ if I hadn’t o’ understood figgers Mr. Sanks
wouldn’t or darsnt’ to ’p’int me his dep’ty. Me ’n’ you can fix
them terms. Now see here, reg’lar bo’d—eatin’ bo’d, I mean—is ten
dollars, an’ sleepin’ and singuil meals is ’cordin’ to the figgers
you’ve sot for ’em. Ain’t that so? Jes’ so. Now, Pink, you an’
me’ll keep a runnin’ account, you a-chargin’ for reg’lar bo’d,
an’ I a’lowin’ to myself credics for my absentees, accordin’ to
transion customers an’ singuil mealers an’ sleepers. Is that fa’r,
er is it not fa’r?”
Mr. Fluker turned his head, and after making or thinking he had
made a calculation, answered:
“That’s—that seem fa’r, Matt.”
“Cert’nly ’tis, Pink; I knowed you’d say so, an’ you know I’d never
wish to be nothin’ but fa’r ’ith people I like, like I do you an’
your wife. Let that be the understandin’, then, betwix’ us. An’
Pink, let the understandin’ be jes’ betwix’ _us_, for I’ve saw
enough o’ this world to find out that a man never makes nothin’
by makin’ a blowin’ horn o’ his business. You make the t’others
pay up spuntial, monthly. You ’n’ me can settle whensomever it’s
convenant, say three months from to-day. In course I shall talk up
for the house whensomever and wharsomever I go or stay. You know
that. An’ as for my bed,” said Mr. Pike finally, “whensomever I
ain’t here by bed-time, you welcome to put any transion person in
it, an’ also an’ likewise, when transion custom is pressin’, and
you cramped for beddin’, I’m willin’ to give it up for the time
bein’; an’ rather’n you should be cramped too bad, I’ll take my
chances somewhars else, even if I has to take a pallet at the head
o’ the sta’r-steps.”
“Nervy,” said Mr. Fluker to his wife afterwards, “Matt Pike’s a
sensibler an’ a friendlier an’ a ’commodatiner feller’n I thought.”
Then, without giving details of the contract, he mentioned merely
the willingness of their boarder to resign his bed on occasions of
pressing emergency.
“He’s talked mighty fine to me and Marann,” answered Mrs. Fluker.
“We’ll see how he holds out. One thing I do not like of his doin’,
an’ that’s the talkin’ ’bout Sim Marchman to Marann, an’ makin’
game o’ his country ways, as he call ’em. Sech as that ain’t right.”
It may be as well to explain just here that Simeon Marchman, the
person just named by Mrs. Fluker, a stout, industrious young
farmer, residing with his parents in the country near by where the
Flukers had dwelt before removing to town, had been eying Marann
for a year or two, and waiting upon her fast-ripening womanhood
with intentions that, he believed to be hidden in his own breast,
though he had taken less pains to conceal them from Marann than
from the rest of his acquaintance. Not that he had ever told her of
them in so many words, but—Oh, I need not stop here in the midst
of this narration to explain how such intentions become known, or
at least strongly suspected by girls, even those less bright than
Marann Fluker. Simeon had not cordially indorsed the movement into
town, though, of course, knowing it was none of his business, he
had never so much as hinted opposition. I would not be surprised,
also, if he reflected that there might be some selfishness in his
hostility, or at least that it was heightened by apprehensions
personal to himself.
Considering the want of experience in the new tenants, matters went
on remarkably well. Mrs. Fluker, accustomed to rise from her couch
long before the lark, managed to the satisfaction of all,—regular
boarders, single-meal takers, and transient people. Marann went
to the village school, her mother dressing her, though with
prudent economy, as neatly and almost as tastefully as any of her
schoolmates; while, as to study, deportment, and general progress,
there was not a girl in the whole school to beat her, I don’t care
who she was.