"Jim, how's your courting getting on?" Henley asked his clerk, half
teasingly, one sultry afternoon, as the two were finishing a game of
checkers on a board from which the squares were almost obliterated by
the constant sliding of the black and white pants-buttons which were
used for checkers.
"Don't ask me, Alf," Cahews answered, with a sickly smile. "I'm afraid
she's too much for me. We ain't a bit nigher the altar than we was a
year ago when I begun. Sometimes I think she is willing, and then ag'in
I don't."
"I kinder thought you looked worried the last time you took her to
ride," said Henley, sympathetically. "I felt sorry for you. She looked
mighty chipper in her finery as you whisked by, but you was down in the
mouth. Looked like you was on duty, and that was all."
"Somehow I don't much blame her," Cahews sighed, "but it looks to me
like she is having too good a time running here and there to want to
settle down. Sometimes I git blue and think she is just holding me as a
safe thing to land on while she looks the field over. I have to stay
here and attend to business and see her gallivanting in her ruffles and
flounces with every drummer and lightning-rod agent that comes along."
"Maybe you ought to sorter lay down the law, at least on that particular
point," Henley submitted, delicately. "I've heard my step-daddy-in-law
say that a woman was born to be commanded, and when they ain't they hop
to t'other extreme and just loll about in their abuse of a feller's
good-nature. I don't know--that's the old man's view. You might give out
a decided order or two, Jim, and see how--"
"Not to a woman you are tryin' to marry," said the clerk, quite firmly.
"Sech a thing might be done to an army of soldiers or a red-handed mob
at a lynchin'-bee, but not to a gal that makes you feel like you are
sinking down in a mire whenever she looks you in the eyes. No, Alf, not
to a gal as purty and sweet as a bunch of roses, and that knows it, and
is in the habit o' being told of it as regular as eatin' and sleepin'. A
gal like that sort o' feels 'er oats, as the feller said. She knows
she's the stuff, and she loves to be told of it as much as a cat loves
to sleep in the sun."
"Well, I'll be dadblamed if I'd tag after her without _some_ substantial
hope," Henley opined, wisely. "Life is long and life is earnest, and
beauty is only skin deep, anyways. It seems to me--_now_, at least--that
if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the _solid_
qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd
study her character, her pluck under trying circumstances, her industry,
and her all-round good-nature. The shape and face and furbelows,
eyebrows and color of bangs, would be the last consideration."
"I never hear that from any but married men," Jim said. "They sing that
song till they bury their wives, and then they turn to boys again and
pick the youngest and prettiest they can lay their hands on."
"I was just thinking, Jim"--Henley seemed unwilling to combat the last
assertion. His eyes rested thoughtfully on a sunny spot before the open
door--"you see, I've got a little neighbor that--"
"I know--Dixie Hart! I know who you mean," the clerk broke in. "She's
all wool and a yard wide, but I never run across her till after I'd got
in with old man Hardcastle's daughter. I wouldn't talk to just any stray
person this away, Alf, but me and you was boys together, and you've
always been my friend. She's got me, Alf--I don't exactly know how--but
she could crook her little finger at me and I'd make for her side--yes,
sir, I would, through flame and smoke, if the world was coming to an
end."
The talk had grown serious; there was a moist gleam in Cahew's blue
eyes, and he snuffed as if he had a cold. Henley was glad of the
interruption brought about by the arrival of a stranger who entered the
front door and came back to them with swift, steady strides. He was fat,
middle-aged, short, had a round, smooth face, and in removing his straw
hat to fan his pink brow he disclosed a very bald head.
"I don't know whether you gentlemen are in need of anything in my line,"
he said, as he drew a big book of illustrations from beneath his arm and
opened it on Henley's desk. "But I was givin' yore town and vicinity the
one and only chance of its life to git the only true and artistic thing
in marble. I'm agent for the Adamantyne Tombstone Company, of Tennessee.
We own the only quarry of snow-white, non-grit, pristyne Parian rock on
this side of the blue ocean, and we have in our employ the best and most
world-renowned chisel-artists that ever breathed the spark of life into
inanimate matter. Now, just set where you are, gentlemen--don't
move--and I'll show you a beauty--a tombstone that will make a man want
to die--if he's able to pay the price."
He held his book of illustrations open before Henley, whose eyes were
twinkling mischievously as they rested on his clerk.
"I'm not in the market," he said, without a smile. "I wouldn't buy any
but a second-handed one, and then it would have to be so cheap that a
dead man would kick it off of his grave in disgust. You've got in the
wrong box. If you'll look about amongst the junk I've got in my
back-yard you may find one or two lying about."
"I see you've got a streak of fun in you," the agent said,
good-naturedly, and at this instant old Jason Wrinkle entered and
sauntered back to the group. He seemed to recognize the stranger, for
the two exchanged nods of greeting. "I'm still at it, you see," the
salesman said. "I'm going to give all a chance. How about you, sir?" and
he turned to Cahews. "I may find you serious, if this man ain't. Death
is beautiful when it is properly looked at and provided for."
"I don't need anything in that line," Cahews said, with a flush.
"You _might_, Jim," Henley broke in, with a grin, "if you don't git
cured of that complaint you was telling me about just now," and Henley
winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of
his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell
you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews,
"none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a
rich old codger across the way--Mr. Silas Welborne--who will trade if
you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags
on 'em. You might have to talk to him all the evening, and even follow
him home, but you'll sell him if you understand your business. He's
powerful soft-hearted, for one thing, and if you'll tell him a tale or
two in the eloquent tongue you was rolling off just now he'll place a
dandy order. I'll give you that as a pointer."
"Well, I'm much obliged to you, sir, and thank you kindly," the agent
said, as he closed his book. "I'll look him up. I'm doing a big
business here. Your people don't seem to have had a chance to invest in
my line in no telling how long. Good-day."
"Good-day," Henley echoed, and he endeavored to hide the mischievous
smile that was playing about his mouth. In a chuckling undertone he said
to Wrinkle and Cahews: "I'd give a pretty to see this oily-tongued chap
holding down that crusty old miser. A tombstone is the last thing on
earth that Welborne would want to think about or talk about. I'd love to
be there and see 'em meet."
Cahews laughed and sauntered toward the front, and old Wrinkle sat down
in the chair just vacated and tilted it back against the door-jamb.
"That is a sorter good joke," he said, his small eyes on Henley,
"considering the man you mean it for, but as I stood thar hearin' you
concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this
self-same peddler had got off on you you'd not be exactly in the mood
for fun--at least not in the grave-rock line."
"What joke are you talking about?" Henley asked, incredulously, his face
falling into seriousness. "I have never laid eyes on this chap before."
"I reckon not, but you'll know him the next time you see him; I'll be
bound you do, even if you are a mile down the road an' he's round the
bend with his back turned to you. The truth is, I just followed him down
here to see who he'd strike next. He's been to our house, Alf. He slid
in there just after you come off, and set on the porch and begun his
palaver. He has a different way with women than he has with men. He
seems to know that women are soft on some lines, and chiefly on
preachin' and buryin'. He'd picked up a list of folks round about here
that had lost kin, and he had me and Jane down on it on account of Dick.
Now, it seems that when he gits to a place he goes to the graveyard and
looks for stones to tally with his dead list, and when he don't find any
he makes a note of it; so, you see, havin' Dick's name down, an' not
knowin' the full particulars, he hunted us up, thinkin' we was
unsupplied in his line. So, you see, that's why he made sech a leech of
hisse'f on our porch."
"Huh, I see," Henley frowned--"I see."
"I can't begin to describe all the chap done or said," Wrinkle resumed.
"He riz and walked and ranted, an' prayed an' sung an' mighty nigh
called up mourners. I thought them two women would bust out cryin' once
or twice, but they belt in tiptop through the hottest of the wrangle.
Then I thought I'd put a stop to it, and I up and told him, I did, that
he'd made a mistake, an' that we didn't need a thing of the sort--that
Dick's body never was recovered, and so on. Then what do you think? The
skunk was actually flabbergasted, and didn't know what to say. But he
was game, and knowed thar was some way out of his trouble. He said,
'Wait a minute--don't bother me!' an' he shet his eyes tight, an' set
thar with his head hangin' down for fully five minutes. Then he looked
up an' said, 'I was jest tryin' to recall the good lady's name that had
the same trouble, pine blank, as your'n, but it slips me somehow.' An'
with that he said it was the custom all over civilized Christendom, in
such cases as our'n, to erect a suitable monument jest the same, havin'
a plot the right length an' width set aside, with both head and foot
rock, and, if a sermon hadn't been preached already, one ought to be on
the day the stone was put in place an' consecrated. I 'lowed sure them
women would see how plumb silly it was, but they listened like they was
gittin' the only directions to the Golden Shore, and begun to look at
the pictures in his book like they thought the skunk was savin' 'em from
death, destruction, an' disgrace."
"You don't mean to tell me they actually went and ordered--" Henley
began, but his voice trailed away into indistinctness. He could only
stare at his tormentor hopelessly.
"Only a little one fur five hundred dollars," Wrinkle said, with evident
enjoyment. "They had a lots o' trouble pickin' out the design amongst
all the doves, broke-off pillars, seraphims, an' angels, but they
finally got what they wanted. Not a tear was shed, if you'd stood off a
few feet, out o' earshot, you couldn't 'a' told but what they was
pickin' out a pattern fer a weddin'-dress or buyin' tickets fer a
side-show. After they got under headway I couldn't say anything--they
had sech a solemn way about it, and then I couldn't help but be fair and
think if I'd been in Dick's place they would have gone through exactly
the same antics, an' been jest as liberal in showing due respect. Hettie
says it is all to come out of her own money that she had when she
married you. She was particular to mention the fact, and I think that
showed a sensible streak, for a fool would know you oughtn't to be
expected to stand sech expense, and so long after you took her, and that
being a thing that would naturally belong to her past career, too. After
the agent had gone off I set thar, an' Hettie told me what she was goin'
to do. She don't intend to spare expense to do the thing plumb right.
She's goin' to send away off for a high-priced reverential orator to
give the discourse, an' intends to have evergreens hung all over the
church. I don't know whether she designs to have all the business houses
in Chester closed that day, but she'd naturally expect you and Jim to
shet up an' take it in."
"So this is the joke you said that man had got off on me, is it?" Henley
snapped out, irritably.
"Well, I reckon it mought not appear exactly in the same light to you,
Alf," answered Wrinkle, "as it would to somebody who'd be more inclined
to laugh over a thing of the sort. You was gettin' off what you called
a good one on old Tight-fist just now by puttin' this chap on his track,
and I reckon you'd have no call to git mad if Welborne made it tit for
tat an' fired back at you. You wouldn't be justified in killin' 'im, you
know, if he was to take a notion to send you a big bouquet o' flowers
out o' his gyarden all tied up in black ribbon with a cyard sayin' he's
sorry to hear of the sad loss in yore family, an'--"
"Ah, you make me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out,
angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to
witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to be away several months."
"So I've heard," Wrinkle said, a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be
missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have
been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all
hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin'
the weddin'-clothes bought by her second, but it's a new _wrinkle_ on
me, an' I hain't makin' what you mought call a pun, nuther."
Abruptly leaving the old man, Henley joined his clerk at the front.
"I get so mad at that old chap sometimes I could kick him," he said, in
an angry undertone. "Nothing under the sun is sacred to him."
"He's gettin' old and childish," Cahews answered. "I sorter love to hear
'im chatter. Some o' the things he says about folks and their
peculiarities sound powerful funny."
"Well, they don't to me," burst from Henley, "and I'll tell you another
thing, Jim--enough of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away--" but
Wrinkle had approached, and, passing behind the counter, he was
tiptoeing that he might reach a candy-jar on the top shelf.
"Looks like I'm about yore only candy customer, Jim," he said to
Cahews. "Thar hain't been a stick took out o' this jar sence I was here
Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot
if I was you. This is gettin' dry and crumbly. I can suck wind through a
stick the same as a pipe-stem."