The Allens had gone, taking with them the baby things, which Henley had
prevailed upon them to accept. He sank into his accustomed place at home
and at the store as naturally as if he had been away only for a day. The
news of his return drew around him many of the motley ilk who made
trading and swapping both a business and an avocation. They seldom dealt
with him, to be sure, but it was a liberal education to hear his
experiences, and even better to see him actually make a deal. On his
first day at home he had bought a lame horse for the small sum of fifty
dollars, after he had delivered a free lecture about the great "American
Cruelty to Animals Association," as he called it. And, with his eyes on
the owner, he gave it as his opinion that in a more enlightened
community a man who would ride a horse in that condition would be
dragged straight to court, and maybe imprisoned for life. When the
animal was his, and the ex-owner had gone to buy a ticket to go home by
rail, Henley winked at Cahews and said: "I know how to cure that hoss's
leg. I paid two dollars to learn in Fort Worth from an Indian
hoss-doctor. Two hundred dollars wouldn't buy 'im right now."
It was the loquacious stepfather-in-law who revelled most in Henley's
sayings and doings, and he regaled his wife and Henley's with accurate
and vivid reports of them. One morning he came into the sitting-room,
where the two women sat bent over a quilt on a big, square frame, their
needles going methodically up and down.
"You mought guess one million years," he panted, as he bent over them,
that he might feast on their facial expressions, "an' not guess what Alf
Henley's gone an' done."
They raised their faces and stared, and the wizened raconteur smiled as
he stepped to the open fireplace, shifted the paper screen to one side,
carefully spat, and then, replacing it, returned to his coign of
vantage.
"I don't know, and care less," Mrs. Henley answered, though her poised
needle and steady gaze belied her words. "He's done so many fool things
in his life that I'd not be surprised if he'd gone off in a balloon."
"That's equal to sayin' you give it up." Wrinkle again applied himself
to the screen and fireplace, and returned shuffling, his tobacco-quid in
his hand. "Well, you've heard about the dime circus that was to show
here a month back, an' couldn't because all the actors hit the grit an'
left the manager to settle with the sheriff for debts that follered it
all the way from Boston?"
They had heard every detail of the matter innumerable times, and only
stared and gaped as they awaited further revelations.
"Well, Alf Henley is sole owner an' manager now," was the bomb which
exploded in Wrinkle's hands. "He's the John Robinson and P. T. Barnum of
the whole capoodle."
"You don't mean that he has actually gone off with--" began Mrs. Henley,
but was checked by the old man's smile of correction.
"Well, he ain't, to say, actually _started out_ yit," the old man
grinned. "You know he'd have to git performers, tight-rope walkers,
hoop-jumpers, bareback riders, an' the like, an' these mountain
clodhoppers ain't in practice. But I'm here to state to you two women
if he kin git clowns to furnish as much fun fer a dime and a seat
throwed in as he give that crowd this mornin' he'll be rich enough to
throw twenty-dollar gold pieces at cats in no time. I seed the whole
shootin'-match. I was in the store when the nigger boy come by the front
janglin' a bell an' totin' the red flag with a sign on it, an' Alf sent
Pomp out fer one of the circulars that had a list of the items. He
looked it over, an' then re'ched for his hat, an' me 'n him went down to
the court-house yard whar the whole thing was spread out, piled up, an'
haltered. It was like Noah's Ark washed ashore an' lyin' thar to dry.
Thar was six hosses so thin you could read through 'em without yore
specs, three big road-wagons heavy enough to haul steam-engines on, the
little, teensy pony with a bob-tail that the clown driv' in the
procession, an' the little red-an'-green streaky wagon that he rid in.
Then thar was the heavy iron den on another big road-wagon that the lion
stayed in till he starved to death, a whoppin' pile of planks that was
used for seats, an', last of all, the big canvas tent.
"The entire town an' country was on hand, nosin' about an' crackin'
jokes on the fat manager who had come up from Atlanta to attend the sale
an' was lookin' as seedy as a last year's bird's-nest. But I'm here to
tell you that when Alf Henley come stalkin' down, lookin' sorter
indifferent, like he always does when he has a notion to trade, that
crowd pulled in its horns an' waited."
"The fool!" Mrs. Henley ejaculated. "Making a public exhibition of
himself."
"Well, I've often wondered about that very thing," Wrinkle said. "I
sometimes think he tries to make folks think he is a fool to suit his
aims, an' ef he ain't a natural-born one it oughtn't to be belt agin
him. I admit I was puzzled on that point this mornin'. I stuck to his
heels, bound to see 'im through. He'd sniff at one thing an' turn away
from another as if it didn't smell right; he'd kick a pile of stuff with
contempt an' walk on, an' he grinned to beat a heathen idol at the mere
sight of the lion-cage an' pony an' cart, an' then he just squared
hisse'f around same as to say, 'Well, I'm in pore business, but I'll
jest stand here an' see if anybody will be fool enough to bid on such
truck.'
"You know Sheriff Tobe Webb is a dry-talkin' cuss, anyway, an' I had to
laff when he got up an' begun his harangue, fer all the world like a
feller in front of a side-show tryin' to drum up a crowd to see a passel
o' freaks on the inside. Tobe had the fust item led out fer
inspection--a bony hoss that tried to lie down, an' Alf spoke up an'
wanted to know if he was a stump-sucker.
"Fred Dill up an' said, 'The man that buys 'im will be the sucker,' an'
everybody laffed, Alf as big as the rest.
"'I think I know whar I could sell his hide,' he said, an' bid ten
dollars. Then somebody--or it may jest have been the show-man's
bluff--raised it to fourteen, an' then Alf went 'im a dollar more an'
got the hoss."
"Another one to feed and doctor," sighed Mrs. Henley.
"I say another," Wrinkle chuckled. "He got all six at about the same
figure. Nobody was biddin' agin 'im except old Welborne, an' he was so
mad he couldn't stand still. They say he had been countin' on havin' it
all his own way, but Alf come home an' turned his cake to dough. Next
come the three road-wagons. Some o' the farmers was interested in 'em,
but they was too heavy fer field-work, an' though Tobe mighty nigh tore
the linin' out o' his throat yellin' agin it as a plumb outrage, Alf
raked 'em in at about the cost of the bare iron in 'em.
"The next item was the lion's cage, an' a big laff started, for Fred
Dill told Alf that it was entirely too clumsy fer a baby-carriage, an' I
knowed then that my joke was goin' the rounds, an' I backed away a
little, fer I didn't like the way Alf looked. But he was still in the
game, an' he walked up to the cage an' ketched hold of the bars an'
sorter shook 'em. It had one of the same heavy wagons under it in good
condition, an' I believe Alf was tryin' to attract attention from the
wagon, for all the time Tobe was talkin' an' sayin' the cage would be a
good thing fer a man to lock his wife up in to break 'er of the
gad-about habit, Alf was examinin' the iron slats an' the bolts an'
bars. It had a big door an' wooden sides that could be tuck off or left
on, an' Dill advised Alf to buy it an' turn gypsy, an' roam about
tradin' here an' yan. But Alf got the thing at his own bid, an' sorter
sneered as he writ down the price on the scrap of paper in his hand."
"For Heaven's sake, what fool caper did he cut next?" Mrs. Henley
demanded, in a tone of impatience.
"Why, he bought the pony an' little wagon fer ten dollars, even money,
an' it was all I could do to keep the baby joke from risin' ag'in. I
could see that Dill was about to spring it, but I shook my head at 'im,
an' he kept quiet. I reckon he thought thar was no use rubbin' it in.
Then everybody got to watchin' the nigger helpers stretch out the big
tent at the sheriff's orders. It was stout, new cloth, an' it glistened
like a patch of snow in the sun, an' driv' the crowd back on all sides
in a big ring. I reckon everybody thar thought Alf surely would balk at
a thing like that, but it looked like the fun folks was pokin' at him
had got his dander up. Jim Cahews had closed the store an' come down,
an' I seed 'im nudge Alf an' heard 'im say, 'I believe I'd let that item
slide, Alf, the cloth has been cut on the bias, an' the seams are so
stout that it never could be sold by the yard.'
"'Shet up, I know what I'm about,' I heard Alf whisper, an' then he
yelled out to the sheriff, 'Put up the pile o' planks along with it;
nobody wants a' old rag as big as that.'
"The sheriff agreed, an' both lots went in as one. It was a sharp trick
of Alf's, for he had found out that a photographer was thar from Carlton
to go his limit on the tent, but lumpin' it in with the planks sorter
upset the chap's calculations, an' he didn't have the look of a man that
could figure quick. He shuck all over as he bid ten dollars, an' while
the sheriff was yellin' 'Goin'! goin'!' Alf stooped down an' felt of the
canvas. He found a clean hole that looked like it had been cut, an' run
his finger through it an' laffed an' said, 'It wouldn't do to hang it up
to dry, the wind 'ud blow it to pieces, but I kin use the planks, an'
I'll resk a dollar more.' The photographer got scared, an', while he was
stoopin' down tryin' to feel o' the tent, Alf ketched the sheriff's eye
an' said, 'I'll withdraw my bid if you don't hurry. I'm wastin' time.'
The sheriff yelled out an' told the photographer it was agin 'im, but he
look scared wuss 'n ever an' shuck his head, an' that ended it. Alf
wasn't in as big a hurry to git away as he had let on, neither. He set a
couple o' niggers to work stackin' up the planks in neat piles an'
rollin' up the tent. He sent the hosses to the pasture back o' the
store, an' told Pomp to give 'em a good rubbin' down, an' to put some o'
his famous hoss-tonic in the'r feed."
"A circus!" Mrs. Henley said, with a sniff. "A circus, and me the
daughter of a Baptist preacher."
"Well, he ain't raily goin' to put the thing on the road," Wrinkle said,
seriously. "He counts on sellin' it off piece by piece. I went back to
the store when he did. I was afeard, at the start, that he was cracked
in the upper story, but I've sorter switched around. Old Welborne come
in an' had his say about the snag Alf had at last struck in his
overeagerness to have some'n to do now that he was back, an' went out as
mad as the very devil about some'n or other. Jim an' me set down back at
the desk an' watched Alf figure up. He looked tickled, and after a while
he said:
"'Jim, I'm glad I got back. I know now that Texas ain't no place for my
talent. It's overrun with sharp-witted Jews an' keen Yankees that know
values down to a gnat's heel. But here in these mountains these yokels
git scared clean out o' the'r senses when a dollar has to change hands.
Do you know,' says he, 'that I'm out less'n two hundred this mornin',
an' at a low estimate I have got a thousand dollars' wuth o' truck?'
"'I don't know, Alf,' Jim said. 'I'm with yore judgment, as a general
thing, but not on this deal. I was lookin' at them hosses t'other day in
the court-house yard, an' the Chester brass-band come along. Now, a
average hoss,' Jim said, 'will either git scared or break an' run at a
sound like that, but three o' them things you got this mornin' struck up
a regular jig an' capered about the lot kickin' up the'r heels as if
they was in a ring jumpin' over red strips o' cloth.'
"Well, folks," old Wrinkle continued, "you kin always tell a born trader
by his not bein' in a hurry to unload, an' Alf is that way. While we all
was settin' thar Pete Hepworth come in at the front, an' while he was on
his way to us Alf said: 'You fellers hold yore tongues. That feller is
itchin' fer a deal; I had my eye on 'im at the sale.'
"Pete leaned agin the platform-scales an' talked about the weather an'
crops, an' then he said, kinder offhand, to Alf: 'I had a sort o' idea
o' biddin' on that pile o' old planks, but when the sheriff lumped 'em
in with that fine tent it let me out. I want to build me a cowhouse an'
wagon-shed.'
"'I didn't care for the _tent_,' Alf said, an' he filled his pipe from a
china bowl on the desk an' made Pomp fetch 'im a match. 'It was them
planks I was after, an' I was bound to have 'em. They are smooth,
ready-dressed, long-leaf, heart-pine boards, one an' a quarter by ten,
with the ends sawed square an' seasoned by folks settin' on 'em under
cover for three or four years--never had a nail driv' in 'em, nuther.'
"'Well, I never thought they was as good as all that,' Pete said, 'but
what are you holdin' 'em at?'
"'I hain't thought much about it,' Alf said. 'I hain't much of a hand to
jump at a trade. It railly does my eyes good to look at lumber like that
these days when the best timber you kin git is full o' sap an'
worm-holes. How would twenty-five dollars for the pile look to you?'
"'Why,' said Pete, with a funny look at me an' Jim, 'you only paid
eleven for the tent an' planks together.'
"That hain't got a thing to do with yore deal an' mine,' Alf said, an'
he turned an' axed Jim some'n about shippin' some chickens to Augusta
that Jim didn't seem to know how to answer.
"'I think it is purty steep,' Pete said. 'I've got time to build now,
an' it 'ud take a month to git an order sawed out at the mill, so I'll
have to take it'; an' as he was countin' out the cash he laffed an'
said: 'I've got an apology to make to you, Alf. Back at the sale I
remarked that you was a born idiot, but I don't believe it now. You are
a big fish amongst minnows.'
"An' when Pete had left Alf winked at us an' said, 'You fellers lie low
an' watch, an' if I don't double my money on every item I bought to-day
I'll buy new hats fer you both.'"