_The Mortgage Comes Due._
On the first of October—at least so they said back at The Gore—Nick
Perkins was to take over as his own the Cameron farms at The Front.
Since the flight of Barbara early in September Perkins had patrolled
the roadway almost daily, surveying from his wagon, as was his custom,
the home of Laughing Donald. Then continuing his round of inspection,
he would ride along past the farm at The Nole. There at the closed
gate, mute but defiant, guarding the house like a faithful dumb animal
in the absence of his master, Perkins found Andy’s Dan each time that
he passed.
The cool evenings of the approaching Autumn had broken up the meetings
of the Gossip Club before the smithy, but the depression weighing upon
the sympathizers of their luckless neighbors at The Front was like the
ominous quiet preceding a storm which leaves disaster and despair in
its wake.
Angus Ferguson had frequently lent a helping hand in the putting
away of the Winter’s supply up at Laughing Donald’s, and of late the
silence existing between Davy the blacksmith and Bill Blakely, and
their intense thoughtfulness whenever they met at the shop, was proof
positive to the observer that they understood that the responsibility
of averting the approaching trouble to their neighbor—which was also an
indignity aimed at the clans at The Front—devolved wholly upon them. As
the days passed the confident look on the face of Perkins so asserted
itself that at length while passing the shop he stared into the
blackness of the open door with the insinuating smile of the hypocrite.
Davy watched him from the grimy window nearest the forge, and by one of
his severe quieting looks he persuaded Bill Blakely to let him drive on
unmolested. After Perkins and his cream-colored nag had disappeared
up the roadway along The Front, Bill walked uneasily around the shop,
kicking about the floor the loose horse-shoes and fire tongs lying
at the foot of the anvil. Davy glanced at his friend over the steel
rims of his spectacles, awaiting an expression on the subject each had
silently argued for weeks, as he rounded the while on the anvil’s arm
the curve of a shoe to fit the farm horse lazily resting in the corner.
During the last minute before leaving Davy, the frowning wrinkles in
the face and forehead of Old Bill had disappeared, and encountering
the smith as he carried in the tongs, grasping by the red hot toe cork
the shoe to fit to the mare in the corner, his lips were copiously
moistened from the weed to which he was a pronounced slave. His goatee
was moving rapidly up and down, and Davy halted, for he knew a decision
had been reached.
“To-morrow is the last day, Davy,” said Bill. “I’ll be on my way to
the town in the morning. If there’s no news from Andy Cameron it won’t
take you long to tell it to me when I’m passing.” Then he looked Davy
straight in the eye, winked his own blue eyes a few times, drew out
from his trousers pocket the plug of chewing tobacco, and was gone in
an instant. Davy made no remark to the neighbor who was the onlooker at
this little episode, the termination of a month of silent conferences
held between these two men, sturdy types of rural loyalty.
“I thought Bill would do it,” mused the smith to himself. “He’s got
the heart, and a whole lot of other things that the people round here
don’t know much about. But Bill knows I know it, and that’s why he’s
been a-hanging around here a-wantin’ of me to say something. But I
knowed he’d say it all right,” and in his pleasure Davy hammered the
nail-clinches with double energy into the hoofs of the docile mare.
Next morning, before the rays of the Autumn sun had changed the
whiteness of the hoar frost, shining like a coat of silver upon the
shingled roofs of the buildings, and covering with a mantel of gray the
green shrubbery and grass by the roadside, the smith unlocked the door
to his place, and stepped within its darkness. At the same early hour,
coming along by the cheese factory, down the side hill and through
the hollow, then over the plank bridge which crossed the whey-tainted
creek, the innocent cause of so much contention, now past the store at
the four corners, steadily there sounded in the early morning quiet the
echoing thump, thump, thump of the tread of Old Bill’s cowhide boots
on the hard roadbed. Davy recognized the step as it came nearer. Now
it was past the wheelwright’s place—he could see his old friend in the
roadway.
“He’s not a-goin’ to stop,” thought Davy, but when nearly up to the
rise of ground just to the west of the shop, Bill half turned, and
with his hands deep into his trousers pockets, the peak of his faded
cloth cap pushed to one side, he stood half listening, half looking
for a sign from Davy. Anticipating the man, the smith had in his
characteristic way upon critical moments thrust his head around the
side of the open door, and with a nod motioned Bill onward. There was
no word from Cameron.
Later in the day, driving along the road which turned at the four
corners into that which passed the smithy, was the familiar sight of
Nick Perkins and his bob-tailed horse. He sat as usual upon the edge
of the seat, his disengaged arm grasping the brace which formed its
back. He had put on his Sunday coat, and as he passed the door of the
shop Davy could see from his window by the forge the insolent smile of
triumph which Perkins cast in his direction.
“When he meets Bill Blakely up there at the lawyer’s,” thought Davy,
“perhaps he’ll change that smile.”
[Illustration]