|THAT afternoon, while the ladies were taking what Hoag called their
“sy-esta” in their rooms, he entertained the guest, who was a dapper
young man exquisitely dressed and carefully groomed, even to the
daintiest of waxed mustaches. The two men were smoking in the big, cool
parlor and chatting agreeably.
“Well, I am not going to refuse the title.” Peterson laughed in a
pleasurable way after Hoag had made a bald jest about the honor recently
conferred upon him. “I am no born idiot, Mr. Hoag. I know some folks
sort of poke fun at the new list of Georgia colonels after every
gubernatorial race; but even a handle to a fellow's name like that helps
now and then. Take Colonel Pangle there in Atlanta, our big criminal
lawyer, you know. Why, he wasn't in the war; he never fired a shot or
dodged a ball. He organized a little local military company in his home
town. I don't reckon he had more than thirty men at any time, and
his rank, at the best wouldn't have been above captain; but he was a
dignified-looking fellow with a heavy mustache and goatee, and they
called him Colonel on the spot, and when he moved to Atlanta the
title followed him. The boys at the bank were disposed to joke when my
commission came--saluting me like a bunch of jumping-jacks; but you bet
I cut it out. Think little of yourself, and the world will do the same.'
That's my motto. You noticed how nice the papers spoke about it, didn't
you? Well, I stand in with the reporters. They are my political friends;
we take a drink together now and then, and they know how I look at such
things. I am hitting the bull's eye down there in that burg, Mr. Hoag,
just as you've hit it here. We are two of a kind. It doesn't take much
gray matter to succeed among these slow, ante-bellum leave-overs here in
the South.”
Hoag laughed heartily. “Oh, you are all right,” he said. “I've had my
eye on you ever since you started out. As the sayin' is, you could make
money on a rock in the middle of the ocean.”
Peterson's features settled into rigidity suddenly, and he exhaled a
tentative breath, as he held his cigar between his fingers and leaned
toward his host. “As certain as I am about men, business deals, and
politics, Mr. Hoag, I'm going to admit to you that I'm a country
school-teacher--a knot on a log--when it comes to handling a woman.
Don't you reckon every fellow is that way that is kind o' submerged, so
to speak, in the affairs of the business world? I know I am a regular
stick, and I don't know how to help myself.”
“I reckon you are talkin' about Eth',” Hoag said, with more bluntness
than a diplomat would have employed. “At least, I've wondered why you
an' her both seem so offish. I don't reckon you come all the way up here
on a holiday like this to talk business to _me_, an' as for Eth'--well,
I can't make 'er out, that's all; an' what's the use to try? A woman is
hard to understand when she is willin' to be understood, an' a devil to
fathom when she ain't. Folks tell me some high-strung gals would ruther
die than let a man know they are gone on 'im.”
“I know,” Peterson replied. “I used to size Miss Ethel up that way down
home among the other girls; but this morning, when me'n her strolled
down to the spring, it looked to me as if she didn't want to talk about
anything but books--an' books that I've never heard about to boot. She
had a thick one under her arm and I peeped in it. I think it was by
Cato--no, that is the name of your stable-boy, isn't it? Oh, yes, now
I remember; it was Plato, Plato. He was one of the old-time fellows,
wasn't he--before the Revolution, anyway?”
“Hanged if I know.” Hoag shrugged his shoulders as if the question were
a disagreeable incubus suddenly fastened upon him. “I don't know any
more'n a rabbit. I set one night an' listened to Paul Rundel an' her
talkin' on the veranda an' I hardly understood one word in five. That
fellow is the damnedest chap I ever run across.”
“Is he the man you told me about coming home to give himself up?”
“Yes; an' I've had 'im managin' for me ever since. He's a wheel-hoss.
He's doubled my income; he's as keen as a brier; knows how to manage
laborin' men. They think the sun rises an' sets in 'im. He don't indorse
no church in particular, an' yet the women say he's religious. Men that
was too triflin' to draw the breath o' life under me work like puffin'
steam-engines for him.”
“And he sits around at odd times and talks books?” Peterson said, a
faultfinding frown on his face. “That's the way he seems to get his
relaxation,” Hoag returned. “Well, I don't care how religious he is.
Sometimes that helps. I had a little crossroads store away back in my
early day an' I didn't have time to manage it. I kept hirin' fellows to
run it, an' every one I got would soak me--steal money an' goods so thar
wasn't a sign o' profit. But one day a misfit parson come along. He had
failed to make good. He was tongue-tied an' he stuttered so bad that he
made the mourners laugh an' had to quit preachin'. I gave him the job,
an' it was the best deal I ever made. The fellow was so honest that he
wouldn't use a postage-stamp for any private purpose, or take a chaw o'
tobacco, without enterin' it on his account. He kept a big Bible on the
counter, an' so many o' his sort hung around that the store looked like
a Salvation headquarters; but the gang bought plenty o' goods an' paid
cash. I never forgot that experience, an' when I saw the kind o' man
Paul had got to be I raked 'im in.”
“You say he--sometimes talks to Miss Ethel?” Peterson asked, the flicker
of vague rebellion in his eyes.
“Oh yes,” Hoag answered, indifferently. “She's been powerfully worried
over Jennie's death, an' Paul, somehow, seems to brace her up with his
odd views in regard to a happy land. Maybe”--Hoag hesitated, and then
pursued more confidently--“maybe if you sorter talked a little on that
line yourself it would catch her fancy. Anything is fair in love an' war
when a woman is clean upset like Eth' is.”
“I believe in religion,” the banker declared, quite gravely. “I always
have a good word for it. I don't believe this world could get along
without it. All of us at the bank are in some church or other. I'm a
Baptist, you know; all my folks are of that persuasion. And my church
has made me it's treasurer. First and last our bank handles a pile of
its funds. If the heathen have to wait for it sometimes we get the
interest on it. But, say, Mr. Hoag, I'm sort o' worried over this
thing--I mean about this queer duck you've got working for you.”
“Well, don't let that bother you.” Hoag filled the awkward pause with a
soft, satisfied chuckle. “Eth' understands what I want, and so does her
ma. Both of 'em know I'd never give in to her marryin' such a--why,
he belongs to the lowest stock this country ever produced--as nigh
dirt-eaters as any folks you ever saw. He's picked up some learnin'
out West, an' has got brains an' pluck; but no niece o' mine could tie
herself to a bunch o' folks like that. Humph, I say--well, I reckon
not! He'd not have the cheek to think of it. You leave the affair in my
hands. I won't push matters now, but I will put in my oar at the right
time.”
“Well, I don't want no woman _coerced_.” Peterson brightened even as he
protested. “I don't want that exactly, but Miss Ethel is the girl
I've been looking for. I can't get her out of my mind. She would be an
ornament and a help to any rising man. I ought to marry; there is no
sort of doubt on that line, and though I might look the field over
she--well, she simply fills the bill, that's all. I'm going to erect a
fine home on Peachtree Street, and I want her to preside over it.”
“An' I want a place to stop when I run down thar,” Hoag laughed. “You
leave it to me.”