J. RUFUS SEEKS FOR PROFITABLE INVESTMENT IN
THE COUNTRY
A rattling old carryall, drawn by one knobby yellow horse and driven
by a decrepit patriarch of sixty, stopped with a groan and a creak and
a final rattle at the door of the weather-beaten Atlas Hotel, and a
grocery "drummer," a beardless youth with pink cheeks, jumped hastily
out and rushed into the clean but bare little office, followed as
hastily by a grizzled veteran of the road who sold dry-goods and
notions and wore gaudy young clothes. Wallingford emerged much more
slowly, as became his ponderous size. He was dressed in a green summer
suit of ineffable fabric, wore green low shoes, green silk hose, a
green felt hat, and a green bow tie, below which, in the bosom of his
green silk negligee shirt, glowed a huge diamond. Richness and bigness
were the very essence of him, and the aged driver, recognizing true
worth when he saw it, gave a jerk at his dust-crusted old cap as he
addressed him.
"'Tain't no use to hurry now," he quavered. "Them other two'll have
the good rooms."
J. Rufus, from natural impulse, followed in immediately. There was no
one behind the little counter, but the young grocery drummer, having
hastily inspected the sparse entries of the preceding days, had
registered himself for room two.
"There ain't a single transient in the house, Billy," he said, turning
to the dry-goods and notion salesman, "so I'll just put you down for
number three."
A buxom young woman came out of the adjoining dining-room, wiping her
red hands and arms upon a water-spattered gingham apron.
"Three of us, Molly," said the older salesman. "Hustle up the dinner,"
and out of pure friendliness he started to chuck her under the chin,
whereat she wheeled and slapped him a resounding whack and ran away
laughing. This vigorous retort, being entirely expected, was passed
without comment, and the two commercial travelers took off their coats
to "wash up" at the tin basins in the corner. The aged driver,
intercepting them to collect, came in to Wallingford, who, noting the
custom, had already subscribed his name with a flourish upon the
register.
"Two shillin'," quavered the ancient one at his elbow.
Wallingford gave him twice the amount he asked for, and the old man
was galvanized into instant fluttering activity. He darted out of the
door with surprising agility, and returned with two pieces of
Wallingford's bright and shining luggage, which he surveyed reverently
as he placed them in front of the counter. Two more pieces, equally
rich, he brought, and on the third trip the proprietor's son, a brawny
boy of fifteen, clad in hickory shirt, blue overalls and plow shoes,
and with his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, helped him in with
Wallingford's big sole-leather dresser trunk.
"Gee!" said the boy to Wallingford, beaming upon this array of
expensive baggage. "What do you sell?"
"White elephants, son," replied Wallingford, so gravely that the boy
took two minutes to decide that the rich stranger was "fresh."
It was not until dinner was called that any one displayed the least
interest in the register, and then the proprietor, a tall, cowboy-like
man, with drooping mustaches and a weather-browned face, came in with
his trousers tucked into his top boots.
"Hello, Joe! Hello, Billy!" he said, nodding to the two traveling men.
"How's business?"
"Rotten!" returned the grocery drummer.
"Fine!" asserted the dry-goods salesman. "Our house hasn't done so
much business in five years." _Sotto voce_, he turned to the young
drummer. "Never give it away that business is on the bum," he said out
of his years of experience.
The tall proprietor examined the impressively groomed Wallingford and
his impressive luggage with some curiosity, and went behind the little
counter to inspect the register.
"I'd like two rooms and a bath," said Wallingford, as the other looked
up thoughtfully.
"Two! Two?" repeated Jim Ranger, looking about the room. "Some ladies
with you? Mother or sister, maybe?"
"No," answered Wallingford, smiling. "A bedroom and sitting-room and a
bath for myself."
"Sitting-room?" repeated the proprietor. "You know, you can sit in
this office till the 'leven-ten's in every night, and then the
parlor's--" He hesitated, and, seeing the unresponsive look upon his
guest's face, he added hastily: "Oh, well, I reckon I can fix it. We
can move a bed out of number five, and I'll have the bath-tub and the
water sent up as soon as you need it. This is wash-day, you know, and
they've got the rinse water in it. I reckon you won't want it before
to-night, though."
"No," said J. Rufus quietly, and sighed.
Immediately after lunch, J. Rufus, inquiring again for the proprietor,
was told by Molly that he was in the barn, indicating its direction
with a vague wave of her thumb. Wallingford went out to the enormous
red barn, its timbers as firm as those of the hotel were flimsy, its
lines as rigidly perpendicular as those of the hotel were out of
plumb, its doors and windows as square-angled as those of the hotel
were askew. Across its wide front doors, opening upon the same wide,
cracked old stone sidewalk as the hotel, was a big sign kept fresh and
bright: "J. H. Ranger, Livery and Sales Stable." Here Wallingford
found the proprietor and the brawny boy in the middle of the wide barn
floor, in earnest consultation over the bruised hock of a fine, big,
draft horse.
"I'd like to get a good team and a driver for this afternoon,"
observed Wallingford.
"You've come to the right place," declared Jim Ranger heartily, and
when he straightened up he no longer looked awkward and out of place,
as he had in the hotel office, but seemed a graceful part of the
surrounding picture. "Bob, get out that little sorrel team and hitch
it up to the new buggy for the gentleman," and as Bob sprang away with
alacrity he turned to Wallingford. "They're not much to look at, that
sorrel team," he explained, "but they can go like a couple of rats,
all day, at a good, steady clip, up hill and down."
"Fine," said Wallingford, who was somewhat of a connoisseur in horses,
and he surveyed the under-sized, lithe-limbed, rough-coated sorrels
with approval as they were brought stamping out of their stalls,
though, as he climbed into his place, he regretted that they were not
more in keeping with the handsome buggy.
"Which way?" asked Bob, as he gathered up the reins.
"The country just outside of town, in all directions," directed
Wallingford briefly.
"All right," said Bob with a click to the little horses, and
clattering out of the door they turned to the right, away from the
broad, shady street of old maples, and were almost at once in the
country. For a mile or two there were gently undulating farms of rich,
black loam, and these Wallingford inspected in careful turn.
"Seems to be good land about here," he observed.
"Best in the world," said the youngster. "Was you thinkin' of buyin'
a farm?"
Wallingford smiled and shook his head.
"I scarcely think so," he replied.
"'Twouldn't do you any good if you was," retorted Bob. "There ain't a
farm hereabouts for sale."
To prove it, he pointed out the extent of each farm, gave the name of
its owner and told how much he was worth, to all of which Wallingford
listened most intently.
They had been driving to the east, but, coming to a fork in the road
leading to the north, Bob took that turning without instructions,
still chattering his local Bradstreet. Along this road was again rich
and smiling farm land, but Wallingford, seeming throughout the drive
to be eagerly searching for something, evinced a new interest when
they came to a grove of slender, straight-trunked trees.
"Old man Mescott gets a hundred gallons of maple syrup out of that
grove every spring," said Bob in answer to a query. "He gets two
dollars a gallon, then he stays drunk till plumb the middle of summer.
Was you thinkin' of buyin' a maple grove?"
Wallingford looked back in thoughtful speculation, but ended by
shaking his head, more to himself than to Bob.
They passed through a woods.
"Good timber land, that," suggested Wallingford.
"Good timber land! I should say it was," said Bob. "There's nigh a
hundred big walnut trees back in there a ways, to say nothing of
all the fine oak an' hick'ry, but old man Cass won't touch an ax
to nothing but underbrush. He says he's goin' to will 'em to his
grandchildren, and by the time they grow up it'll be worth their
weight in money. Was you thinkin' of buyin' some timber land?"
Wallingford again hesitated over that question, but finally stated
that he was not.
"Here's the north road back into town," said Bob, as they came to a
cross-road, and as they gained the top of the elevation they could
look down and see, a mile or so away, the little town, its gray roofs
and red chimneys peeping from out its sheltering of green leaves.
Just beyond the intersection the side of the hill had been cut away,
and clean, loose gravel lay there in a broad mass. Wallingford had Bob
halt while he inspected this.
"Good gravel bank," he commented.
"I reckon it is," agreed Bob. "They come clear over from Highville and
from Appletown and even from Jenkins Corners to get that gravel, and
Tom Kerrick dresses his whole family off of that bank. He wouldn't
sell it for any money. Was you thinkin' of buying a gravel bank,
mister?"
Instead of replying Wallingford indicated another broken hillside
farther on, where shale rock had slipped loosely down, like a
disintegrated slate roof, to a seeping hollow.
"Is that stone good for anything?" he asked.
"Nothing in the world," replied Bob. "It rots right up. If you was
thinkin' of buyin' a stone quarry now, there's a fine one up the north
road yonder."
Wallingford laughed and shook his head.
"I wasn't thinking of buying a stone quarry," said he.
Bob Ranger looked shrewdly and yet half-impatiently at the big young
man by his side.
"You're thinkin' o' buyin' somethin'; I know that," he opined.
Wallingford chuckled and dropped his big, plump hand on the other's
shoulder.
"Elephant hay only," he kindly explained; "just elephant hay for white
elephants," whereat the inquisitive Bob, mumbling something to himself
about "freshness," relapsed into hurt silence.
In this silence they passed far to the northwest of the town, and a
much-gullied highway led them down toward the broader west road. Here
again, as they headed straight in to Blakeville with their backs to
the descending sun, were gently undulating farm lands, but about half
a mile out of town they came to a wide expanse of black swamp, where
cat-tails and calamus held sole possession. Before this swamp
Wallingford paused in long and thoughtful contemplation.
"Who owns this?" he asked.
"Jonas Bubble," answered Bob, recovering cheerfully from his late
rebuff. "Gosh! He's the richest man in these parts. Owns three hundred
acres of this fine farmin' land we just passed, owns the mill down
yander by the railroad station, has a hide and seed and implement
store up-town, and lives in the finest house anywhere around
Blakeville; regular city house. That's it, on ahead. Was you thinkin'
o' buyin' some swamp land?"
To this Wallingford made no reply. He was gazing backward over that
useless little valley, its black waters now turned velvet crimson as
they caught the slant of the reddening sun.
"Here's Jonas Bubble's house," said Bob presently.
It was the first house outside of Blakeville--a big, square,
pretentious-looking place, with a two-story porch in front and a
quantity of scroll-sawed ornaments on eaves and gables and ridges, on
windows and doors and cornices, and with bright brass lightning-rods
projecting upward from every prominence. At the gate stood,
bare-headed, a dark-haired and strikingly pretty girl, with a rarely
olive-tinted complexion, through which, upon her oval cheeks, glowed a
clear, roseate under-tint. She was fairly slender, but well rounded,
too, and very graceful.
"Hello, Fannie!" called Bob, with a jerk at his flat-brimmed straw
hat.
"Hello, Bob!" she replied with equal heartiness, her bright eyes,
however, fixed in inquiring curiosity upon the stranger.
"That's Jonas Bubble's girl," explained Bob, as they drove on. "She's
a good looker, but she won't spoon."
Wallingford, grinning over the fatal defect in Fannie Bubble, looked
back at the girl.
"She would make a Casino chorus look like a row of Hallowe'en
confectionery junk," he admitted.
"Fannie, come right in here and get supper!" shrilled a harsh voice,
and in the doorway of the Bubble homestead they saw an overly-plump
figure in a green silk dress.
"Gosh!" said Bob, and hit one of the little sorrel horses a vindictive
clip. "That's Fannie's stepmother. Jonas Bubble married his hired girl
two years ago, and now they don't hire any. She makes Fannie do the
work."