WHEREIN BLAKEVILLE HAS OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME
A GREAT ART CENTER
The next morning Wallingford requisitioned the services of Bob and the
little sorrel team again, and drove out to Jonas Bubble's swamp.
Arrived there he climbed the fence, and, taking a sliver of fence rail
with him, gravely prodded into the edge of the swamp in various
places, hauling it up in each case dripping with viscid black mud,
which he examined with the most minute care, dropping tiny drops upon
the backs of clean cards and spreading them out smoothly with the tip
of his finger, while he looked up into the sky inquiringly, not one
gesture of his conduct lost upon the curious Bob.
When he climbed back into the buggy, Bob, finding it impossible longer
to restrain his quivering curiosity, asked him:
"What's it good for?"
"I can't tell you just yet," said Wallingford kindly, "but if it is
what I think it is, Bob, I've made a great discovery, one that I am
sure will not only increase my wealth but add greatly to the riches of
Blakeville. Do you know where I could find Jonas Bubble at this hour?"
"Down at the mill, sure."
"Drive down there."
As they drove past Jonas Bubble's house they saw Miss Fannie on the
back porch, in an old wrapper, peeling potatoes, and heard the sharp
voice of the second Mrs. Bubble scolding her.
"Say," said Bob, "if that old rip was my stepmother I'd poke her
head-first into that swamp back yonder."
Wallingford shook his head.
"She'd turn it black," he gravely objected.
"Why, it is black," protested Bob, opening his eyes in bewilderment.
In reply to this Wallingford merely chuckled. Bob, regarding him in
perplexity for a while, suddenly saw that this was a joke, and on the
way to the mill he snickered a score of times. Queer chap, this
Wallingford; rich, no doubt, and smart as a whip; and something
mysterious about him, too!
Wallingford found Jonas Bubble in flour-sifted garments in his office,
going over a dusty file of bills.
"Mr. Bubble," said he, "I have been down to your swamp and have
investigated its possibilities. I am now prepared, since I have
secured the right to purchase this land, to confide to you the
business search in which I have for some time been engaged, and which
now, I hope, is concluded. Do you know, Mr. Bubble, the valuable
deposit I think I have found in my swamp?"
"No!" ejaculated Bubble, stricken solemn by the confidential tone.
"What is it?"
Wallingford took a long breath, swelling out his already broad chest,
and, leaning over most impressively, tapped his compelling finger upon
Jonas Bubble's knee. Then said he, with almost tragic earnestness:
"_Black Mud!_"
Jonas Bubble drew back astounded, eying Wallingford with affrighted
incredulity. He had thought this young man sane.
"Black--" he gasped; "black--" and then hesitated.
"_Mud!_" finished Wallingford for him, more impressively than before.
"High and low, far and near, Mr. Bubble, I have searched for a deposit
of this sort. Wherever there was a swamp I have been, but never until
I came to Blakeville did I find what I believe to be the correct
quality of black mud."
"Black mud," repeated Jonas Bubble meaninglessly, but awed in spite of
himself.
"_Etruscan_ black mud," corrected Wallingford. "The same rare earth
out of which the world famous Etruscan pottery is manufactured in the
little village of Etrusca, near Milan, Italy. The smallest objects of
this beautiful jet-black pottery retail in this country from ten
dollars upward. With your permission I am going to express some
samples of this deposit to the world-famous pottery designer, Signor
Vittoreo Matteo, formerly in charge of the Etruscan Pottery, but who
is now in Boston waiting with feverish impatience for me to find a
suitable deposit of this rare black mud. If I have at last found it,
Mr. Bubble, I wish to congratulate you and Blakeville, as well as
myself, upon the acquisition of an enterprise which will not only
reflect vast credit on your charming and progressive little town, but
will bring it a splendid accession of wealth."
Mr. Bubble rose from his chair and shook hands with young Wallingford
in great, though pompous, emotion.
"My son," said he, "go right ahead. Take all of it you want--that
is," he hastily corrected himself, "all you need for experimental
purposes." For, he reflected, there was no need to waste any of the
rare and valuable Etruscan black mud. "I think I'll go with you."
"I'd be pleased to have you," said Wallingford, as, indeed, he was.
On the way, Wallingford stopped at Hen Moozer's General Merchandise
Emporium and Post-Office, where he bought a large tin pail with a
tight cover, a small tin pail and a long-handled garden trowel which
he bent at right angles; and seven people walked off of Hen Moozer's
porch into the middle of the street to see the town magnate and the
resplendent stranger, driven by the elated Bob Ranger, whirl down
Maple Street toward Jonas Bubble's swamp.
Arrived there, who so active in direction as Jonas Bubble?
"Bob," he ordered, protruding his girth at least three inches beyond
its normal position, "hitch those horses and jump over in the field
here with us. Mr. Wallingford, you will want this sample from
somewhere near the center of the swamp. Bob, back yonder beyond that
clump of bushes you will find that old flatboat we had right after
the big rainy season. Hunt around down there for a long pole and pole
out some place near the middle. Take this shovel and dig down and get
mud enough to fill these two buckets."
Bob stood unimpressed. It was not an attractive task.
"And Bob," added Wallingford mildly, "here's a dollar, and I know
where there's another."
"Sure," said Bob with the greatest of alacrity, and he hurried back to
where the old flatboat, water-soaked and nearly as black as the swamp
upon which it rested, was half submerged beyond the clump of bushes.
When, after infinite labor, he had pushed that clumsy craft afloat
upon the bosom of the shallow swamp, Mr. Bubble was on the spot with
infinite direction. He told Bob, shouting from the shore, just where
to proceed and how, down to the handling of each trowelful of dripping
mud, and even to the emptying of each small pailful into the large
pail.
"I don't know exactly how I'll get this boxed for shipping," hinted
Wallingford, as Bob carried the pail laboriously back to the buggy.
"Right down at the mill," invited Mr. Bubble with great cordiality.
"I'll have my people look after it for you."
"That's very kind of you," replied Wallingford. "I'll give you the
address," and upon the back of one of his own cards he wrote: Sig.
Vittoreo Matteo, 710 Marabon Building, Boston, Mass., U. S. A., care
Horace G. Daw.
That night he wrote a careful letter of explanation to Horace G. Daw.
Two weeks to wait. Oh, well, Wallingford could amuse himself by
working up a local reputation. It was while he was considering this,
upon the following day, that a farmer with three teeth drove up in a
dilapidated spring-wagon drawn by a pair of beautiful bay horses, and
stopped in front of Jim Ranger's livery and sales stable to talk hay.
Wallingford, sitting in front of the hotel in lazy meditation, walked
over and examined the team with a critical eye. They were an exquisite
match, perfect in every limb, with manes and tails and coats of that
peculiar silken sheen belonging to perfect health and perfect care.
"Very nice team you have," observed Wallingford.
"Finest match team anywhere," agreed Abner Follis, plucking at his
gray goatee and mouthing a straw, "an' I make a business o' raisin'
thoroughbreds. Cousins, they are, an' without a blemish on 'em. An'
trot--you'd ought to see that team trot."
"What'll you take for them?" asked Wallingford.
The response of Abner Follis was quick and to the point. He kept a
careful appraisement upon all his live stock.
"Seven hundred and fifty," said he, naming a price that allowed ample
leeway for dickering.
It was almost a disappointment to him that Wallingford produced his
wallet, counted over the exact amount that had been asked, and said
briefly:
"Unhitch them."
"Well!" said Abner, slowly taking the money and throwing away his
straw in petulance. It was dull and uninteresting to have a bargain
concluded so quickly.
Wallingford, however, knew what he was about. Within an hour everybody
in town knew of his purchase. Speculation that had been mildly active
concerning him now became feverish. He was a rich nabob with money to
throw away; had so much money that he would not even dicker in a horse
deal--and this was the height of human recklessness in Blakeville.
Wallingford, purchasing Jim Ranger's new buggy and his best set of
harness, drove to the Bubbles', the eyed of all observers, but before
he had opened the gate Mrs. Bubble was on the porch.
"Jonas ain't at home," she shrilled down at him.
"Yes, I know," replied Wallingford; "but I came to see Miss Fannie."
"She's busy," said Mrs. Bubble with forbidding loftiness. "She's in
the kitchen getting dinner."
Wallingford, however, strode quite confidently up the walk, and by the
time he reached the porch Miss Fannie was in the door, removing her
apron.
"What a pretty turnout!" she exclaimed.
"It's a beauty," agreed Wallingford. "I just bought it from Abner
Follis."
She smiled.
"I bet he beat you in the bargain."
"So long as I'm satisfied," retorted Wallingford, smiling back at her,
"I don't see why we shouldn't all be happy. Come on and take the first
ride in it."
She glanced at her stepmother dubiously.
"I'm very busy," she replied; "and I'd have to change my dress."
"You look good enough just as you are," he insisted. "Come right on.
Mrs. Bubble can finish the dinner. I'll bet she's a better cook,
anyhow," and he laughed cordially.
The remark was intended as a compliment, but Mrs. Bubble took distinct
umbrage. This was, without doubt, a premeditated slur. Of course he
knew that she had once been Mr. Bubble's cook!
"Fannie can't go," she snapped.
Wallingford walked straight up to Mrs. Bubble, beaming down upon her
from his overawing height; and for just one affrighted moment Fannie
feared that he intended to uptilt her stepmother's chin, or make some
equally familiar demonstration. Instead, he only laughed down into
that lady's belligerent eyes.
"Yes, she can," he insisted with large persuasiveness. "You were young
once yourself, Mrs. Bubble, and not so very long ago."
It was not what he said, but his jovial air of secret understanding,
that made Mrs. Bubble flush and laugh nervously and soften.
"Oh, I reckon I can get along," she said.
Miss Fannie, with a wondering glance at Wallingford, had already flown
up-stairs, and J. Rufus set himself deliberately to be agreeable to
Mrs. Bubble. When Fannie came tripping down again in an incredibly
short space of time, having shaken herself out of one frock and into
another with an expedition which surprised even herself, she found her
stepmother actually giggling! And when the young couple drove away in
the bright, shining new rig behind the handsome bays, Mrs. Bubble
watched after them with something almost like wistfulness. She had
been young herself, once--and not so very long ago!
Opposite the Bubble swamp Wallingford stopped for a moment.
"I hope to be a very near neighbor of yours," said he, waving his hand
out toward the wonderful deposit of genuine Etruscan black mud. "Did
your father tell you about the pottery studios which may be built
here?"
"Not a thing," she confessed with a slightly jealous laugh. "Papa
never tells us anything at home. We'll hear it on the street, no
doubt, as we usually do."
"Your father is a most estimable man, but I fear he makes a grave
mistake in not telling you about things," declared Wallingford. "I
believe in the value of a woman's intuition, and if I were as closely
related to you as your father I am sure I should confide all my
prospects to you."
Miss Fannie gave a little inward gasp. That serious tide in the talk,
fraught with great possibilities, for which every girl longs and which
every girl dreads, was already setting ashore.
"You might get fooled," she said. "Father don't think any woman has
very much gumption, and least of all me, since--since he married
again."
"I understand," said Wallingford gently, and drove on. "Just to show
you how _much_ differently I look at things from your father, I'm
going to tell you all about the black pottery project and see what you
think of it."
Thereupon he explained to her in minute detail, a wealth of which came
to him on the spur of the moment, the exact workings of the Etruscan
pottery art. He painted for her, in the gray of stone and the yellow
of face brick and the red of tiling, the beautiful studio buildings
that were to be erected yonder facing the swamp; he showed her through
cozy, cheerfully lighted apartments in those studios, where the best
trained artists of Europe, under the direction of the wizard, Vittoreo
Matteo, should execute ravishments of Etruscan black pottery; he
showed her, as the bays pranced on, connoisseurs and collectors
coming from all over the country to visit the Blakeville studios,
and carrying away priceless gems of the ceramic art at incalculable
prices!
The girl drank in all these details with thirsty avidity.
"It's splendid! Perfectly grand!" she assured him with vast
enthusiasm, and in her memory was stored every precious word that this
genius had said; and they were stored in logical order, ready to
reproduce on the slightest provocation, which was precisely the result
which Wallingford had intended to produce.
It was nearing noon now, and making a _detour_ by the railway road
they drove up in front of the mill with the spanking bays just as
Jonas Bubble was coming out of his office to go to dinner. Hilariously
they invited him into the carriage, and in state drove him home.
Wallingford very wisely kept away from the Bubble home that afternoon
and that evening, and by the next morning every woman in town had told
all her men-folk about the vast Etruscan black pottery project!