TOOMEY GOES INTO SOMETHING
Few in Prouty denied that there were forty-eight hours in the day that
began about six o'clock on Saturday night and lasted until the same hour
Monday morning. If there had been some way of taking a mild anesthetic
to have carried them through this period, many no doubt would have
resorted to it, for oblivion was preferable to consciousness during a
Sunday in Prouty.
It could not, strictly, be called a Day of Rest, because there was not
sufficient business during the week to make any one tired enough to need
it.
When the church bells tinkled, the Episcopalians bowed patronizingly to
the Presbyterians, the Presbyterians condescendingly recognized the
Methodists, the Methodists, by a slight inclination of the head,
acknowledged the existence of the Catholics. This done, the excitement
of the day was over.
The footsteps of a chance pedestrian echoed in Main Street like some one
walking in a tunnel. Children flattened their noses against the panes
and looked out wistfully upon a world that had no joy in it.
The gloom of financial depression hung over Prouty like a crepe veil. If
Prouty spent Sunday waiting for Monday, it spent the rest of the week
waiting for something to happen. Prouty's attitude was one of
halfhearted expectancy--like a shipwrecked sailor knowing himself
outside the line of travel, yet unable to resist watching the horizon
for succor.
The Boosters Club still went on boosting, but its schemes for
self-advertisement resembled a defective pin-wheel, which, after the
first whiz, lacks the motive powers to turn further. The motive power in
this instance was money. Prouty wanted money with the same degree of
intensity that the parched Lazarus wanted water.
Real estate owners in Prouty regarded their property without enthusiasm,
for there were few residences not ornamented with a "plaster" in the
form of a mortgage. Abram Pantin's boast that he never "held the sack"
was heard but seldom, for there was more than a reasonable doubt that he
was able to collect the interest on his farm mortgages, to say nothing
of the principal.
The town was at a stage when merely to eat and go on wearing clothes was
cause for self-congratulation. It was conceded that a person who could
exist in Prouty could live anywhere. Its citizens seemed to partake of
the nature of the cactus that, grubbed up and left for dead, always
manages somehow to get its roots down again.
The Prouty _Grit_ still called the attention of the world to the
country's natural resources, but Mr. Butefish's editorials had a hollow
ring, like the "spiel" of the sideshow barker, who talks in anticipation
of a swift kick from a dissatisfied patron.
Major Prouty, who had hoped to die in his boots, picturesquely, had
passed away quietly in his bed with acute indigestion from eating
sour-dough sinkers of his own manufacture. It was cold the day he was
buried, so not many went to the funeral, and the board which had been
put up to mark his grave, until the town could afford a suitable
monument, had blown over. A "freighter" had repaired his brake block
with a portion of the marker, so no one except the grave digger was sure
where the Major lay.
Jasper Toomey at this period of his career was engaged in the real
estate business. About ninety per cent of Prouty's residences were
listed with him. In the beginning, while taking descriptions of the
properties and making a confidential note of the lowest possible sums
which would be accepted, he was busy and optimistic. But, this
completed, business subsided suddenly. His few inquiries for properties
came from buyers who had no cash available. The breath he expended in
"working up deals" which came to nothing when the critical point was
reached would have floated a balloon.
Toomey had no office, but conducted his affairs in winter from the chair
by the radiator in the southwest corner of the Prouty House. In summer,
he moved to the northeast corner of the veranda. To borrow five dollars
nowadays was a distinct achievement, and his sallow face had taken on
the habitual expression of a hungry wolf waiting for strays and
weaklings. Mrs. Toomey still anticipated the day when "Jap would get
into something."
As much worse as was Sunday than Monday, just so much worse was winter
than summer in Prouty. Winter meant more coal, warmer clothes,
high-priced food, and a period of hibernating until it was over. So it
was in a kind of panic that Prouty suddenly realized that fall had come
and another winter would soon be upon them. Thus, in a mood of
desperation, the officers of the Boosters Club sent out notice of an
important meeting to its members. It was urged most earnestly that each
should come prepared to offer a new suggestion for the improvement of
financial conditions in Prouty. The fact that the need was thus publicly
admitted evidenced the urgency of the situation.
It seemed as though every plan that human ingenuity could devise had
been already discussed, and shelved for the very excellent reason that
there never was any capital with which to give the projects a try-out.
While the members subscribed with glad and openhanded generosity, to
collect the subscriptions was another matter.
Heretofore suggestions had come sporadically; now it was believed that
as the concentrated wills of powerful minds are alleged to have moved
inanimate objects, somewhat in the same fashion concerted effort on the
part of the Boosters Club might result in something tangible.
The meeting was called for Monday night, and with only twenty-four hours
in which to think of something for Prouty's salvation, the heads of
households taxed their brains diligently for an original idea to offer.
No such perturbation obtained in the Toomey family, however, where Mr.
and Mrs. Toomey chattered in gay excitement, the like of which they had
not experienced since their memorable trip to Chicago. With his hands
thrust deep in his trousers pockets, Toomey swaggered, resembling
nothing so much as a pheasant strutting and drumming on a log for his
mate's edification, and, not unlike the female bird of sober coloring,
Mrs. Toomey looked and listened with a return of much of her old-time
admiration, though the cause for Toomey's present state of exultation
was, in its inception, due to her own suggestion.
"I'll show these pinheads something," Toomey boasted. "The day'll
come," he levelled at his wife an impressive finger, "when they'll nudge
each either and say, 'There goes Toomey's Dog!'"
Mrs. Toomey sighed happily, "It's like a story!"
"Nothing comes to you unless you go after it," Toomey declared, in the
voice of a man who has succeeded and is giving the benefit of his
experience to the less fortunate.
"I wish you could be there when I spring it," he chortled.
Yet the occasion for this rare exuberance in the Toomey family was
merely a few courteous lines signed "John Prentiss," inside the
businesslike blue-gray envelope resting conspicuously on top of the
clock on the mantelpiece. They had read and re-read it, extracting from
it the last ounce of encouragement possible.
Mrs. Toomey had come across John Prentiss's card in a drawer she was
cleaning and the thought had come to her that therein lay a possibility
which never had been tested. After all these years it might not be
possible to reach him, and when he was found it might not be possible to
derive any benefit from the scant acquaintance, but it was worth trying,
and if there was a way, Jap would find it, so she had shown him the card
and he had joined her in marveling at their negligence.
After due reflection, Toomey had written to Prentiss recalling the
circumstances of their meeting and the fact that he had evidenced an
interest in their country, and renewing his invitation for a visit. He
went at some length into the details of the defunct irrigation project
at Prouty, which if properly completed and managed was a sure and big
winner. He had options on stock which gave him the controlling interest,
he stated, and had little doubt that the remainder could be acquired
easily. He urged Prentiss to come at his earliest convenience and look
it over.
Toomey sent the letter to the hotel in Chicago which Prentiss had given
as one of his permanent addresses and it was duly forwarded. After the
lapse of a reasonable time, the answer had come from Denver. It had
contained proper expressions of appreciation for the invitation, a wish
to be remembered cordially to Mrs. Toomey, and concluded with the
statement that his desire to see that section of the country had in no
wise abated and, if possible, he would do so in the early winter, at
which time he would be glad to look into the merits of the irrigation
project.
Noncommittal, but friendly, the letter sent the blood racing through
Toomey's veins like a stiff drink of brandy. It stimulated his
imagination like strong coffee and evoked the roseate dreams of
hasheesh. Even Mrs. Toomey, cautious and conservative as she was by
nature and through many disappointments, could not resist the contagion
of her husband's enthusiasm.
To say that Toomey looked forward with eagerness to this meeting of the
Boosters Club is to express it inadequately. He counted the hours when
he should be reinstated in the position which he had occupied when he
first came to Prouty. Unexpressed, but none the less present, was a
desire to show his teeth at those who had humiliated him by lending him
money.
The Boosters Club now occupied a storeroom which it had rent free until
such time as its owner should acquire a tenant. This privilege had been
granted some three years previous, and there seemed no imminent danger
of the club being obliged to vacate.
Behind a fly-specked window an equally fly-specked sheaf of wheat from
North Dakota, and an ear of corn of gargantuan proportions from Kansas,
proclaimed the Club's belief that similar results might be obtained from
the local soil--when it had water. There was a sugar beet of amazing
circumference that had been raised in an adjacent county, and a bottle
of sand that the Club was certain contained a rare mineral, if it were
possible to get an honest assay on it. They exhibited also a can of
pulverized gypsum, of which there was a sufficient quantity in sight in
the vicinity to polish the brass trimmings of the world's navies, if a
"live wire" could be induced to take hold of its development. A
miniature monument of rock faintly stained with copper rose in the
center of the window, and a buffalo skull lent a note of historic
interest.
The walls inside were decorated with the Club's slogan, "Boost for
Prouty." The undertaker's chairs were still doing duty, since there was
so much truth in that person's plaintive wail that "the climate was so
damned healthy that nobody ever died," there was seldom other use for
them.
There was a pine table upon a raised platform, behind which Hiram
Butefish remained, as before, the Club's honored President.
In the corner was a stove which had been donated by the Methodist
minister, because, presumably, of a refractory grate which it was found
impossible to operate without profanity.
Into these comfortable and spacious quarters, a goodly number of
Prouty's representative citizens came singly and in squads upon the
occasion of this important meeting.
Each member had kept his own solution of Prouty's problem closely
guarded, so no man knew what his neighbor had to offer until that one's
turn came to divulge it. In truth, it had been a long time since a
meeting of such piquancy and interest had been called.
After some little preliminary business, Hiram Butefish, with a candor
which never before had distinguished his public utterances upon this
subject, declared flatly that Prouty was in a precarious, not to say
desperate, condition. The county treasury was empty, the town treasury
was empty, and the warrants of either had little more value than the
stock certificates of an abandoned gold mine. What were they going to do
about it? Should they sit quietly and starve like a lost tribe
wandering in the desert? Did they wish to see their wives naked and
their children hungry? No! Mr. Butefish smote the table until the crack
in the water pitcher lengthened. Then by all that was Great and Good,
somebody had to think of something!
Mr. Butefish had only said what everybody knew, but his manner of saying
it sent a chill over every one present.
"Doc" Fussel, whose sales during the day had been a package of rat
poison and a bottle of painkiller, looked like a lemon that has lain too
long in the window, when he arose and diffidently offered his suggestion
for the relief of Prouty. The doctor's voice when he was frightened had
the rich sonorous tones of a mouse squeaking in the wall, and now as he
ventured the suggestion that Prouty's hope lay in raising peppermint,
his voice was inaudible beyond the fifth row of chairs. In the rear of
the room they caught the words "mint" and "still," and were under the
impression that he was advocating the manufacture of counterfeit money
and moonshine whiskey. As a matter of fact, the doctor advised the
purchase of large tracts of land which could be flooded and transformed
into bogs. These bogs were to be planted in peppermint, for which, he
averred, there was an insatiable demand. The world had yet to have too
much peppermint. So long as there were babies there would be colic, and
so long as there was colic there would be a need for peppermint;
therefore, reasoning along the dotted line from A to Z, there always
would be a market. Peppermint was the one industry requiring small
capital which had not been overdone. He could go to Illinois and
purchase a secondhand still of which he knew, at small cost. A bottling
works for preparing and labeling the essence could be established in
Prouty, and there was no reason why, in time, Prouty should not become
the recognized peppermint center of America.
When the doctor sat down, after giving the back of the chair which he
gripped a farewell wring that all but tore it loose from its sockets,
Mr. Butefish arose and congratulated him upon the novelty of his
suggestion and recommended that it be investigated carefully.
There was excellent reason to believe that Walter Scales, at no remote
date, had been handling kerosene and saltfish, for the air in his
vicinity was redolent of these commodities as he arose when called upon
as the next in order.
Before speaking of the remedy for the present stagnant condition of "the
fairest spot that the sun ever shone upon," Mr. Scales stated that he
wished to protest thus publicly against the practice which now obtained
of pitching horseshoes in the main street of Prouty. There was nothing,
he declared vehemently, which made so bad an impression upon a stranger
as to see the leading citizens of a community pitching horseshoes in its
principal thoroughfare.
Passing on to the purpose for which he had risen, Mr. Scales averred
that it was probable that he would be considered an impractical
visionary when he made known his proposition; nevertheless, it had been
long in his mind and no harm would come from voicing it. To his notion,
the thing most needed to revitalize Prouty was an electric car-line.
This line should start at the far end of town, somewhere down by the
Double Cross Livery Stable, possibly, and end at an artificial lake and
amusement park a few miles out in the country--he waved his arm vaguely.
A street car whizzing through Prouty would put new life in it, and so
hungry were its inhabitants for entertainment that he had no doubt
whatever that the amusement park would make ample returns upon the
investment.
Mr. Butefish made a note of Mr. Scales's vision, but very much
questioned as to whether Prouty was ripe for a street railway, since--he
admitted reluctantly--such a project might be a little ahead of the
immediate requirements.
Other suggestions followed--among them, the possibility of opening up an
outcropping of marble in a canyon sixteen miles from Prouty. The marble,
though badly streaked with yellow, would, it was opined, serve
excellently for tombstones. Also, there was a clay peculiar to a certain
gulch in the vicinity which was believed by the discoverer to contain
the necessary qualities for successful brick-making.
Then "Gov'nor" Sudds arose in a flattering silence to give the Club the
benefit of his cogitations. Something large always could be expected of
the "Gov'nor." Although he lived in three figures, he thought in seven,
and not one of the Gov'nor's many projects had been capitalized at less
than a million.
Conrad has said that listening to a Russian socialist is much like
listening to a highly accomplished parrot--one never can rid himself of
the suspicion that he knows what he is talking about. The same, at
times, applied to the Gov'nor. He said nothing so convincingly that
always it was received with the closest attention.
Now, as Sudds stood up, large, grave and impressive, he looked like a
Roman Senator about to address a gathering in the Forum. No one present
could dream from his manner that he had that day received a shock, the
violence of which could best be likened to a well-planted blow in the
pit of the stomach. As a hardy perennial candidate for political office,
he had become inured to disappointment, but the present shock had been
of such an unexpected nature that for hours Mr. Sudds had been in a
state little short of groggy. The maiden aunt of seventy, upon whose
liberal remembrance he had built his hopes as the Faithful hug to
themselves the promise of heaven, had married a street car conductor and
wired for congratulations. He had pulled himself together and staggered
to the meeting where, though still with the sinking sensation of a man
who has inadvertently stepped through the plastering of the ceiling, he
was able to dissemble successfully.
Clearing his throat, the Gov'nor fixed his eyes upon "Hod" Deefendorf,
owner of the Double Cross Livery Stable, and demanded:
"Among all the voices of Nature is there a more pleasing or varied sound
than that of falling water?"
He paused as though he expected an answer, so "Hod" squirmed and
ventured weakly that he "guessed there wasn't."
The Gov'nor continued: "The gentle murmur of the brook, the noisy rumble
of rapids, the thundering roar of mighty cataracts--can you beat it?" In
a country where the school children giggled at sight of an umbrella, the
question seemed irrelevant, so this time no one replied.
"Consider the rivulet as it glints and glistens in ceaseless change, the
fairy mists of shimmering cascades, the majestic sweep of
waterfalls--has Nature any force more potent for the use of man than
falling water? No! None whatever! And I propose that we yoke these
racing tumbling forces back there in yon mountains and make them work
for us!"
The members exchanged glances--the Gov'nor was living up to their
expectations of him.
"That accomplished, I propose," the Governor declared dramatically, "to
take nitrogen from the air and sell it to the government!"
He looked triumphantly into the intent upturned faces into which had
crept a look of blankness. There were those who thought vaguely that
nitrogen was the scientific name for mosquito, while others confused it
with nitre, an excellent emergency remedy for horses.
"They've done it in Germany," he continued, "and used it in the
manufacture of high explosives. Is there any gentleman present who will
tell me that what's been done in Germany, can't be done in Wyoming?"
The applause was tumultuous when he had further elucidated and finished.
To get something out of nothing made a strong appeal to Prouty. It was
criminal for Sudds to waste his abilities in a small community. They
wondered why he did it.
Hiram Butefish, who succeeded the orator, felt a quite natural
diffidence in giving to the Club his modest suggestion, but as he talked
he warmed to his subject.
"I am convinced," declared Mr. Butefish, "that the future of Prouty lies
in fossils."
"Human?" a voice inquired ironically.
"Clams," replied Mr. Butefish with dignity. "Also fish and periwinkles.
Locked in Nature's boozem over there in the Bad Lands there's a world of
them. I kicked 'em up last year when I was huntin' horses, and realized
their value. They'd go off like hot cakes to high schools and
collectors. We could get a professor in here cheap--a lunger, maybe--to
classify 'em, and then we'd send out our own salesman. We can advertise
and create a market.
"Gentlemen," solemnly, "we have not one iota of reason to be
discouraged! With thousands of acres available for peppermint; with
more air to the square inch than any place else in the world, with an
inexhaustible bed of fossils under our very noses, all we need to
fulfill the dreams of our city's founder is unity of effort and capital.
In other words--MONEY!"
"And the longer you stay in Prouty the more you'll need it!"
The jeering voice from the rear of the room belonged to Toomey.
The Club turned its head and looked at the interrupter in astonishment.
He was sitting in the high-headed arrogance with which once upon a time
they had all been familiar. Though momentarily disconcerted, Mr.
Butefish collected himself and retorted:
"Perhaps you have something better to offer, Toomey."
"If I hadn't I wouldn't offer it," he replied insolently.
The thought that came instantly to every mind was that Toomey must have
had a windfall. How else account for this sudden independence? This
possibility tempered the asperity of Mr. Butefish's answer, though it
still had plenty of spirit:
"We are ready to acknowledge your--er--originality, Mr. Toomey, and will
be delighted to listen."
To Toomey it was a rare moment. He enjoyed it so keenly that he wished
he might prolong it. Uncoiling his long legs, he surveyed his auditors
with a tolerant air of amusement:
"I presume there are no objections to my mentioning a few of the flaws
that I see in the schemes which have been outlined?"
"Our time is limited," hinted Mr. Butefish.
"It won't take long to puncture those bubbles," Toomey answered,
contemptuously.
Certainly he had made a raise somewhere!
"We will hear your criticisms," replied Mr. Butefish, with the restraint
of offended dignity.
"In the first place, everybody knows that the soil in this country sours
and alkalies when water stands on it." Toomey spoke as a man who had
wide experience. He looked at "Doc" Fussel, who shrivelled with the
chagrin that filled him, when Toomey added, "That settles the peppermint
bog, doesn't it?
"Take the next proposition: What's the use of car-lines that begin
nowhere and end nowhere? A cripple could walk from one end of the town
to the other in seven minutes. You couldn't raise enough outside capital
to buy the spikes for it.
"Take fossils--a school boy would know that the demand for fossils is
limited, and who is sure that the bed is inexhaustible until it's
tested. When the government is taking nitrates out of the air in Prouty
to make ammunition, you and I will be under the daisies, Governor."
If looks could kill, Toomey would have died standing. But he continued
emphatically:
"The salvation of Prouty is water. By water I mean the completion of the
irrigation project. Gentlemen--I am here to state unreservedly that I
can put that enterprise through, providing the stockholders will give me
an option upon fifty-one per cent. of the stock. I must have the
controlling interest."
Could he have an option? _Could_ he! Only the restraining hand of a
neighbor upon his coat tail prevented Walt Scales from hurdling the
intervening chairs to reach Toomey to thrust his shares upon him. Hope
and skepticism of the genuineness of his assertions commingled in the
faces upon which Toomey looked, while he waited for an answer. He saw
the doubt and took Prentiss's letter from his pocket. Shaking it at
them, he declared impressively:
"This communication is from a party I have interested--an old friend of
mine of wealth and standing, who will finance the project providing it
is as represented, and under the condition I have just mentioned."
Toomey himself so thoroughly believed what he said that he carried
conviction, although nowadays his veracity under oath would have been
questioned.
The prospect of unloading his stock made Hiram Butefish as thirsty as if
he had eaten herring, and, overlooking the glass in his excitement, he
drank long and deep from the water pitcher before he said tremulously:
"Undoubtedly that can be arranged, Mr. Toomey."
It was obvious that the Boosters Club shared its president's opinion.
Each quivered with an eagerness to get at Toomey which was not unlike
that of a race horse fretting to be first over the starting line. They
crowded around him when the meeting was ended, offering their
congratulations and their stock to him, but taking care to avoid any
mention of the various sums that he owed each and all.
As for Toomey, it was like the old days when his appearance upon the
streets of Prouty was an event, when they called him "Mister" and
touched their hat-brims to him, when he could get a hearing without
blocking the exit.
He left the Boosters Club with his pulses bounding with pride and
importance. He had "come back"--as a man must who has imagination and
initiative. They could "watch his smoke," could Prouty.
There was not a member present who did not reach his home panting, to
shake his wife out of her slumbers to tell her that, at last, Toomey had
"got into something."