THE ROAD TO PIPER'S GLEN
Millbrook joins Racket River from the west, and the village of
Millbrook lies about the junction of the two streams. The mill from
which the brook derives its name was built by an early settler,
generations ago, and is now no more than a broken wall of masonry on
a bank, and a few slimy, silted timbers beneath the brown water
showing where the dam has been. It had been a gristmill, but now no
wheat is grown in that country and the settlers buy their flour in
barrels from Amos Hammond and haul their buckwheat to Covered Bridge
to be ground.
The Hammond household, considered as a whole, proved to be unlike
anything Jim Todhunter had ever known or imagined. Mrs. Hammond,
colorless and thin, with apprehensive, faded blue eyes, a furtive
manner and the voice of a peacock; Melchior Hammond, loutish,
high-colored, with eyes as dark as his father's but less closely set
against his nose; Alice, who seemed at first to possess no
distinguishing feature or characteristic save a wavering blush and a
trick of drooping the eyelids; Jane, remarkable for two pigtails,
freckles, and a sly smile; and Sam, a small boy with the most
objectionable and forward manners imaginable. Of such materials was
the domestic circle composed into which Amos Hammond introduced young
Jim Todhunter, who had once dreamed of Yale, who had inherited an
enthusiasm for adventure and the out-of-doors, but who had been
brought up in an environment as different from all this as it was
possible to be. And the setting of the Hammond household was as
strange and astonishing to Jim Todhunter as were the people
themselves.
Hammond took Jim over to the store.
"Mel, you show James 'round," he said to his son. "I got to write a
few letters. Show 'im the stock an' learn 'im somethin' about the
way we do business in this part of the world. I'll look out for
customers."
Melchior led Jim to the back of the dusky store, out of earshot and
eyeshot of his father.
"How'd ye get along with the old man?" he whispered.
"Not very well, I'm afraid," replied Jim frankly. "He seemed rather
peeved with me several times."
Melchior's somewhat sullen face brightened.
"Maybe ye ain't scart enough of the Lord to suit 'im?" he suggested
eagerly.
"I don't know about that, but he was all worked up about my playing
black-jack with White at Covered Bridge. He was quite rude about it,
and I'm afraid I told him where to get off at."
"Told the old man----!" exclaimed Melchior. "Played cards with
Harvey White? Say, you'll do! You ain't the kind I expected. I
been lookin' for some sort of a feeble-minded guy. Thought you must
be to be fool enough to come way up here for the fun of helpin' run a
store. How happened it, anyhow? You must have been took in by
someone, you and the man that wrote about you."
"My uncle's friend did what he considered most useful in helping me
come to a country that interested me," said Jim coldly. "He is a big
business man. Stick to a subject you understand."
"I didn't mean to say anything to fuss ye up," returned Melchior
hastily. "I was only sayin'--but I guess him an' you didn't know how
things are done in this country, or he wouldn't of suggested you
invest any money in any business of my old man's, or he wouldn't of
sent you to Millbrook to learn it. But you won't learn it, not the
way I size ye up."
"What's wrong with the business?" asked Jim anxiously.
"You keep yer eye skinned an' I reckon ye'll know soon enough; an' I
reckon that's as much as I got any right to say," answered Melchior.
"But I'll tell ye this much more, Jim. I wish ye'd keep a holt on
yer money till you take a good look 'round. There are plenty better
buys in this country than a chance to sweat yer everlastin' life out
for Amos Hammond."
Jim was surprised and distressed by Melchior's talk. It startled him
to hear a son talk so of a father; and yet he believed the son to be
wise in his generation. He held no brief for the father. The high,
bitterly high, moral tone of the trader's conversation had not fooled
the youth from the South for a minute.
That night and the next day and the next night passed without any
incident of startling significance in the Hammond household. On the
morning of the second day after young Todhunter's arrival, there was
a flare-up at breakfast between Hammond and his son.
"I'm goin' out Kingswood way to-day, an' you come along with me,
Mel," said Hammond.
"I gotter tend store," returned Melchior, sullenly.
"No, you ain't. James can tend store by himself to-day, an' Alice
will lend him a hand if business is rushin', which ain't likely."
"There's a man comin' to see me about tradin' rifles to-day."
"Even if that's so, ye won't make a trade when I ain't around to see
you ain't cheated."
"I reckon I can do my own tradin'. I'd sooner get cheated on a
gun-trade with a man than be seen with you 'round Kingswood."
"Mel!" cried Mrs. Hammond, white to the lips. "Mel! Have a care
what you say, for my sake!"
"Shut yer face!" screamed Hammond at the woman, with a black, jumping
glare out of his eyes that looked like murder. She bowed her head.
He turned to Melchior, trembling with rage. "Do you come along with
me, or d'ye go yer own way from this time forrad?" he asked in a
terrible whisper.
Melchior was silent, a picture of shamed and sullen defeat. He sat
hunched in his chair, his head hanging, his face red as fire.
Hammond and his son drove off in a light wagon immediately after
breakfast, to be gone all day. Jim Todhunter went to the store. The
bright morning dragged slowly toward noon, but no customers came to
buy, sell, or trade. Jim went to the front door and looked out
rebelliously at the village, the river, and the hills. The village
could be seen at a glance, for it was nothing more than a cluster of
a dozen buildings from which ill-tilled farms receded up the valley
and back among the hills. Beyond, on every side, the forests dipped
and climbed, and drove wedges of dusky firs and glowing maples down
between the clearings.
After the mid-day dinner, which was eaten in nervous silence, even
young Sam seemed subdued. Jim took his shotgun from its case and
filled a pocket with shells. Thus equipped, he returned to the
store. For an hour he idled there, growing more deeply disgusted
with himself and Amos Hammond and the store every minute. This
lolling among barrels and bags was not what he had built his hopes
upon, and Hammond was not what he had expected. At the end of the
hour he locked up, took the keys over to the house and hung them on
their nail just within the front door and walked away. He walked up
the road, across the short bridge that spanned Millbrook, with the
gun in the crook of his right arm. He walked fast, cleared the
village in a minute, and was soon beyond the farthest of the inlying
farms.
The brown river brawled with rocks and obstructing ledges on his
right, and the wooded hills shouldered down on his left. The road
was never level for more than a hundred yards at a stretch. On the
rises it was overhung by big birches and maples and pines; spruces
crowded it, and in the lowest hollows ancient cedars and hemlocks
made a dusky tunnel for it.
Young Todhunter had gone about two miles when a covey of
ruffed-grouse puffed up suddenly from the edge of the road and
whirred off into the woods. Jim caught no more than a glimpse of
short wings and hurtling bodies, but that was enough. His blood
raced and his spirits lifted. Hammond's queer eyes and beastly
temper, the crude commercial odors of the store, Mrs. Hammond's
frightened eyes, the plush-covered chairs and the misinformation of
his uncle's friend were all forgotten in the flash of the wild wings.
Jim slipped two shells into the gun and went forward alertly.
An hour later, Jim came to a fork in the road and paused to consider
his way. The straight road continued beside the river, the branch
went off to the left at an angle of about seventy degrees. Both
looked promising. The valley of the river was deeper and narrower
now, the hills higher and more irregular, the forests less broken.
The slosh and roar of white water came up from the river. The branch
road led up a shadowed glen between abrupt hills; and down this glen
a small brook sang over mossy rocks, slipped under a short bridge of
logs and vanished among dense brush in its dive to the river. Both
roads looked wild and inviting, but that branching to the left looked
the wilder and the less used of the two.
Jim turned to the left and went up the glen. The pockets of his
shooting-jacket bulged with the brace of birds he had killed. He had
scored three misses, but he was pleased with himself, the birds, and
the gun. Never had he seen harder flying birds than these big grouse
that were locally known as partridges, and never had he shot under
more difficult, more sporting, conditions. The odds were with the
bird every time. A puff and whirr of wings, a glimpse of flight and
he was lost in the screening foliage. It was the sort of shooting
that appealed to Jim, who preferred the sport to the kill. His
enthusiasm carried him on and on, and he lost all track of time. His
nerves got a jolt once when several deer jumped the road close in
front of him, in the gloom, and he realized it was very late.
Indeed, so far had he traveled, and so gone was his sense of
direction, that it was past eleven when he reached the Hammond house.
All the doors were locked, front, side, and back, He was again
conscious of that sudden core of heat in his chest. He was about to
swing a leg and drive a toe of a substantial boot against the front
door when a thought of Mrs. Hammond's frightened eyes caused him to
change his mind.
There was a nip of frost in the air, but no wind. Jim passed the
remainder of the night very comfortably half a mile above the
village, at the edge of the river, beside a good fire of driftwood.
He slept soundly until dawn, then swam for a few minutes in the
swift, tingling river and returned to the house. The doors were
unlocked. He entered the front hall, left his gun and birds there,
brushed down his hair with his hands and walked into the dining-room,
where the family sat at breakfast. All the Hammonds were present.
All heads were raised and some were turned. All eyes were fixed upon
the young man who had been out all night.
"Good morning, Mrs. Hammond. Good morning all," said Jim.
"Where you been?" asked Amos Hammond, darkly.
"Out, as you know. Walked too far," answered Jim. "I found all the
doors locked when I got back, so I slept down by the river."
"I lock the doors at ten o'clock sharp. This here's a respectable
house, a God-fearin' home! Went away right after dinner an' come
home later than that. Who give you leave to quit the store?"
"No one gave me leave to quit the store. I didn't ask any one's
permission. I went away soon after dinner, as you say, and returned
soon after eleven. I went shooting. What have you to say about it?"
"Well, that ain't the worst, maybe. It was all wrong, but I reckon
it wasn't the worst. Where'd ye go to? That's what I wanter know."
"Is that all? Now listen to me, Hammond! I don't like you, your
looks, your talk, or your manners! You're a four-flusher, and I
suspect you of being a crook. You have a bad eye, and I rather
suspect that your reputation is rotten. You and your old shop and
queer business can go to the devil, for all I care! I am quitting
right now."
"Damn you!" cried Hammond in a cracked voice, coming swiftly out of
his chair with the bread-knife in his hand and murder in his eyes.
"That's no language for a man of your exalted moral qualities,"
returned Jim. "And remember the ladies! Put that knife down, or
something unpleasant will happen to you."
Hammond slumped down on to the chair and dropped the knife, and some
of the madness faded out of his black eyes.
"I'll have the law on ye for this!" he cried.
"What law?" asked the other, pleasantly.
"Get out!"
"I'll breakfast first," said Jim, seating himself at the table.
Hammond glared for a minute, speechless at last, then bolted from the
room. Jim ate with a good appetite.
"Jim, you got the nerve!" exclaimed Melchior. "If I had half yer
nerve I'd been out of this a year ago. But he'll do you, fer all yer
nerve."
Jim smiled noncommittally and buttered a hot biscuit.
"Please don't go away," whispered Mrs. Hammond. "He-he seems to be
scared of you. I feel kinder safer--an' the children, too--with you
in the house, Mr. Todhunter."
Jim glanced at her and then across the table at Alice. The girl
raised her drooping lids slowly and gave him a slow, wide-eyed,
glowing, point-blank look.
"That's right," she said.
"But he has told me to go," returned Jim. "And I'll be delighted to."
"He didn't mean it," said Melchior. "He'll be beggin' you to stop
forever as soon as he gets a holt on his temper. Let you go--a rich
young feller like you!--before he's skinned you. Not much!"
"But I'm not rich. I'm poor."
"You poor! With that gun an' that rifle an' all those pairs of boots
an' five fancy fishin'-rods! Tell another, Jim!"
"Please stop a spell longer," begged Mrs. Hammond. "You got a way
with him I ain't seen in any one else, man or woman. It's like he
was scared of you, or of yer folks in the States, or something. It's
a great comfort to me, whatever's the reason of it."
So Jim promised to remain longer, if possible--but entirely on his
own terms.
Jim and Melchior left the house and went over to the store. Amos was
already there, talking to a customer. The young men retired to the
back of the premises.
"Look at 'im now," whispered Melchior. "Would ye think he'd been mad
enough to bite a chunk outer his own ear only fifteen minutes ago?
Not on yer life! He's a wonder! Wait till Sunday and you hear 'im
at meetin'. Say, it would make me laugh if I wasn't his own son.
Wish I could handle 'im like you do. I noticed you didn't tell 'im
where ye'd been last night, after all."
"No, I didn't, though he's welcome to the information," replied Jim.
"I was shooting along a road up-river that turns off to the left--"
"Piper's Glen," interrupted Melchior. "Was you up to Peter Ducat's?"
"I wasn't anywhere. I had a time finding my way back. I met Mr.
Merton on the road and went to his house. I dined there--that's all.
But I like the looks of Piper's Glen."
"Sure you do--but you look out for Mark Ducat!"
"Who's he? And why should I look out for him?"
"Who's Mark Ducat? He's one of them Ducats of Piper's Glen who don't
fear nothin' livin' or dead. He's old Peter Ducat's son an' the
smartest man with his hands an' feet on Racket River; an' he's the
lad who don't let no young feller he can't lick roam around his part
of the country."
"I'd like to meet him," said Jim.
"You better not," returned Melchior earnestly.