JUNIPER’S spouse, Aunt Charity, was in the habit of sweeping out
Caleb’s office and washing his windows, and the morning after Jean
Bartlett’s death was her morning for scouring the premises. She was
a stout old woman, nearly black, with a high pompadour, the arms and
shoulders of a stonemason, and “a mighty misery” in her side. She
stopped five times in the course of sweeping the inner office and
stood, leaning on her broom, to survey the bundle of indiscriminate
clothes on the floor, which was Sammy.
The transfer had disturbed him so little that, after his first screams
of surprise, he had renewed his insatiable demands for pennies, and
having one clasped tightly in either fist he sat in the middle of the
floor viewing the world in general, and Aunt Charity in particular,
with the suspicion of a financier. On her side, suspicion was equally
apparent.
“Fo’ de Lawd!” she said, and swept another half yard, then stopped and
viewed the intruder. “Fo’ de Lawd!” she said again.
Sammy heard her and clasped his pennies tighter; he read enmity in her
eye and doubted. Aunt Charity swept harder, her broom approaching the
rear end of Sammy’s calico petticoat. “Git up, yo’ white trash, yo’,”
she commanded, using the broom to emphasize her order.
“Won’t!” wailed Sammy, “won’t! Shan’t have my pennies!”
“Git up!” said Aunt Charity; “w’at yo’ heah for, ennyway?”
“Yow!” yelled Sammy, wriggling along before the broom and weeping.
On this scene entered Caleb Trench, grave, somewhat weary, and with
a new stern look that came from a night’s wrestle with his own will.
“What’s all this, Aunt Charity?”
“Ain’t noffin,” said she aggressively; “I’se sweepin’. I ain’t doin’
noffin an’ I ain’t gwine ter do noffin to dat pore white trash.”
“Yes, you will,” said Caleb calmly; “you’ll give him a bath and put
some decent clothes on him.”
“N-o-o-o-o-o!” shrieked Sammy.
“’Deed I ain’t!” retorted Aunt Charity, with indignation. “Ain’t dat
Jean Bartlett’s chile?”
Trench nodded, looking from the old black woman to the small aggressive
bundle on the floor. Aunt Charity tossed her head. “I ain’t gwine ter
touch him!”
A sudden fierce light shone in Caleb’s gray eyes, a light that had
a peculiarly quelling effect on the beholder. Aunt Charity met it
and cowered, clasping her broom. “You’ll do what I say,” he replied,
without raising his voice.
“Fo’ de Lawd!” gasped Aunt Charity and whimpered; “yo’ sho ain’t gwine
ter keep dat chile heah?”
“And why not?” asked Caleb.
“Lawsy me, suh, ain’t yo’ gwine ter know w’at folks’ll say? Dere’s
gwine ter be a talkation.”
“Very likely, poor little devil!” Caleb retorted grimly, “and your
tongue to help it, but you’d better hold it, Charity; you’re here to do
what I want--or to go elsewhere, see?”
“Yass, suh,” she replied hastily, “I’se gwine ter do it, but I sure
wishes yo’d let me take de chile where he b’longs.”
“Where he belongs?” Caleb turned sharply.
“I ain’t sayin’,” cried Aunt Charity, thoroughly frightened, “I ain’t
saying--” Then she stopped with her mouth open, for she had seen the
figure in the outer room that Caleb did not see.
Her look made him turn, however, to come face to face with Jacob Eaton.
He went out and closed the door on the inner office sharply, not
conscious that Aunt Charity promptly dropped on her knees and put her
eye to the keyhole.
Meanwhile, the two men measured each other with peculiar enmity. Jacob
thrust his hands into his pockets and stood smiling, a smooth face but
not a pleasant one.
“I came to see you on a matter of business,” he drawled, “but I’m
afraid I disturb you.” He had seen the scene in the inner room.
Caleb’s height was greater than his, and he looked down at him with an
inscrutable face; his temper was quick, but he had the rare advantage
of not showing it.
“I am quite at leisure,” he said coldly, without the slightest attempt
at courtesy.
“I had the pleasure of reading your Cresset speech,” said Jacob
amusedly, “and I regret that I didn’t hear it. I congratulate you, it
was excellent reading.”
Trench looked at him keenly. “You didn’t come here this morning to tell
me that,” he said. “Come, Mr. Eaton, what is it?”
“No,” said Jacob, still smiling, “I didn’t come for that, you’re right.
I came to make a business proposition.”
There was a pause, and Trench made no reply. Jacob began to find,
instead, that his silence was a peculiar and compelling weapon.
“You have made me the butt of your speeches,” he continued, with his
first touch of anger, “and your attacks are chiefly aimed at the Land
Company of which I am the president. I suppose you are fully aware of
this?”
Caleb smiled involuntarily. “I could not be unaware,” he observed.
“Then, perhaps, you are not unaware of what I came for,” Jacob said.
“Possibly,” replied Trench, folding his arms and leaning back against
the wall, and studying Eaton with a coolly indifferent scrutiny that
brought the color to Jacob’s face.
“Ah, you have probably been expecting my visit?” he said; “in other
words, I suppose you’ve had an object in stirring up this excitement,
in directing this attack upon me.”
“I have undoubtedly had an object,” Caleb Trench replied, after a
moment’s silence.
Jacob’s smile was a sneer. “We’re business men, Mr. Trench,” he said;
“I’m here this morning to know the size of that object.”
Caleb moved slightly, but his arms were still folded on his breast and
he still leant against the wall; his cool, unwinking gaze began to dash
Eaton’s composure; he could not be the finished and superior gentleman
he thought himself, under those relentless eyes. He shifted his own
position restlessly, drawing nearer to his adversary.
“Come,” he said, “name your price.”
“My what?” demanded Trench.
“Your price,” Eaton sneered openly, his smooth face crimson. In
some way, to his own consciousness, he seemed to be shrinking into
insignificance before the other man’s strong personality, his force,
his coolness.
“Do you suppose, because I have sold goods and handled merchandise,
that I am also on a level with my trade?” Caleb asked coolly, so coolly
that Jacob was blinded to his peril.
“You are a trader,” said he bitingly, “a petty tradesman and a petty
politician; as such you have your price.”
Caleb turned his face full toward him, and suddenly Eaton realized the
terrible light in his eyes. “You lie,” he said slowly, deliberately,
each word like a slap in the face; “you are a liar.”
Jacob sprang at him, fury in his own face, and prudence gone. But as he
sprang Trench met him with a blow straight from the shoulder. It caught
Eaton fairly and sent him sprawling, full length on the floor.
“By the Lord Harry, you got it, Jacob!” cried Judge Hollis from the
door, where he had appeared unheard.
As Jacob rose foaming, Caleb saw Aaron Todd’s head behind the judge,
and after him Peter Mahan.
There was no time to speak. Eaton flew at him again, his head down,
and for the second time Caleb landed him on his back. Then the judge
intervened.
“That’s enough,” he said dryly. “I reckon he needed it, but he’s got
it. Get up, Jacob, and keep quiet.”
But Jacob would not; he got up to his feet again and made a rush
forward, only to find himself clasped tight in Aaron Todd’s strong arms.
“Be quiet,” said Todd, “you’ll go down again like a sack of salt, you
idiot! You’re too full of booze to risk a blow on your solar plexis.”
Eaton swore. “Let me go,” he said, “do you think I’ll take it from that
fellow? You’re a prize-fighter!” he added between his teeth, lowering
at Trench, and wriggling helplessly in Aaron’s arms, “you’re a common
prize-fighter; if you were a gentleman you’d settle it with pistols!”
“Tut, tut!” said the judge.
“I will, if you like,” said Caleb coolly, his own wrath cooled by
victory.
Jacob’s eyes flashed; he was a noted shot. “I’ll send some one to you
later,” he said, the perspiration standing out on his forehead, as he
wrenched himself from Todd’s arms.
“I’ve a mind to report you both to Judge Ladd,” said Judge Hollis, but
his fiery old soul loved the smoke of battle.
Jacob, panting and disheveled, reached for his hat. “It will be
to-morrow,” he said, “and with pistols--if you consent.”
Caleb looked at Todd and Mahan. “Will you represent me, gentlemen?” he
asked quietly, something like a glint of humor in his eyes.
Todd nodded, and Peter Mahan, a keen-visaged Irish Yankee, beamed.
To his soul a battle was the essence of life, and a duel was not
unreasonable west of the Mississippi.
“Folly,” said Judge Hollis, secretly exultant, “rotten folly; let it
drop.”
Jacob turned at the door, his face livid. “Not till I’ve sent him to
hell,” he said, and walked out.
The judge brought his fist down on his knee. “By the Lord Harry,” he
said, “it was this day twenty-odd years ago that Yarnall shot Jacob’s
father.”
“I shan’t shoot Jacob,” said Caleb dryly.
Judge Hollis turned quickly. “What do you mean?” he began, but was
interrupted.
The door between the rooms opened suddenly, after much restless but
unnoticed wriggling of the knob, and Sammy, in his plaid petticoat and
his brass-buttoned jacket, came in on wobbly legs. He stopped abruptly
and viewed the group, finger in mouth.
“My God, what’s that?” exclaimed Judge Hollis blankly.
Caleb laughed. “My ward,” he said, and then he looked up and met three
pairs of curious eyes. “It’s Jean Bartlett’s child,” he explained
simply; “she died last night, and Dr. Cheyney threatened the Foundling
Asylum, so I just brought the kid here; there’s room.”
Judge Hollis leaned forward, both hands on his knees, and viewed the
child. “What did you do it for, Caleb?” he asked, in the midst of the
pause.
“Heaven knows!” said Caleb, smiling, as he filled his pipe. “I fancy
because the poor little devil had no home, and I’ve known what it was
to want one.”
The judge rubbed his chin. “I’m beat!” he said.
The other two men looked on silently while Caleb lit his pipe. Sammy
picked up the judge’s cane from the floor and tried slowly and solemnly
to swallow the gold knob on the top of it. The judge sank slowly
back into his chair, the old worn leather chair. “And there’ll be a
duel to-morrow!” he remarked; then, looking at the child, he added
feelingly, “It beats the band!”