SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS
"This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in
late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled
up their weekly accounts.
"Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer
you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it."
"It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as
he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as
sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought
there was money in 'em."
"For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled
us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right."
"But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy.
Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before
him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good
turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got
to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my
life."
"But don't you forget to remember?"
"Not me. I ain't that kind."
Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself
from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him
sensitive to the changes in the weather.
"This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying
to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have
three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard.
Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to
remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict
principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate.
"I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a
more cheerful companion.
"I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this
here doin's."
"Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the
hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted
Ricks's ambition as his own.
"Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks.
Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the
hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to
catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep.
It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through
village after village.
They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were
soaked to the skin.
Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could
look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of
a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling
through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in
every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and
in every pane of glass that faced the west.
"That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the
matter with the feller?"
A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between
the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to
rise.
"He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy
stopped.
"Get a fall?" he asked.
The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have
ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head
against a tree and closed his eyes.
Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his
riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting.
"I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the
horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?"
Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle.
"I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to
the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks
had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will
take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then
handed a coin to Ricks.
"Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you
very much."
"Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks.
"Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing.
"Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks.
"Circus, I believe."
"Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy.
"Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!"
Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before,
Ricks?"
"Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer
life he knowed how to hit the bottle."
"He was sick," urged Sandy.
"An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom.
The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they
decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street
corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy
stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had
been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed
to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp
clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against
the wall.
"What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as
she tied up his small package.
"I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy
through chattering teeth.
"Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait
here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee."
She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a
small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a
half, then he asked the price.
"Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know
which side of the Ohio River you're on!"
Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on
his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks,
who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy
knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket.
"Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed
ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks."
"You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said
Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round."
As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a
purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the
proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to
enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes.
At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The
light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson,
black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy,
who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad,
straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not
the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the
flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious
sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest
of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it
buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until
only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with
silver.
"Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have
a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime
look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step
right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen
for the microscope."
Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two
faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature
and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was
impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him
was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer
corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene.
"Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this
Kentucky?"
"Yep; we crossed the line to-day."
"I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm
sick."
It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making
him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It
was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of
the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box
and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him
up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard
Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were
left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said
the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his
restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce
repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself.
"And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't
ever speak to a girl like that!"
Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the
circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day.
"It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open
early in the morning."
Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions.
His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember
whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by
the road.
"Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'."
"What you goin' to do?"
"I'm goin' to school."
If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and
being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more
astonished.
"What?" he asked in genuine doubt.
"'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately.
"This ain't the way you get to be the right sort."
Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along
of me or not?"
"I can't," said Sandy, weakly.
Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward
look he left his business partner of three months lying by the
roadside, and tramped away in the darkness.
Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no
strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there
was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about
microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he
couldn't ever speak to a girl like that.
After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have
gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black
witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass
for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He
found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in
terror.
"Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly
voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him,
her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders.
"Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously.
Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and
microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was
talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought.
"Where'd you come from, boy?"
"Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy.
"'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast.
"I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt
Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's
right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't
fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls
it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of
puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old
cunjers outen you."
Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up
a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny
log cabin, where he dropped exhausted.
Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room,
and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer
and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the
real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to
the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on
the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall
with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in
his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed
into a soothing murmur:
"Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She
gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll
git dem old cunjers out."