When Eliph' Hewlitt stepped out of the hotel the next morning, after he
had eaten his breakfast, and stood, with a wooden toothpick between his
lips, looking up and down the street, he felt a sense of exultation.
If he had been a victorious general, and Kilo a captured city of great
importance, he would have had a similar feeling. Already he felt that,
if he was not the captor of the town, he was one of its important
citizens, and practically the husband of an attractive woman whose
father owned sufficient property to be one of those who grumble about
taxes.
To a man who had been a wanderer all his life it was pleasant to feel
that he was soon to be kin to all the things he saw on Main Street,
brother to the town-pump and cousin to the flag pole, and to consider
that even the well-gnawed hitching rails were to be part of his future
years. He nodded across the street to Billings, the grocer and general
store man, as if he was an old acquaintance, and he watched Skinner, the
butcher, sweeping the walk, with a pleasant smile, for he saw in him a
future friend. He loved Kilo, and he was ready to like everything, from
the post office to the creamery. His whole future seemed destined to be
simple and pleasant, for he was resolved to do his best to make the town
like him, and there seemed little opportunity for complications in a
town that could all be seen at one glance.
Strangers think all small towns simple. The few stores are all plainly
labeled, the streets run at right angles, and the houses are set well
apart, like big letters in a primer. A small town looks like a story
without a plot, like: “See the cat. Does the cat see me? The cat sees
the dog;” beside which a city is as unfathomable as a Henry James
paragraph. To the stranger each man and woman he meets is a complete
individual, each standing alone, like letters on an alphabet block, and
not easily to be confused, one with the other. But these letters of the
small town's alphabet are often tangled into as long and complex words
as those of the greatest city; it takes but twenty-six letters to spell
all the passions. The letter A, that looked so distinctly separate, is
soon found to be connected with C and T in Cat, and with W and R in War,
as well as cross-connected with the C and W in Caw, and with T and R in
Tar; while the houses that stood so seemingly alone are all connected
and criss-crossed by lines of love and hate, of petty policy and revenge
and pride, quite as are nations or people who live in labyrinths, or in
a metropolis.
It was still too early in the morning for Eliph' Hewlitt to call on Miss
Sally, and there was no haste; the day was long. He even doubted whether
it would be good policy to call on her in the morning; he might find
her busy with household cares. Probably it would be best to wait for the
afternoon, when she would be at leisure. This, he decided would be
best. He would arrive in her presence at two o'clock, and four hours of
conversation would carry them to the point of being well acquainted, as
advised by Jarby's Encyclopedia. The next day he could enter the second
stage of the directions, and call with a book, present it; call after
dinner with a box of candy, present it; call after supper, and propose
a walk, visit the ice cream parlor, and on the way home offer his hand,
and be accepted. The chapter on “Courtship--How to Win the Affections”
advised against haste, and Eliph' did not wish to be hasty. To a man
of his spirit two days seemed rather long to devote to so simple a
matter--a real waste of time--but he was willing to take longer than
necessary, in order to follow the directions in spirit, as well as in
letter.
Eliph' settled himself into one of the chairs before the hotel
and opened his copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia at the chapter on
“Courtship--How to Win the Affections.” He was deep in it when the
landlord strolled around from the livery stable and sank into a chair by
his side.
“So you made up your mind to stay here, Sammy?” he asked. “I guess the
town'll be glad enough to have you. All this town needs to be a big
place is inhabitants. What you ought to do now it to settle down for
good, an' get married. There's some purty fine women in this town that
ain't picked up yet, but they won't last long, they way they're goin'.
Somebody gets married every couple of months.”
Eliph' looked up with a smile. Jim Wilkins did not know he had advised
the very thing he meant to do.
“I've thought some about it,” said Eliph', “'most everybody's getting
married now-a-days.”
“It's the popular thing 'round here,” said Jim. “Look across the street,
yonder. See that feller just goin' up to the lawyer's office? He's one
that's in the marry class, just now. That's Colonel Guthrie. He lives
out on the first farm beyond Main Street, and he's goin' to marry Sally
Briggs, daughter of old Pap Briggs, that we was talkin' to last night,
here.”
Eliph' Hewlitt stared at the Colonel, but he said nothing. He blamed
himself; he had wasted his opportunity. This was what came of being
slow! He should have completed his courtship at the picnic, or last
night at the sale. Jim Wilkins interrupted the thought.
“Leastways,” he said, “HE'LL get her if Skinner don't. It's a close run
between him an' Skinner. Skinner ain't so good lookin' as the Colonel,
but he's better fixed. It's Skinner owns our butcher-shop, an' it's
Skinner is buildin' our Opery House Block. Some say Skinner'll get Pap
Briggs' money, an' some says the Colonel will.”
“Are there any others?” asked Eliph', looking down the street to where
the raw brick of the opera house glowed in the sun.
“After Sally?” asked Jim Wilkins. “Well, there's sev'ral would like to
get her, I dare say. Sally Briggs is a pretty fine sort of woman, an'
Pap Briggs has quite considerable money, but the Colonel an' Skinner has
the inside track. No one else has a chance.”
Eliph' stroked his whiskers softly and coughed gently behind his hand.
“Briggs, did you say the name was?” he asked. “Seems to me I met a lady
at a picnic up Clarence way that had that name. You said the name was
Sally Briggs?”
“That's her,” said Wilkins. “Sally Ann Briggs. She's been visitin' up
there in Clarence.”
Eliph' nodded his head slowly.
“I seem to recollect her, since you mention it,” he said indifferently,
and then he added, “She spoke as if she might buy a copy of Jarby's
Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art
when I saw her at that picnic. I guess I'll drop 'round and see if she's
ready to buy. If she' goin' to be married she ought to have a copy.”