"So you see I'm through with this place!" Fairchilds concluded as, late
that night, he and the doctor sat alone in the sitting-room, discussing
the afternoon's happenings.
"I was forced to believe," he went on, "when I saw Jake Getz's fearful
anxiety and real distress while Tillie remained unconscious, that the
fellow, after all, does have a heart of flesh under all his brutality.
He had never seen a woman faint, and he thought at first that Tillie
was dead. We almost had HIM on our hands unconscious!"
"Well, the faintin' saved Tillie a row with him till he got her home
oncet a'ready," the doctor said, as he puffed away at his pipe, his
hands in his vest arms, his feet on the table, and a newspaper under
them to spare the chenille table-cover.
"Yes. Otherwise I don't know how I could have borne to see her taken
home by that ruffian--to be punished for so heroically defending ME!"
"You bet! That took cheek, ain't?--fur that little girl to stand there
and jaw Jake Getz--and make him quit lickin' you! By gum, that minds me
of sceneries I've saw a'ready in the theayter! They most gener'ly
faints away in a swoond that way, too. Well, Tillie she come round all
right, ain't?--till a little while?"
"Yes. But she was very pale and weak, poor child!" Fairchilds answered,
resting his head wearily upon his palm. "When she became conscious,
Getz carried her out of the woods to his buggy that he had left near
the school-house."
"How did Absalom take it, anyhow?"
"He's rather dazed, I think! He doesn't quite know how to make it all
out. He is a man of one idea--one at a time and far apart. His idea at
present is that he is going to marry Tillie."
"Yes, and I never seen a Puntz yet where didn't come by what he set his
stubborn head to!" the doctor commented. "It wonders me sometimes, how
Tillie's goin' to keep from marryin' him, now he's made up his mind so
firm!"
"Tillie knows her own worth too well to throw herself away like that."
"Well, now I don't know," said the doctor, doubtfully. "To be sure, I
never liked them Puntzes, they're so damned thick-headed. Dummness runs
in that family so, it's somepin' surprisin'! Dummness and stubbornness
is all they got to 'em. But Absalom he's so well fixed--Tillie she
might go furder and do worse. Now there's you, Teacher. If she took up
with you and yous two got married, you'd have to rent. Absalom he'd own
his own farm."
"Now, come, Doc," protested Fairchilds, disgusted, "you know
better--you know that to almost any sort of a woman marriage means
something more than getting herself 'well fixed,' as you put it. And to
a woman like Tillie!"
"Yes--yes--I guess," answered the doctor, pulling briskly at his pipe.
"It's the same with a male--he mostly looks to somepin besides a good
housekeeper. There's me, now--I'd have took Miss Margaret--and she
couldn't work nothin'. I tole her I don't mind if my wife IS smart, so
she don't bother me any."
"You did, did you?" smiled Fairchilds. "And what did the lady say to
that?"
"Och, she was sorry!"
"Sorry to turn you down, do you mean?"
"It was because I didn't speak soon enough," the doctor assured him.
"She was promised a'ready to one of these here tony perfessers at the
Normal. She was sorry I hadn't spoke sooner. To be sure, after she had
gave her word, she had to stick to it." He thoughtfully knocked the
ashes from his pipe, while his eyes grew almost tender. "She was
certainly, now, an allurin' female!
"So now," he added, after a moment's thoughtful pause, "you think your
game's played out here, heh?"
"Getz and Absalom left me with the assurance that at the Saturday-night
meeting of the Board I'd be voted out. If it depends on them--and I
suppose it does--I'm done for. They'd like to roast me over a slow
fire!"
"You bet they would!"
"I suppose I haven't the least chance?"
"Well, I don' know--I don' know. It would suit me wonderful to get
ahead of Jake Getz and them Puntzes in this here thing--if I anyways
could! Le' me see." He thoughtfully considered the situation. "The
Board meets day after to-morrow. There's six directors. Nathaniel Puntz
and Jake can easy get 'em all to wote to put you out, fur they ain't
anyways stuck on you--you bein' so tony that way. Now me, I don't mind
it--them things don't never bother me any--manners and cleanness and
them."
"Cleanness?"
"Och, yes; us we never seen any person where wasted so much time
washin' theirself--except Miss Margaret. I mind missus used to say a
clean towel didn't last Miss Margaret a week, and no one else usin' it!
You see, what the directors don't like is your ALWAYS havin' your hands
so clean. Now they reason this here way--a person that never has dirty
hands is lazy and too tony."
"Yes?"
"But me, I don't mind. And I'm swanged if I wouldn't like to beat out
Jake and Nathaniel on this here deal! Say! I'll tell you what. This
here game's got fun in it fur me! I believe I got a way of DOIN' them
fellers. I ain't tellin' you what it is!" he said, with a chuckle. "But
it's a way that's goin' to WORK! I'm swanged if it ain't! You'll see
oncet! You just let this here thing to me and you won't be chased off
your job! I'm doin' it fur the sake of the fun I'll get out of seein'
Jake Getz surprised! Mebbe that old Dutchman won't be wonderful spited!"
"I shall be very much indebted to you, doctor, if you can help me, as
it suits me to stay here for the present."
"That's all right. Fur one, there's Adam Oberholzer; he 'll be an easy
guy when it comes to his wote. Fur if I want, I can bring a bill ag'in'
the estate of his pop, disceased, and make it 'most anything. His pop
he died last month. Now that there was a man"--the doctor settled
himself comfortably, preparatory to the relation of a tale--"that there
was a man that was so wonderful set on speculatin' and savin' and
layin' by, that when he come to die a pecooliar thing happened. You
might call that there thing phe-non-e-ma. It was this here way. When
ole Adam Oberholzer (he was named after his son, Adam Oberholzer, the
school director) come to die, his wife she thought she'd better send
fur the Evangelical preacher over, seein' as Adam he hadn't been inside
a church fur twenty years back, and, to be sure, he wasn't just so well
prepared. Oh, well, he was deef fur three years back, and churches
don't do much good to deef people. But then he never did go when he did
have his sound hearin'. Many's the time he sayed to me, he sayed, 'I
don't believe in the churches,' he sayed, 'and blamed if it don't keep
me busy believin' in a Gawd!' he sayed. So you see, he wasn't just what
you might call a pillar of the church. One time he had such a cough and
he come to me and sayed whether I could do somepin. 'You're to leave
tobacco be,' I sayed. Ole Adam he looked serious. 'If you sayed it was
caused by goin' to church,' he answered to me, 'I might mebbe break
off. But tobacco--that's some serious,' he says. Adam he used to have
some notions about the Bible and religion that I did think, now, was
damned unushal. Here one day when he was first took sick, before he got
so deef yet, I went to see him, and the Evangelical preacher was there,
readin' to him that there piece of Scripture where, you know, them that
worked a short time was paid the same as them that worked all day. The
preacher he sayed he thought that par'ble might fetch him 'round oncet
to a death-bed conwersion. But I'm swanged if Adam didn't just up and
say, when the preacher got through, he says, 'That wasn't a square deal
accordin' to MY way of lookin' at things.' Yes, that's the way that
there feller talked. Why, here oncet--" the doctor paused to chuckle at
the recollection--"when I got there, Reverend was wrestlin' with Adam
to get hisself conwerted, and it was one of Adam's days when he was at
his deefest. Reverend he shouted in his ear, 'You must experience
religion--and get a change of heart--and be conwerted before you die!'
'What d' you say?' Adam he ast. Then Reverend, he seen that wouldn't
work, so he cut it short, and he says wery loud, 'Trust the Lord!' Now,
ole Adam Oberholzer in his business dealin's and speculatin' was always
darned particular who he trusted, still, so he looked up at Reverend,
and he says, 'Is he a reliable party?' Well, by gum, I bu'st right out
laughin'! I hadn't ought to--seein' it was Adam's death-bed--and
Reverend him just sweatin' with tryin' to work in his job to get him
conwerted till he passed away a'ready. But I'm swanged if I could keep
in! I just HOLLERED!"
The doctor threw back his head and shouted with fresh appreciation of
his story, and Fairchilds joined in sympathetically.
"Well, did he die unconverted?" he asked the doctor.
"You bet! Reverend he sayed afterwards, that in all his practice of his
sacred calling he never had knew such a carnal death-bed. Now you see,"
concluded the doctor, "I tended ole Adam fur near two months, and
that's where I have a hold on his son the school-directer."
He laughed as he rose and stretched himself.
"It will be no end of sport foiling Jake Getz!" Fairchilds said, with
but a vague idea of what the doctor's scheme involved. "Well, doctor,
you are our mascot--Tillie's and mine!" he added, as he, too, rose.
"What's THAT?"
"Our good luck." He held out an objectionably clean hand with its
shining finger-nails. "Good night, Doc, and thank you!"
The doctor awkwardly shook it in his own grimy fist. "Good night to
you, then, Teacher."
Out in the bar-room, as the doctor took his nightly glass of beer at
the counter, he confided to Abe Wackernagel that somehow he did, now,
"like to see Teacher use them manners of hisn. I'm 'most as stuck on
'em as missus is!" he declared.