THE BIGGEST LIAR ON EARTH.
When Milford reached Rollins he found the Professor at the station
waiting for him. "I will go home with you," he said. "I have something
of grave importance to communicate." Steve Hardy offered them a ride in
his milk wagon, but they set out on foot, at the suggestion of the
Professor, who said that in this way he could better lead up to his
subject. Milford was silent till they had proceeded some distance down
the lane, and then he asked if anything had gone wrong. The Professor
answered that everything had gone wrong, but as he had not yet led up to
his subject, he continued to walk on, brooding, sighing like the wind in
the rushes. They turned the corner, went down a slope, and at the
bottom, the scholar took Milford by the arm apparently to conduct him to
the subject, which presumably was waiting on the top of the hill.
"We are coming to it, my dear Milford. It is elusive, but we are almost
to it. Now, here we are," he said, with evident relief, as they reached
the top of the hill.
"All right, go ahead," said Milford. "Shoot it off."
"Idiomatic," breathed the Professor. "And, sir, to follow it with idiom,
I am up against it."
"Up against what?"
"Failure, grinning and teeth-chattering failure. You have seen me turn
defiantly upon my false training, and woo the ways of the world. You
have seen me buy; you have seen me snatched off my feet by a yearling
calf, in the presence of a dignified woman; you have heard me pop my
whip at the crack of day. And what has it all come to? Failure. I know
that this sounds funny to you, but it is my way, and I find it useless
to attempt another. Now, to the point: On all my speculations I have
lost money. My bargains turned out to be disasters. I sold at a
sacrifice, and am still in debt. I don't know why I should not have
succeeded. My object was as worthy as yours. But I failed."
"That may be, but you're nearly as well off as you were before you made
the attempt. You haven't so much to grieve over after all."
"Oh, yes, I have. My life insurance. But for that I could snap my
fingers at defeat."
"When's the money due?"
"Day after to-morrow."
"I can let you have it. What are you trying to do?"
"I am grabbing after your hand."
"Let it alone."
"But, my dear fellow, your kindness overwhelms me."
"Then don't take the money."
"Oh, yes, I shall; I am more than willing to be overwhelmed. Ha! I had
set my heart on you, and was afraid that you might not be back in time.
Thank the Lord for the man who comes in time. All others are a blotch
upon the face of the earth. Last night was a torture to me. More than
once my wife called out, 'You give me the fidgets with your walking up
and down. I want to sleep.' Sleep! There was no sleep for me. I saw the
sun rise, and I said to myself, 'If that man don't come you won't shine
for me to-day.' But you came, God bless you. Well, I'll turn off here
and go by home, to show them that I am not crushed into the earth, and
will see you at your house this evening."
Mrs. Stuvic saw Milford, and came out to the barnyard gate. She wanted
to ask him if he had seen any of her boarders, but had forgotten their
names. Some one had told her that Milford expected soon to quit the
place, and she asked him why he had not told her.
"I've told you as much as I have any one," said he. "I don't expect to
go before next spring."
"Well, we may all be dead and buried before then," she replied.
"Yes, all except you."
"You bet! Why, three men have been here lately wantin' to insure my
life. Did you see that girl? But I know you did. Why don't you buy the
farm and bring her out here? You could soon pay for it."
"I'd rather live in the West."
"The cat's foot! You don't know what you want. Was that the Professor
man with you over there on the hill? I couldn't see very well. He's
crazy. Yes, he is, as crazy as a loon, and I don't want him round here.
He might set the house afire. Don't you think he's crazy?"
"Well, he's one of the peculiar many that go to make up the world."
"He's one of the peculiar many that go to make up an asylum, I'll tell
you that. Everybody says he's crazy. Come in and set down a while."
"No, I must go home."
"You're in a mighty hurry now, ain't you? Crazy as a loon, and you ain't
fur behind him. Go on with you."
At night the Professor came whistling out of the dark. The sky was
moonless, but brighter, he said, than the sunrise contemplated by him in
the hour of his dejection. Once more had he proved himself a failure,
but consoled himself with the assertion, made over and over again, that
it required a peculiar sharpness to deal in cattle. There ought to be
other ways by which a man might earn money; there were other ways, and
he would find one of them. He believed that he could write a book and
sell it himself, by subscription. He knew a man who had done this, and
now there were stone gate-posts in front of his house. Talk was the
necessary equipment, and he could talk. The agent ought to be the echo
of the wisdom in the book, and to echo had been his fault in the
practical world. But echo was worthy of its hire.
"Why, let me tell you what I can do," he said, his face beaming. "I can
take a book on Babylon, on Jerusalem, Nineveh, Jericho, the Red Sea,
home, mother, and make a volume that the farmers will snap at. Easy!
Why, slipping on the ice is hard compared with it. What do you think of
it?"
"Looks all right," said Milford.
"Well, anything that looks all right is all right in the book business.
I thought of it coming over to-night, and instantly the road was
carpeted. Yes, sir, it is all right. I have the necessary books, and all
I have to do is to begin work at once. No, there is perhaps a
preliminary--a certain amount of correspondence with publishers. Chicago
is the subscription book center of the country. Oh, it is the plainest
sort of sailing."
Milford gave him the life insurance money, and he smiled as he tucked it
into his pocket. "This is my last worry," said he. "I have had hopes,
mere hopes, you understand, but now I am confident. It is the
speculative uncertainty that brings out a hope. But I am too old now to
find pleasure in the intoxication of hope. I want assurance, and I have
it. Well, I would like to sit longer and talk to you, but I must get to
work."
Milford walked a part of the way home with him, congratulating him upon
his happy idea. It was an inspiration. They wondered why it had not come
sooner. But inspirations have their own time, and we should be thankful
for their coming rather than to carp at their lateness.
As Milford was returning to the house, he heard the hired man singing at
his work in the barn. He had been away from home, and had come back
rather late for one who had stock to look after. When he came into the
house Milford asked the cause of his delay.
"Well, I got tangled up in an affair and had to see it through. I've
been up to Antioch, and I see your prize-fighter there. He threw a drink
into me because I worked for you, he said. He says you can get along
anywhere with your dukes. Find everythin' in town all right?"
"Had a great time, walking about in the park. Shortest day I ever
spent."
"Haven't fixed any date or anythin' of the sort, I guess."
"We haven't said anything, but it's understood. We caught each other
looking at houses and flats, and had to laugh."
"I guess that's about as good a way as any. But love as a general thing
is full of a good deal of talk. Well, my affairs of that sort are over
now."
"So the freckled woman has cured you."
"Oh, no, I forgot her in no time. Fact is I never did love but one woman
and I married her."
"What's become of her?"
"She's up at Antioch."
"Did you see her?"
"Oh, yes, and we made it up. We're goin' to live together. I understood
from what you said t'other day that you wan't goin' to keep this place
another year, so I told the old woman that I wanted it. Yes, we are
goin' to take a fresh start. You said once that I ought to have cut her
throat, but I can't look at it in that light. After all, she's as good
as I am."
"A devilish sight better," said Milford.
"I guess you're right. So you wouldn't cut her throat?"
"Well, not if I were you."
"I don't exactly understand the difference, but it's all right. I got to
thinkin' this way about it, Bill. Most any woman will take a man back,
and I said to myself that it oughtn't to be so one-sided as that. I
heard she was at Antioch, at her aunt's house, so I goes up there. She
was a-sweepin' when I stepped up. And she dropped the broom. I says,
'Don't be in a hurry,' and she stopped and looked at me. 'And is this
you, Bob?' she says. I told her it was, so far as I knowed. She come up
close to me and said I'd been workin' too hard. She took hold of my hand
and turned it loose quick, lookin' like she wanted to cry. I says,
'Don't turn me loose. I've been thinkin' about you.' 'About such a thing
as I am?' she says. Then I told her she was a heap better than me, and
she cried. She said she never would have run away, but she drank some
wine with one of her aunt's boarders. I told her all that made no
difference now if she could promise not to run away again. And then she
grabbed me, Bill; she grabbed me round the neck, and that was the way we
made up."
"Go and bring her here," said Milford, turning his eyes from the light
of the lamp. "It makes no difference what I said last week or the week
before, or at any time. You bring her here, and take the best room. I'll
take your old bunk in there. Hitch up and go after her now. Wait a
minute. Take this and buy some dishes, and curtains for the windows.
That isn't enough. Take this twenty," he added, giving him a bank note.
"Good as you are! Why, she's worth both of us. Any heart that wants to
be forgiven is one of God's hearts. Drive fast, and the stores won't be
shut up. They keep open later Saturday nights. What are you staring at?
I can see the poor thing now, clinging to you."
"Wait a moment, Bill. I guess she'll be afraid to come. I told her what
you said."
"You did? Then go and tell her that I'm the biggest liar on earth. Wait!
I'll go with you."