CHAPTER VI

  THE WOLF SCRATCHES

  Mormon Joe had underestimated Jasper Toomey's capacity for extravaganceand mismanagement when he had given him five years to "go broke" in, ashe had accomplished it in four most effectively--so completely, in fact,that they had moved into town with only enough furniture to furnish asmall house, which they spoke of as having "rented," though as yet theowner had had nothing but promises to compensate him for theiroccupancy.

  It was close to a year after their advent in Prouty that Mrs. Toomeyawakened in the small hours, listened a moment, then prodded her husbandsharply:

  "The wind's coming up, Jap, and I left out my washing."

  "Never mind--I'll borrow a saddle horse in the morning and go after it."

  "Everything will be whipped to ribbons," she declared plaintively.

  "I'm not going out this time of night to collect laundry; besides, theexercise would make me hungrier."

  "Are you hungry, Jap?"

  "Hungry! I've been lying here thinking of everything I ever left on myplate since I was a baby!"

  Mrs. Toomey sighed deeply.

  "Wouldn't a fat club sandwich with chicken, lettuce, thin bacon andmayonnaise dressing--"

  "Hush!" Toomey exploded savagely. "If you say that again I'll dress andgo out and rob a hen roost!"

  Mrs. Toomey suggested hopefully:

  "Perhaps if you light the lamp, and smoke, it will take your mind offyour stomach."

  "I surmise that's all there is on it." Toomey lighted the lamp on thetable beside the bed and looked at the clock on the bureau.

  "Hours yet, my love, before I can gorge myself on a shredded wheatbiscuit."

  Mrs. Toomey braided a wisp of hair to an infinitesimal end and saidfirmly:

  "Jap, we've simply _got_ to do something! Can't you borrow?"

  "Borrow! I couldn't throw a rock inside the city limits without hittingsome one to whom I owe money. Come again, Old Dear," mockingly.

  "Wouldn't Mormon Joe--"

  "I'd starve before I'd ask that sheepherder!" His face darkened tougliness. "I'm surprised at you--that you haven't more pride. You knowhe broke me, shutting me off from water with his leases. I've explainedall that to you."

  She was silent; she didn't have the heart to hit him when he was down,though she had her own opinion as to the cause of his failure.

  Since she did not reply, he went on vindictively:

  "I've come to hate the sight of him--his damned insolence. Every time Isee him going into his shack over there," he nodded towards the diagonalcorner, "I could burn it."

  "It's funny--his building it."

  "To save hotel bills when he comes to town. Yes," ironically, "I can see_him_ lending _me_ money." Mrs. Toomey sat up and cried excitedly:

  "Jap, let's sell something! There's that silver punch bowl that yourUncle Jasper gave us for a wedding present, and Aunt Sarah Page's silverteapot--Mrs. Sudds admires it tremendously."

  Toomey's brow cleared instantly.

  "We can do that--I'll raffle it--the punch bowl--and get a hundred andfifty out of it easily." He discussed the details enthusiastically,finally blowing out the light and going to sleep as contentedly asthough it already had been accomplished.

  But in the darkness Mrs. Toomey cried quietly. Selling tickets for araffle which was for their personal benefit seemed a kind of genteelbegging. She wondered that Jap did not feel as she did about it. Andwhat would Mrs. Pantin think? What Mrs. Abram Pantin thought had come tomean a great deal to Mrs. Toomey.

  The wind had risen to a gale and she thought nervously of fringednapkins and pillow slips--the wind always gave her the "blues" anyway,and now it reminded her of winter, which was close, with its bittercold--of snow driven across trackless wastes, of gaunt predatoryanimals, of cattle and horses starving in draws and gulches, and all theother things which winter meant in that barren country. She slept aftera time, to find the next morning that the wind still howled and thefringe on her laundry was all she had pictured.

  Toomey set forth gaily immediately after breakfast with the punch bowlwrapped in a newspaper, and Mrs. Toomey nerved herself to negotiate forthe sale of the teapot to Mrs. Sudds, in the event of his beingunsuccessful.

  She watched for his return eagerly, but it was two o'clock before shesaw him coming, leaning against the wind and clasping the punch bowl tohis bosom. Her heart sank, for his face told her the result withoutasking.

  Toomey set Uncle Jasper's wedding gift upon the dining room table withdisrespectful violence.

  "You must be crazy to think I could sell that in Prouty! You should haveknown better!"

  "Didn't anybody want it, Jap?" Mrs. Toomey asked timidly.

  "Want it?" angrily. "'Tinhorn' thought it was some kind of a tonycuspidor, and a round-up cook offered me a dollar and a half for it toset bread sponge in."

  "Never mind," soothingly, "I'm sure Mrs. Sudds will take the teapot."

  "We can't live all winter on a teapot," he answered gloomily.

  "But you're sure to get into something pretty quick now."

  "When I land, I'll land big--I'll land with both feet," he respondedmore cheerfully.

  "Of course, you will--I never doubt it." Mrs. Toomey endeavored to makeher tone convincing. "Let's have tea in the heirloom before we part withit," she suggested brightly. "It's never been used that I can remember."

  "It's ugly enough to be valuable," Toomey observed, eyeing the teapot asshe took it from the top of the bookcase.

  "Solid, nearly, and came over in the _Mayflower_," Mrs. Toomey repliedproudly. "We'll have tea and toast and codfish."

  "The information is superfluous." Toomey sniffed the air and made a wryface. "I'd as soon eat billposter's paste as codfish."

  "To-night we'll have steak--thick, like that--" Mrs. Toomey measuredwith her thumb and finger as she went into the kitchen.

  Toomey eyed the codfish darkly when his wife placed it on the table.

  "Sit down, Jap," she urged. "The tea will be steeped in just a second.Don't wait--" A scream completed the sentence.

  Toomey overturned his chair as he rushed to the kitchen. He arrived intime to see the lid of the priceless heirloom disappearing in a puddleof pewter. It seemed to the Toomeys that the Fates had singled them outas special objects for their malevolence.

  The wind continued to blow as though it meant never to stop. It was awind of which the people of the East who speak awesomely of their own"gales" and "tempest" wot not.

  This wind which had kept Prouty indoors for close to a week came out ofa cloudless sky, save for a few innocent looking streaks on the westernhorizon. It had blown away everything that would move. All the loosepapers had sailed through the air to an unknown destination--Nebraska,perhaps--while an endless procession of tumble weed had rolled in thesame direction from an apparently inexhaustible supply in the west.

  Housewives who had watched their pile of tin cans move on to the nextlot found their satisfaction short-lived, for as quickly they acquiredthe rubbish that belonged to their neighbor on the other side. Shinglesflew off and chimney bricks, and ends of corrugated iron roofing slappedand banged as though frantic to be loose. Houses shivered on theirfoundations, and lesser buildings lay on their sides. Clouds of dustobscured the sun at intervals, and the sharp-edged gravel driven beforethe gale cut like tiny knives.

  Any daring chicken that ventured from its coop slid away as if it wereon skates. Pitchforks were useless, and those who had horses to feedcarried the hay in sacks. The caged inhabitants stood at their windowsand made caustic comments upon the legs and general contour of suchunfortunates as necessity took out, while those pedestrians who wouldconverse, upon catching sight of each other made a dive for the nearesttelephone pole. There, clinging by an arm like a shipwrecked sailor to amast, they ventured to opine that it must be "getting ready forsomething." It seemed as though the earth would soon be denuded of itssoil, leaving the rocks exposed like a skeleton stripped of its flesh.Yet, day after day, it blew withou
t respite, and the effect of it upondifferent temperaments was as varied as that of drink.

  No one could seem to remember that the wind had not always blown, orrealize that it would sometime stop. No character was strong enough tomaintain a perfect equilibrium after three days of it. Logic orphilosophy made no more impression upon the mental state than waterslipping over a rock. It set the nerves on edge. Irritation,restlessness and discontent were as uncontrollable as great fear. Twowildcats tied together were not more incompatible than husbands andwives, who under normal conditions lived together happily. Dotingmothers became shrews; fond fathers, brutes, lambasting their offspringon the smallest pretext; while seven was too conservative an estimate toplace upon the devils of which the children who turned the house intoBedlam seemed to be possessed.

  Optimists grew green with melancholia, pessimists considered suicide asan escape from the futility of life, neighbors resurrected buriedhatchets. Friends found fault with friends. Enemies vowed to kill eachother as soon as the wind let up.

  If the combination of wind and altitude had this effect upon phlegmatictemperaments, something of Mrs. Toomey's state may be surmised. Withnerves already overwrought this prolonged windstorm put her in acondition in which, as she declared hysterically to her husband, she was"ready to fly."

  Lying on his back on the one-time handsome sofa, where he spent many ofhis waking hours, Toomey responded, grimly:

  "I'm getting so light on that breakfast-food diet that we'll both fly ifI don't make a 'touch' pretty quick. I'm 'most afraid to go out in ahigh wind without running a little shot in the bottoms of my trousers."

  Mrs. Toomey, who was standing at the dining room table laying a sectionof a newspaper pattern upon a piece of serge, felt an uncontrollabledesire to weep. Furthermore, the conviction seized her that, turn andtwist the pattern as she might, she was not going to have materialenough unless she pieced.

  Her lids turned pink and her eyes filled up.

  "Isn't it awful, Jap, to think of us being like this?"

  "You make me think of a rabbit when you sniffle like that. Can't you crywithout wiggling your nose?"

  Mrs. Toomey's quavering voice rose to the upper register:

  "Do you suppose I care how I look when I feel like this?"

  "How do you think I feel," ferociously, "with my stomach slumping in soI can hardly straighten up?" He raised a long arm and shook a fist asthough in defiance of the Fate that had brought him to this. "I'd sellmy soul for a ham! I'm going to Scales and put up a talk."

  Toomey found his hat and coat. "Don't cut your throat with the scissorswhile I'm gone, Little Sunbeam, and I'll be back with food prettyquick--unless I blow off."

  He spoke with such confidence that Mrs. Toomey looked at him hopefully.When he opened the door the furious gust that shook the house anddarkened the room with a cloud of dust seemed to suck him into a vortex.Mrs. Toomey watched him round the corner with a sense of relief. Nowthat she was alone she could cry comfortably and look as ugly as sheliked, so the tears flowed copiously as she stood at the table puzzlingover the pattern and cloth. They flowed afresh when she proved beyondthe question of a doubt that she would have to piece the under-armsleeve. Simultaneously she wondered if she could do it so skilfully thatMrs. Abram Pantin would not see the piece. Then she frowned in vexationat the realization that it was becoming second nature to wonder whatPrissy Pantin would think. Was it possible that there had been a timewhen she had debated as to whether she wanted to know Mrs. Abram Pantinat all?

  When she had married Jap she had thought she was done forever with themiserable poverty and hateful economies that are the lot of the familyof a small-town minister; that after years of suppression of opinionsand tastes in order not to evoke criticism or give offense, she at lastwas in a position to assert herself.

  And now after a taste of freedom, of power and opulence, here she wasback in practically the same position and rapidly developing the samemental attitude towards those more affluent and, therefore, moresocially important than herself. Mrs. Toomey's thoughts were much thecolor of the serge into which she slashed.

  Finally, after a glance at the clock, she walked to the window to lookfor her husband. He was not in sight. As she lingered her glance fell onMormon Joe's tar-paper shack that set in the middle of the lot on thediagonal corner from their house, and she told herself bitterly thateven that drunken renegade, that social pariah, had enough to eat.

  Her face brightened as Toomey turned the corner and promptly lengthenedwhen she saw that he was empty-handed and walking with the exaggeratedswagger which she was coming to recognize as a sign of failure.

  A glimpse of his face as he came in, banged the door, and flung off hishat and coat made her hesitate to speak.

  "Well?" he glared at her. "Why don't you say something?"

  "What is there to say, Jap?" meekly. "I see he refused you."

  "Refused me? He insulted me!"

  Mrs. Toomey looked hurt.

  "What did he say, Jap?"

  "He offered me fifteen dollars a week to _clerk_."

  Toomey resented fiercely the pleased and hopeful expression on hiswife's face, and added:

  "I suppose you'd like to see me cutting calico and fishing salt pork outof the brine?"

  She ventured timidly:

  "I thought you might take it until something worth while turned up."

  "Maybe," he sneered, "I could get a job swamping in 'Tinhorn's'place--washing fly specks off the windows and sweeping out."

  "Of course, you're right, Jap," conciliatingly, but she sighedunconsciously as she went back to her work.

  Toomey paced the floor for a time, then sank into his usual place on thesofa. Mrs. Toomey permitted herself to observe sarcastically:

  "It's a wonder to me you don't get bed sores--the amount of time youspend on the flat of your back."

  "What do you mean by that?" suspiciously. "Do you mean I'm lazy becauseI didn't take that job?"

  Since she made no denial, conversation ceased, and the silence wasbroken only by the sound of her scissors upon the table and the howlingof the gale.

  He smoked cigarette after cigarette in gloomy thought, finally gettingup and going to a closet off the kitchen.

  "What are you looking for, Jap?" she called as she heard him rummaging.

  He did not reply, but evidently found what he sought for he came outpresently carrying a shotgun.

  "Are you going to try and raffle that?"

  Still he did not deign to answer, but preserved his injured air, andgetting once more into his hat and coat started off with the martyredmanner of a man who has been driven from home.

  Mrs. Toomey finally threw down her scissors with a gesture of despair.She was too nervous to do any more. The wind, her anxious thoughts, theexacting task of cutting a suit from an inadequate amount of cloth, wasa combination that proved to be too much. She glanced at the clock onthe bookcase--only three o'clock! Actually there seemed forty-eighthours in days like this. She stood uncertainly for a moment, thendetermination settled on her tense worried face. Why put it off anylonger? It must be done sooner or later--she was sure of that. Besides,nothing ever was as hard as one anticipates. This was a cheeringthought, and the lines in Mrs. Toomey's forehead smoothed out as shestood before the mirror buttoning her coat and tying a veil over herhead.

  It took no small amount of physical courage for a person of Mrs.Toomey's frailty to face such a gale. But with her thin lips in adetermined line and her gaze straight ahead, she managed, by tackingjudiciously and stopping at intervals to clasp a telephone pole whileshe recovered her breath, to reach the iron fence imported from Omahawhich gave such a look of exclusiveness to the Pantins' residence.

  Mr. Pantin thought he heard the gate slam and peered out through thedead wild-cucumber vines which framed the bow window to see Mrs. Toomeycoming up the only cement walk in Prouty. He immediately thrust hisstockinged feet back in his comfortable Romeos preparatory to openingthe door, but before he got up he stooped a
nd looked again, searchingly.Mr. Pantin was endowed with a gift that was like a sixth sense, whichenabled him to detect a borrower as far as his excellent eyesight couldsee one. This intuition, combined with experience, had been developed tothe point of uncanniness. No borrower, however adroit, could hope toconceal from Mr. Pantin for a single instant the real purpose of hiscall by irrelevant talk and solicitous inquiries about his health. Inthe present instance it did not require great acumen to guess thatsomething urgent had brought Mrs. Toomey out on a day like this, nor anyparticular keenness to detect the signs of agitation which Mr. Pantinnoted in his swift glance. She was coming to borrow--he was as sure ofthat as though she already had asked, and if any further confirmationwere needed, her unnatural gayety when he admitted her and theshortness of her breath finished that.

  It availed Mrs. Toomey nothing to tell herself that Mrs. Pantin was herbest friend, and that what she was asking was merely a matter ofbusiness--the sort of thing that Mr. Pantin was doing every day. Herheart beat ridiculously and she was rather shocked to hear herselflaughing shrilly at Mr. Pantin's banal inquiry as to whether she had not"nearly blown off." He added in some haste:

  "Priscilla's in the kitchen."

  Mrs. Pantin looked up in surprise at her caller's entrance.

  "How perfectly sweet of you to come out a day like this!" she chirped."You'll excuse me if I go on getting dinner? We only have two meals aday when we don't exercise. This wind--isn't it dreadful? I haven't beenout of the house for a week."

  She placed two rolls in the warming oven and broke three eggs into abowl.

  "Abram and I are so fond of omelette," she said, as the egg-beaterwhirred. "Tell me," she beamed brightly upon Mrs. Toomey, "what have youbeen doing with yourself?"

  "Priscilla--Prissy--" Mrs. Toomey caught her breath--"I've beenmiserable--and that's the truth!"

  "Why, my dear!" The egg-beater stopped. "Aren't you well? No wonder--I'mas nervous as a witch myself." The egg-beater whirred againencouragingly. "You must use your will power--you mustn't allow yourselfto be affected by these external things."

  "It's not the wind." Mrs. Toomey's eyes were swimming now. "I'm worriedhalf to death."

  Mrs. Pantin had not lived twelve years with Abram in vain. A look ofsuspicion crossed her face, and there was a little less solicitude inher voice as she inquired:

  "Is it anything in particular? Bad news from home?"

  "It's money!" Mrs. Toomey blurted out. "We're dreadfully hard up. I cameto see if we could get a loan."

  The egg-beater went on, but the milk of human kindness which,presumably, flowed in Mrs. Pantin's breast stopped--congealed--froze uptight. Her blue eyes, whose vividness was accentuated as usual by therobin's egg blue dress she wore, had the warm genial glow radiating froma polar berg. It was, however, only a moment before she recoveredherself and was able to say with sweet earnestness:

  "I haven't anything to do with that, my dear. You'll have to see Mr.Pantin."

  Mrs. Toomey clasped her fingers tightly together and stammered:

  "If--if you would speak to him first--I--I thought perhaps--"

  Mrs. Pantin's set society smile was on her small mouth, but the finalityof the laws of the Medes and the Persians was in her tone as shereplied:

  "I never think of interfering with my husband's business or makingsuggestions. As fond as I am of you, Delia, you'll have to ask himyourself."

  Mrs. Toomey had the feeling that they never would be quite on the samefooting again. She knew it from the way in which Mrs. Pantin's eyestravelled from the unbecoming brown veil on her head to her warm butantiquated coat, stopping at her shabby shoes which, instinctively, shedrew beneath the hem of her skirt.

  To be shabby from carelessness was one thing--to be so from necessitywas another, clearly was in Mrs. Pantin's mind. She had known, ofcourse, of the collapse of their cattle-raising enterprise, but she hadnot dreamed they were in such a bad way as this. She hoped she was notthe sort of person who would let it make any difference in her warmfriendship for Delia Toomey; nevertheless, Mrs. Toomey detected thesubtle note of patronage in her voice when she said:

  "Abram is alone in the living room--you might speak to him."

  "I think I will." Mrs. Toomey endeavored to repair the mistake she feltshe had made by speaking in a tone which implied that a loan was of nogreat moment after all, but she walked out with the feeling that sheused to have in the presence of the more opulent members of her father'scongregation when the flour barrel was low.

  Mrs. Toomey was not too agitated to note how immaculate and dainty thedining room table looked with its fine linen and cut glass. There weresix dices of apple with a nut on top on the handsome salad plates, andthe crystal dessert dishes each held three prunes swimming in their richjuice.

  The living-room, too, reflected Mrs. Pantin's taste. A framed mottoextolling the virtues of friendship hung over the mantel and the "BlindGirl of Pompeii" groped her way down the staircase on the neutral-tintedwall. A bookcase filled with sets of the world's best literatureoccupied a corner of the room, while ooze leather copies of Henry VanDyke gave an unmistakable look of culture to the mission table in thecenter of the room. A handsome leather davenport with a neat row of sofapillows along the back, which were of Mrs. Pantin's own handiwork,suggested luxurious ease. But the chief attraction of the room was thebrick fireplace with its spotless tiled hearth. One of Mr. Pantin'sdiversions was sitting before the glowing coals, whisk and shovel inhand, waiting for an ash to drop.

  Seeing Mrs. Toomey, Mr. Pantin again hastily thrust his toes into hisslippers--partly because he was cognizant of the fact that no realgentleman will receive a lady in his stocking feet, and partly toconceal the neat but large darn on the toe of one sock. He was courteousamiability itself, and Mrs. Toomey's hopes shot up.

  "I came to have a little talk."

  "Yes?"

  Mr. Pantin's smile deceived her and she plunged on with confidence:

  "I--we would like to arrange for a loan, Mr. Pantin."

  "To what amount, Mrs. Toomey?"

  Mrs. Toomey considered.

  "As much as you could conveniently spare."

  The smile which Mr. Pantin endeavored to conceal was genuine.

  "For what length of time?"

  Mrs. Toomey had not thought of that.

  "I could not say exactly--not off-hand like this--but I presume onlyuntil my husband gets into something."

  "Has he--er--anything definite in view?"

  "I wouldn't say definite, not definite, but he has several irons in thefire and we expect to hear soon."

  "I see." Mr. Pantin's manner was urbane but, observing him closely, Mrs.Toomey noted that his eyes suddenly presented the curious illusion oftwo slate-gray pools covered with skim ice. It was not an encouragingsign and her heart sank in spite of the superlative suavity of the tonein which he inquired:

  "What security would you be able to give, Mrs. Toomey?"

  Security? Between friends? She had not expected this.

  "I--I'm afraid I--we haven't any, Mr. Pantin. You know we losteverything when we lost the ranch. But you're perfectly safe--youneedn't have a moment's anxiety about that."

  Immediately it seemed as though invisible hands shot out to push heraway, yet Mr. Pantin's tone was bland as he replied:

  "I should be delighted to be able to accommodate you, but just at thepresent time--"

  "You can't? Oh, I wish you would reconsider--as a matter of friendship.We need it--desperately, Mr. Pantin!" Her voice shook.

  Again she had the sensation of invisible hands fighting her off.

  "I regret very much--"

  The hopelessness of any further plea swept over her. She arose with agesture of despair, and Mr. Pantin, smiling, suave, urbane, bowed herout and closed the door. He watched her go down the walk and through thegate, noting her momentary hesitation and wondering where she might begoing in such a wind. When she started in the opposite direction fromhome and walked rapidly down the road that led out of tow
n it flashedthrough his mind that she might be bent on suicide--she had lookeddesperate, no mistake, but, since there was no water in which to drownherself, and no tree from which to hang herself, and the country was soflat that there was nothing high enough for her to jump off of and breakher neck, he concluded there was no real cause for uneasiness.

  It was Mr. Pantin's proud boast that he never yet had "held the sack,"and now he thought complacently as he turned from the window, grabbedthe shovel and whisk and leaped for an ash that had dropped, that thiswas an instance where he had again shown excellent judgment in notallowing his warm heart and impulses to control his head.