III
There was a great din of whacking and hammering that morning. Redworked like a horse, now that he had company. A sudden thoughtstruck him and he went into the house.
"Mattie," said he.
"Well, Will?"
"I see a use for the rest of that nice big roast of beef I smell inthe oven--let's have all these fellers stay to dinner, and give 'emone good feed--what do you say?"
"Why, I'd like to. Will--but I don't know--where'll I set them?"
"Couple of boards outside for a table--let them sit on boxes orsomething--got plates and things enough?"
"My, yes! Plenty of such things, Will."
"Then if it ain't too much trouble for you, we'll let it go."
"No trouble at all, Will--it will be a regular picnic."
"Boys, you'll eat with me this day," said Red.
They spread the board table beneath an old apple tree, and cleanedup for the repast in the kitchen storm-shed with an apologetic,"Sorry to trouble you, Miss Saunders," or such a matter as eachwent in.
Just as Miss Mattie was withdrawing the meat from the oven, therecame a knock at the door.
"Goodness, gracious!" she exclaimed. "Who can that be now? Will,will you see who that is? I can't go."
"Sure!" said Red, and went to the door. There stood two women ofthat indefinite period between forty and sixty, very decentlydressed and with some agitation visible in the way they fussilyadjusted various parts of their attire.
They started at the sudden spectacle of the huge man who saidpleasantly, "Howderdo, ladies!"
"Why, how do you do?" replied the taller instantly, and in a voiceshe had never heard before. "I hope you're well, sir?" A remarkwhich filled her with surprise.
"Thanks--I'm able to assume the perpendicular, as you can see,"responded Red with a handsome smile of welcome. "How do you findyourself?"
"I'm pretty well," said the flustered lady. "How do you do?"
"Durned if we ain't right back where we started from," mourned Redto himself. "If it's one of the customs of this country saying'howderdo' an hour at a stretch, I pass it up." Aloud, he said,"Coming along fine--how's your father?" "Cuss me if I don't shiftthe cut a little, anyhow," he added mentally.
"Why, he's very well indeed!" exclaimed the lady with fervor."How--" She got no further on the query, for the other womaninterrupted in a tone of scandal. "Mary Ann Demilt! How can youtalk like that! Your father's been dead this five year lastAugust!"
The horror of the moment was broken by the appearance of MissMattie, crying hospitably on seeing the visitors, "Why, Mary andPauline! How do you do?"
The shorter one--Pauline--looked up and said sharply, "We're wellenough, Mattie." She was weary of the form.
"Come right in," said Miss Mattie. "You're just in time fordinner."
There was a great protest at this. They "hadn't a moment tospare," they were "just going down to the corner, and had stoppedto say," etc., etc.
"You've got to help me," said Miss Mattie. "Will here has invitedthe boys who are working for him to stay to dinner, and it won't beany more than Christian for you to help me out."
"Ladies!" said Red. "If you don't want to starve a man who'sdeserving of a better fate, take off your fixings and come out todinner. No," he continued to their protests, which he observedwere growing weaker. "It's no trouble at all: there's plenty foreverybody--come one, come all, this house shall fly, clean off itsbase as soon as I--Now for Heaven's sake, ladies, it's allsettled--come on."
Whereat they laughed nervously, and took off their hats.
It was a jolly dinner party. The young fellows Red had picked upin the blacksmith's shop were not the ordinary quality of loungers.They were boys of good country parentage, with a common schooleducation, who, unfortunately, could find nothing to do but theoccasional odd job. Of course it would not take long to transformthem into common n'er-do-wells, but now they were merelythoughtless boys.
The whole affair had an _al fresco_ flavor which stopperedconvention. The two women visitors pitched in and had as good atime as anybody.
In the middle of the festivities a young man walked past the frontfence; a stranger evidently, for-his clothes wore the cut of acity, and a cosmopolitan, up-to-date city at that. He stopped andlooked at the house, hesitated a moment and then walked in, back towhere the folk were eating.
"Excuse me," said he, as they looked up at him, "but isn't this Mr.Demilt's house?"
A momentary silence followed, as it was not clear whose turn it wasto answer. Miss Mattie glanced around and finding Red's eye onher, replied, "No sir--Mr. Demilt's house is about a mile furtherup the road."
"Dear me!" said the young man ruefully. He was a spic-and-span,intelligent looking man, with less of the dandy about him than theair of a man who had never worn anything but clothes of the propertrim, and become quite used to it. Nevertheless the sweat stoodout in drops on his forehead, for Fairfield's front "street"savoured of a less moral region than it really was, on a broilingsummer day.
The young man sighed frankly and wiped his head. "Well, that's toobad," he said. "I'm a stranger here--would you kindly tell mewhere I could get some dinner?"
"What's the matter with that?" inquired Red, pointing to the roast,which still preserved an air of fallen greatness. He had liked thelook of the other instantly.
The stranger looked first at Red and then at the roast. "The onlything I can see the matter with that," he answered, "is that it isa slice too thick."
"Keno!" cried Red, "you get it. Mattie, another plate and weaponsto fit. Sit down, sir, and rest your fevered feet. It you don'tlike walking any better than I do, you've probably strewn fragmentsof one of the commandments all the way from where the stage droppedyou to this apple tree."
"It seems to me that I did make some remarks that I never learnedat my mother's knee," returned the other laughing. "And I'mexceedingly obliged for the invitation, as there doesn't seem to bea hotel here, and I am but a degree south of starvation."
"Red or black?" asked the host, with a quick glance at his guest.
The other caught the allusion. "I haven't followed the deal," hereplied, "but I'll chance it on the red."
Somehow he felt instantly at home and at ease; it was a qualitythat Red Saunders dispersed wherever he went.
"There you are, sir," said Red, forwarding a plate full of juicymeat. "The ladies will supply the decorations."
"Do you like rice as a vegetable, sir?" inquired Miss Mattie.
"No--he doesn't," interrupted Red. "He likes it as ananimal--never saw anyone who looked less like a vegetable than ourfriend," The young man's laugh rang out above the others.
Poor Miss Mattie was confused. "It's too bad of you, Will, to putsuch a meaning on my words," she said.
"The strange part of it is," spoke the young man, seeing anopportunity for a joke, and to deal courteously with hisentertainers at the same time. "The peculiar fact is, that my nameis Lettis."
"Lettuce?" cried Red. "Mattie, I apologise--he is a vegetable."
At which they all laughed again.
"And now," said Red, "I'm Red Saunders, late of the Chantay SeecheRanch, Territory of Dakota--State of North Dakota, I mean, can'tget used to the State business; there's a Bill and a Dick on thisside of me and two Johns and a Sammy on the other. Foot of thetable is Miss Mattie Saunders, next to her--just as they run--MissPauline Doolittle and Miss Mary Ann Demilt, who may be kin to thegentleman you're seeking."
"Mr. Thomas F. Demilt?" asked the stranger.
"He's my sister," responded Miss Mary Ann. Whereat the youthsburied their faces in the plates, as Mr. Thomas F., in spite ofmany excellent qualities, bore a pathetic resemblance to the title.
"I mean," continued the lady hurriedly, "that I'm his brother."
"By Jimmy, ma'am!" exclaimed Red. "But yours is a strange family!"
"What Miss Demilt wishes to say," cut in Miss Doolittle with someasperity, "is that Mr. Thomas Faulkenst
one Demilt is her brother."She did not add, as extreme candour would have urged, "And I havesome hope--remote, alas! but there--of becoming sister to MissDemilt myself."
"Thank you!" said Lettis. "Shall I be able to see him thisafternoon?"
"Oh, mercy, yes!" said Miss Mary Ann. "Tom is home all day."
"I can thank the kind fates for that," said Lettis. "I had begunto think he was a myth," and he fell in upon the tender meat withthe vigorous appetite of youth and a good digestion.
Nathaniel Lettis was by no means a fool, and he had experience inbusiness, but the mainspring of the young fellow was frankness, andin the course of the dinner he told his errand. Mr. Demilt hadwritten to his firm explaining the advantages of starting astraw-board factory in Fairfield. It was too small a thing for thefirm to be interested in, but Lettis had a small capital which hewished to invest in an enterprise of his own handling, and it hadstruck him that there might be a chance for independence; thereforehe had come to find out the lay of the land.
* * * * *
Red Saunders' first-glance liking of the stranger deepened as hetold of his business. The cowman did not blame people who tookdevious ways and dealt in ambiguities, for his experience in theworld, which was pretty fairly complete, had told him that craftwas a necessity for weak natures; nevertheless he cared not forthose who used it.
In his part of the West, a man would no more think of giving afalse impression of his financial standing to alter his position inone's regard, than he would wear corsets. Money was of smallconsequence; its sequelae of less. Men spoke openly of how muchthey made; how they liked the job; how their claims were paying;such matters were neutral ground of chance conversation, as theweather is in the East. The rapid and unpredictable changes offortune gave a tendency to make light of one's present condition.A man would say "I'm busted" without any more feeling than he wouldsay "I have a cold." Now, in Fairfield, that is not likelylonesome in that respect, one of the principal objects in life wasto conceal the poverty which would persist in sticking its gauntelbows through the cloth of words spread over it. Red askedstraight-forward questions--shrewd ones, too--seeing that the otherwas one of his own kind and would not resent it.
Lettis wanted nothing better than a chance to expand on thesubject. It was close to his heart. He had been a subordinateabout as long as a proud and masterful young fellow ought to be.Now he was quivering to try his own strength, and seeing, for hispart, that his host was inspired with a genuine interest and notcuriosity, he gave him all the information in his power.
"But a plant like that is going to cost some money, ain't it?"asked Red.
"Too much for me, I'm afraid," replied Lettis. "I have fivethousand to put in, and I suppose I could borrow the rest, butthat's saddling the business with too heavy charges right in thebeginning. Still, it may not be as bad as I fancy."
Red drummed on the table, thinking. "I wouldn't mind getting intoa business of some kind, as long as it was making things," he said."I don't hanker to keep store much--suppose I go along with you,when you look up how much straw is raised and the rest of it?"
"Would you?" cried the young fellow, eagerly. "By George, sir, Iwish you could see your way clear to take hold of it. Could youstand ten thousand, for instance? Excuse the question, but I'm soanxious over this----"
"Lord! What's the harm of asking facts?" said Red. Then with agleam of genial pride, "Ten thousand wouldn't break me by a durnsight".
Lettis' boyish face fairly glowed. "It was my good angel made mestop in front of your fence," he said. "I saw you all eating inhere and you looked so jolly, that I thought I'd stop, on thechance you might be the man I was looking for; now I'll go right onand see Mr. Demilt and find out what he wants to do in the matter."
"Wait for the waggon and you can ride," said Red. "Boy's gone hometo see his dad about working for me this afternoon; in themeantime, it you're not too proud to take hold and help us withthis dod-ratted fence, I'll be obliged to you."
"Bring on your fence! I'm ready," said Lettis.
"Come on, boys!" said Red, and the party rose from the table.Later the waggon came up.
"Well, good day, Lettis," said Red. "If you can't get quartersanywhere else, come on and help me hold the barn down."
"Do you sleep in the barn? Then I'll come back sure. Tell you howit is, Mr. Saunders. I've been stuck up in a three-by-nine officefor four years--nose held to 'A to M, Western branch,' and if I'mnot sick of it there's no such thing as sickness; to get out andbreathe the fresh air, to see the country, to be my own master!Well, sir, it just makes me tremble to think of it. I hope youfind the straw-board what you want to take up."
"I shouldn't wonder if it would be," answered Red. "We'll make acorking team to do business, Lettis, I can see that--so cautiousand full of tricks, and all that."
The young man laughed and then sobered down. "Of course, I knowthe whole thing would look insane to most people," he saidsturdily, "but I've been in business long enough to see sharpgentlemen come to grief in spite of their funny work. I don'tbelieve a man'll come to any more harm by believing people meanwell by him than he would by working on the other tack."
"Good boy!" said Red, slapping him on the back. "You stick to thatand you'll get a satisfaction out of it that money couldn't buyyou. Another thing, you'd never get a cent out of me in this worldit you were one of these smooth young men. My eye teeth are cut,son, for all I may seem easy. The man that does me a trick has achance for bad luck, and you can bet on that."
"Lord! I believe you!" replied Lettis, taking in the dimensions ofhis new friend. "Well, good-bye for the present, Mr.Saunders--thank you for the dinner and still more for the heart youhave put into me."
At six o'clock the fence was not quite finished.
"If you'll stay with me until the thing's done, I'll stand anotherdollar all around," said Red. "I don't want it to stare me in theface to-morrow."
The eldest spoke up. "We'll stay with you, Mr. Saunders, but wedon't want any money for it, do we, fellers?"
"No," they replied in chorus, well meaning what they said.
"Why, you're perfectly welcome to the cash!" said Red.
"And you're welcome to the work," retorted the boy. "We're paidplenty as it is."
"If that's the way you look at it, I'm much obliged to you," saidRed, who would not have discouraged such a feeling for anything.He said to himself, "This don't seem much like the kind of peopleI've heard inhabited these parts. Those boys are all right.Reckon it you use people decent they'll play up to your lead, nomatter what country it is."
At seven thirty the fence was done, gorgeous in a coat of fresh redpaint, and the hands departed, each with a slice of Miss Mattie'schocolate cake, a thing to make the heathen gods feel contemptuousof ambrosia.
They went straight to the blacksmith's shop, where they wereanxiously expected.
"Good Lord!" he said a little later, "it you fellers will talk oneat a time, p'r'aps I can make out what's happened. Now, Sammy,sp'ose you do the speaking?"
Whereupon Sammy faithfully chronicled the events of the day. Theboys had behaved themselves as if there was nothing out of thecommon happening while they were with Red, being held up by a senseof pride, but naturally, the splendid physique of the cowman, hispicturesque attire, his abandoned way of scattering money aroundand the air of a frolic he had managed to impart to a day's hardwork, all had effect on imagination, and the boys were very muchexcited.
"I'd like to know how many Injuns that feller's killed!" piped upthe youngest. "My! he could grab hold of a man and wring his necklike a chicken."
"Aw, tst!" remonstrated the blacksmith. But the elders stood bythe younker this time.
"Yes, he could, Mr. Farrel!" said they. "You ought to seen himwhen he rolled up his sleeves! He's got an arm on him like thehind leg of a horse, and he uses an ax like a tack-hammer. He gotmad once when he pounded his thumb, and busted the post square intwo with one crack."
> "Well, he looks like a husky man," admitted the blacksmith. "Butwhy didn't you boys take the extry dollar when he made the offer?He 'pears to know what he was about and looks kind of foolish tosay 'no' to it."
There was a moment's silence. "We wanted to show him we were justas good as the folks he knew," explained the eldest, somewhatshame-facedly.
The blacksmith straightened himself. "Quite right, too," saidhe. "We _air_, when you come to that." A little pride is awonderful tonic. Each unit of that gathering felt himself thebetter for the display of it.
* * * * *
In the meantime, Red was repairing the ravages of the day oppositeMiss Mattie at a supper table which was bountifully spread. MissMattie put two and two together, and found they meant a larger sumof eatables than she had hitherto felt sufficient, and with alittle pang at the thought of the inadequacy of her first offeringto her cousin, provided such fatness as the land of Fairfieldboasted.
They discussed the events of the day with satisfaction.
"My!" said Miss Mattie. "You do things wholesale while you areabout it, Will, don't you?"
Red smiled in pleased acknowledgment. "I'm no peanut stand, oldlady," said he. "I like to see things move."
Then Miss Mattie broached the question she had been hovering aroundever since her guests had taken their leave.
"Do you think you'll really go into business with that young manwho was here to dinner?" she asked.
"Why, I think it's kinder likely," said Red.
"But you don't know anything about him, Will," she continued,putting the weak side of her desire forward, in order to rest moresecurely if that stood the test.
"No, I don't," agreed Red. "But here's the way I feel about that:I want to be doing something according to my size; besides that, itwould be a good thing for this place if some kind of a live doingswas to start here. All right, that's my side of it. Now, as faras not knowing that young feller's concerned, I might think I knewhim from cyclone-cellar to roof-tree, and he might do me to acrowded house. My idea is that life's a good deal like faro--youknow how that is."
"I remember about his not letting the people go, but I'm afraid Idon't know my Bible as well as I ought to, Will," apologised MissMattie, rather astonished at his allusion.
"Let the people go? Bible?" cried Red, laying down his knife andfork, still more astonished at her allusion. "Will you kindly tellme what that has to do with faro-bank? Girl, one of us is full ofghost songs, and far, far off the reservation. What in the name ofBrigham Young's off-ox are you talking about?"
"Why, you spoke of Pharaoh, Will, and I can remember about hisholding the children of Israel captive, and the plagues, but Ireally don't see just how it applies."
"Oh!" said Red, as a great light broke upon him. "Oh, I see whatyou're thinking about. The old boy who corralled the Jews, andmade 'em work for the first and last time in their history, andthey filled him full of fleas, and darkness, and all kinds ofunpleasant experiences to break even? Well, I was not talkingabout him at all. My faro is a game played with a lay-out and apack of cards and a little tin box that you ought to look atcarefully before you put any money on the board, to see that itain't arranged for dealing seconds; and there's a lookout and acase keeper and--well, I don't believe I could tell you just how itworks, but some day I'll make a layout and we'll have some fun.It's a bully game, but I say, it's a great deal like life--thesplits go to the dealer; that is to say, that if the king comes outto win and lose at the same time, you lose anyhow, see?"
"No," said Miss Mattie, truthfully.
Red thrust his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I'm afraid Iknow too much about it to explain it clearly," he replied. "Butwhat I mean is this: some people try to play system at faro, andthey last about as quick as those that don't. I always put thelimit on the card that's handiest, and the game don't owe me acent; as a matter of fact, some of the tin-horns used to wear apained expression when they saw me coming across the room. I'vesplit 'cm from stem to keelson more than once, and never used acopper in my life--played 'em wide open, all the time. Now," andhe brought his fist down on the table, "I'm going to play thatyoung man wide open, and I'll bet you I don't lose by him neither.He looks as honest as a mastiff pup, for all he dresses kind ofnice. I might just as well try him on the fly, as to golunk-heading around and get stuck anyhow, with the unsatisfactoryaddition of feeling that I was a fool, as well as confiding."
Most of the argument had been ancient Aryan to Miss Mattie, but thering of the voice and the little she understood made the tenorplain. A sudden moisture gathered in her eyes as she said, "You'retoo good and honest and generous a man to distrust anybody: that'swhat I think, Will."
"Mattie, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said he, in aninjured voice. "It ain't hardly respectable."
After which there was a silence for a short time. Then said MissMattie, "Do you think you could content yourself here, Will, afterall the things you've seen?"
Red brightened at the change of topic. "I'll tell you how that is:if I hadn't any capital, and had to work here as a poor man, Idon't believe I'd take the trouble to try and live--I'd smother;but having that pleasant little crop of long greens securelyplanted in the bank where the wild time doesn't grow, and thuslybeing able to cavort around as it sweetly pleases me, why, I likethe country. It's sport to take hold of a place like this, that'sonly held together by its suspenders, and try to make a real liveman's town out of it."
Miss Mattie drew a deep breath of relief. "You came like the heroin a fairy story, Will, and I was afraid you'd go away like one,"she said.
He reached across the table and patted her hand. "You'd have hadto gone, too," said he. "The family'll stick together."
She thanked him in a soft little voice. "Dear me!" she murmured."It does seem that you've been here a year, Will."
"Never was told that I was such slow company before."
"You know perfectly well that that isn't what I mean."
"Well, you'll have to put up with me for a while, whatever I am;insomuch as I'm to be a manufacturer and the Lord knows what. Thensome day I'm going to have an awful hankering for the land wherethe breeze blows, and then we'll take a shute for open prairie.It's cruelty to animals for me to straddle a horse now, yet there'swhere I'm at home, and I'm going to buy me a cayuse of somekind--say, I ought to get at that; if I'm going around with LettisI want to ride a horse--know anybody that's got a real live horsefor sale, Mattie? No? Well, I'll stop in and see the lady thatdeals the mail--I'll bet you what that woman doesn't know aboutwhat's going on in this camp will never get into history--be backright away."
Said he to the post-mistress, "My name's Saunders, ma'am--cousin toMiss Mattie. I just stopped in to find out if you knew anyone thathad a riding horse for sale; horse with four good legs that'llcarry me all day, and about the rest I don't care a frolicsomecuss."
The post-mistress replied at such length, and with such velocitythat Red was amazed. He gathered from her remarks that a certainMr. Upton had an animal, purchased of a chance horse dealer, whichit was altogether likely he would dispose of, as the first time hehad tried the brute it went up into the air all sorts of ways, andcaused the owner to perform such tricks before high Heaven as madethe angels weep.
"Where does this man live?" asked Red, with a kindling eye.
"He lives about three miles out on the Peterville road, but he's intown to-night visitin' Miss Alders--Johnny!" to a small boy who hadbeen following the conversation, his wide-open eyes bent on Red,and his mouth and wiggling bare toes expressing their delight invigorous contortions, "Johnny, you run tell Mr. Upton there's agentleman in here wants to see him about buying a horse."
"Don't disturb him if he's visiting," remonstrated Red.
"He won't call that disturbing him," replied the post-mistress,with a shrill laugh. "He'll be here in no time."
She was a true prophet. It seemed as if the boy had barely leftthe store when he return
ed with a stoop-shouldered, solemn-facedman, who had a brush-heap of chin-whisker decorating the lower partof his face. After greetings and the explanation of the errand,Mr. Upton stroked his chin-whisker regretfully. "Young man," saidhe, "I'm in a pecooliar and onpleasant position; there's mightyfeyew things I wouldn't do in a hawse trade, but I draw the line onmurder. That there hawse'll kill you, just's sure as you're foolenough to put yerself on his back. I'll sell you a real hawsemighty reasonable--"
"I'll risk him," cut in Red. "Could you lead him down here in themorning?"
"Yes, indeedy--he's a perfect lady of a horse to lead---you canpick up airy foot--climb all over him in fac', s'long's you don'ttry to ride him or hitch him up. If you do that--well, young man,you'll get a pretty fair idee of what is meant by one of the demonsof hell."
"What kind of saddle have you got?"
"One of them outlandish Western affairs that the scamp threw inwith the animal--you see, I thought I'd take up horse-back ridingfor my health; I was in bed three weeks after my fust try."
"I'll go you seventy-five dollars for the outfit, just as you gotit--chaps, taps, and latigo straps, if you'll have it in front ofmy house at nine o'clock to-morrow."
"All right, young man--all right sir--now don't blame me if you airtook home shoes fust."
"Nary," said Red. "Come and see the fun."
"I shorely will," replied the old gentleman.