Читать книгу Dixie Hart - Will N. Harben - Страница 7

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IM, how's your courting getting on?" Henley asked his clerk, half teasingly, one sultry afternoon, as the two were finishing a game of checkers on a board from which the squares were almost obliterated by the constant sliding of the black and white pants-buttons which were used for checkers.

"Don't ask me, Alf," Cahews answered, with a sickly smile. "I'm afraid she's too much for me. We ain't a bit nigher the altar than we was a year ago when I begun. Sometimes I think she is willing, and then ag'in I don't."

"I kinder thought you looked worried the last time you took her to ride," said Henley, sympathetically. "I felt sorry for you. She looked mighty chipper in her finery as you whisked by, but you was down in the mouth. Looked like you was on duty, and that was all."

"Somehow I don't much blame her," Cahews sighed, "but it looks to me like she is having too good a time running here and there to want to settle down. Sometimes I git blue and think she is just holding me as a safe thing to land on while she looks the field over. I have to stay here and attend to business and see her gallivanting in her ruffles and flounces with every drummer and lightning-rod agent that comes along."

"Maybe you ought to sorter lay down the law, at least on that particular point," Henley submitted, delicately. "I've heard my step-daddy-in-law say that a woman was born to be commanded, and when they ain't they hop to t'other extreme and just loll about in their abuse of a feller's good-nature. I don't know—that's the old man's view. You might give out a decided order or two, Jim, and see how—"

"Not to a woman you are tryin' to marry," said the clerk, quite firmly. "Sech a thing might be done to an army of soldiers or a red-handed mob at a lynchin'-bee, but not to a gal that makes you feel like you are sinking down in a mire whenever she looks you in the eyes. No, Alf, not to a gal as purty and sweet as a bunch of roses, and that knows it, and is in the habit o' being told of it as regular as eatin' and sleepin'. A gal like that sort o' feels 'er oats, as the feller said. She knows she's the stuff, and she loves to be told of it as much as a cat loves to sleep in the sun."

"Well, I'll be dadblamed if I'd tag after her without some substantial hope," Henley opined, wisely. "Life is long and life is earnest, and beauty is only skin deep, anyways. It seems to me—now, at least—that if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the solid qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd study her character, her pluck under trying circumstances, her industry, and her all-round good-nature. The shape and face and furbelows, eyebrows and color of bangs, would be the last consideration."

"I never hear that from any but married men," Jim said. "They sing that song till they bury their wives, and then they turn to boys again and pick the youngest and prettiest they can lay their hands on."

"I was just thinking, Jim"—Henley seemed unwilling to combat the last assertion. His eyes rested thoughtfully on a sunny spot before the open door—"you see, I've got a little neighbor that—"

"I know—Dixie Hart! I know who you mean," the clerk broke in. "She's all wool and a yard wide, but I never run across her till after I'd got in with old man Hardcastle's daughter. I wouldn't talk to just any stray person this away, Alf, but me and you was boys together, and you've always been my friend. She's got me, Alf—I don't exactly know how—but she could crook her little finger at me and I'd make for her side—yes, sir, I would, through flame and smoke, if the world was coming to an end."

The talk had grown serious; there was a moist gleam in Cahew's blue eyes, and he snuffed as if he had a cold. Henley was glad of the interruption brought about by the arrival of a stranger who entered the front door and came back to them with swift, steady strides. He was fat, middle-aged, short, had a round, smooth face, and in removing his straw hat to fan his pink brow he disclosed a very bald head.

"I don't know whether you gentlemen are in need of anything in my line," he said, as he drew a big book of illustrations from beneath his arm and opened it on Henley's desk. "But I was givin' yore town and vicinity the one and only chance of its life to git the only true and artistic thing in marble. I'm agent for the Adamantyne Tombstone Company, of Tennessee. We own the only quarry of snow-white, non-grit, pristyne Parian rock on this side of the blue ocean, and we have in our employ the best and most world-renowned chisel-artists that ever breathed the spark of life into inanimate matter. Now, just set where you are, gentlemen—don't move—and I'll show you a beauty—a tombstone that will make a man want to die—if he's able to pay the price."

He held his book of illustrations open before Henley, whose eyes were twinkling mischievously as they rested on his clerk.

"I'm not in the market," he said, without a smile. "I wouldn't buy any but a second-handed one, and then it would have to be so cheap that a dead man would kick it off of his grave in disgust. You've got in the wrong box. If you'll look about amongst the junk I've got in my back-yard you may find one or two lying about."

"I see you've got a streak of fun in you," the agent said, good-naturedly, and at this instant old Jason Wrinkle entered and sauntered back to the group. He seemed to recognize the stranger, for the two exchanged nods of greeting. "I'm still at it, you see," the salesman said. "I'm going to give all a chance. How about you, sir?" and he turned to Cahews. "I may find you serious, if this man ain't. Death is beautiful when it is properly looked at and provided for."

"I don't need anything in that line," Cahews said, with a flush.

"You might, Jim," Henley broke in, with a grin, "if you don't git cured of that complaint you was telling me about just now," and Henley winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, "none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a rich old codger across the way—Mr. Silas Welborne—who will trade if you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags on 'em. You might have to talk to him all the evening, and even follow him home, but you'll sell him if you understand your business. He's powerful soft-hearted, for one thing, and if you'll tell him a tale or two in the eloquent tongue you was rolling off just now he'll place a dandy order. I'll give you that as a pointer."

"Well, I'm much obliged to you, sir, and thank you kindly," the agent said, as he closed his book. "I'll look him up. I'm doing a big business here. Your people don't seem to have had a chance to invest in my line in no telling how long. Good-day."

"Good-day," Henley echoed, and he endeavored to hide the mischievous smile that was playing about his mouth. In a chuckling undertone he said to Wrinkle and Cahews: "I'd give a pretty to see this oily-tongued chap holding down that crusty old miser. A tombstone is the last thing on earth that Welborne would want to think about or talk about. I'd love to be there and see 'em meet."

Cahews laughed and sauntered toward the front, and old Wrinkle sat down in the chair just vacated and tilted it back against the door-jamb.

"That is a sorter good joke," he said, his small eyes on Henley, "considering the man you mean it for, but as I stood thar hearin' you concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this self-same peddler had got off on you you'd not be exactly in the mood for fun—at least not in the grave-rock line."

"What joke are you talking about?" Henley asked, incredulously, his face falling into seriousness. "I have never laid eyes on this chap before."

"I reckon not, but you'll know him the next time you see him; I'll be bound you do, even if you are a mile down the road an' he's round the bend with his back turned to you. The truth is, I just followed him down here to see who he'd strike next. He's been to our house, Alf. He slid in there just after you come off, and set on the porch and begun his palaver. He has a different way with women than he has with men. He seems to know that women are soft on some lines, and chiefly on preachin' and buryin'. He'd picked up a list of folks round about here that had lost kin, and he had me and Jane down on it on account of Dick. Now, it seems that when he gits to a place he goes to the graveyard and looks for stones to tally with his dead list, and when he don't find any he makes a note of it; so, you see, havin' Dick's name down, an' not knowin' the full particulars, he hunted us up, thinkin' we was unsupplied in his line. So, you see, that's why he made sech a leech of hisse'f on our porch."

"Huh, I see," Henley frowned—"I see."

"I can't begin to describe all the chap done or said," Wrinkle resumed. "He riz and walked and ranted, an' prayed an' sung an' mighty nigh called up mourners. I thought them two women would bust out cryin' once or twice, but they belt in tiptop through the hottest of the wrangle. Then I thought I'd put a stop to it, and I up and told him, I did, that he'd made a mistake, an' that we didn't need a thing of the sort—that Dick's body never was recovered, and so on. Then what do you think? The skunk was actually flabbergasted, and didn't know what to say. But he was game, and knowed thar was some way out of his trouble. He said, 'Wait a minute—don't bother me!' an' he shet his eyes tight, an' set thar with his head hangin' down for fully five minutes. Then he looked up an' said, 'I was jest tryin' to recall the good lady's name that had the same trouble, pine blank, as your'n, but it slips me somehow.' An' with that he said it was the custom all over civilized Christendom, in such cases as our'n, to erect a suitable monument jest the same, havin' a plot the right length an' width set aside, with both head and foot rock, and, if a sermon hadn't been preached already, one ought to be on the day the stone was put in place an' consecrated. I 'lowed sure them women would see how plumb silly it was, but they listened like they was gittin' the only directions to the Golden Shore, and begun to look at the pictures in his book like they thought the skunk was savin' 'em from death, destruction, an' disgrace."

"You don't mean to tell me they actually went and ordered—" Henley began, but his voice trailed away into indistinctness. He could only stare at his tormentor hopelessly.

"Only a little one fur five hundred dollars," Wrinkle said, with evident enjoyment. "They had a lots o' trouble pickin' out the design amongst all the doves, broke-off pillars, seraphims, an' angels, but they finally got what they wanted. Not a tear was shed, if you'd stood off a few feet, out o' earshot, you couldn't 'a' told but what they was pickin' out a pattern fer a weddin'-dress or buyin' tickets fer a side-show. After they got under headway I couldn't say anything—they had sech a solemn way about it, and then I couldn't help but be fair and think if I'd been in Dick's place they would have gone through exactly the same antics, an' been jest as liberal in showing due respect. Hettie says it is all to come out of her own money that she had when she married you. She was particular to mention the fact, and I think that showed a sensible streak, for a fool would know you oughtn't to be expected to stand sech expense, and so long after you took her, and that being a thing that would naturally belong to her past career, too. After the agent had gone off I set thar, an' Hettie told me what she was goin' to do. She don't intend to spare expense to do the thing plumb right. She's goin' to send away off for a high-priced reverential orator to give the discourse, an' intends to have evergreens hung all over the church. I don't know whether she designs to have all the business houses in Chester closed that day, but she'd naturally expect you and Jim to shet up an' take it in."

"So this is the joke you said that man had got off on me, is it?" Henley snapped out, irritably.

"Well, I reckon it mought not appear exactly in the same light to you, Alf," answered Wrinkle, "as it would to somebody who'd be more inclined to laugh over a thing of the sort. You was gettin' off what you called a good one on old Tight-fist just now by puttin' this chap on his track, and I reckon you'd have no call to git mad if Welborne made it tit for tat an' fired back at you. You wouldn't be justified in killin' 'im, you know, if he was to take a notion to send you a big bouquet o' flowers out o' his gyarden all tied up in black ribbon with a cyard sayin' he's sorry to hear of the sad loss in yore family, an'—"

"Ah, you make me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out, angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to be away several months."

"So I've heard," Wrinkle said, a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin' the weddin'-clothes bought by her second, but it's a new wrinkle on me, an' I hain't makin' what you mought call a pun, nuther."

Abruptly leaving the old man, Henley joined his clerk at the front.

"I get so mad at that old chap sometimes I could kick him," he said, in an angry undertone. "Nothing under the sun is sacred to him."

"He's gettin' old and childish," Cahews answered. "I sorter love to hear 'im chatter. Some o' the things he says about folks and their peculiarities sound powerful funny."

"Well, they don't to me," burst from Henley, "and I'll tell you another thing, Jim—enough of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away—" but Wrinkle had approached, and, passing behind the counter, he was tiptoeing that he might reach a candy-jar on the top shelf.

"Looks like I'm about yore only candy customer, Jim," he said to Cahews. "Thar hain't been a stick took out o' this jar sence I was here Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot if I was you. This is gettin' dry and crumbly. I can suck wind through a stick the same as a pipe-stem."