"Did you see Mr. Toole?" she asked brightly, to ease Miss Sally"s weeping and to turn her thought to other things. "He wanted to see you about those fire-extinguishers. But I don"t trust him. I think he has some plan or other that is selfish. I think he had been drinking."
Miss Sally"s tears ceased, and she sat up, straight and severe.
"Fire-extinguishers?" she asked quickly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Smith; "he seemed to think Skinner or the Colonel or someone would want you to take them back. And return the money, I suppose."
"The money?" echoed Miss Sally slowly. She blushed as she saw that she had misunderstood the attorney, thinking he had dared to advise in her love matters, and then she frowned. "The money?" she repeated. "But I gave that money to pa. Pa won"t ever give that money back, never! I don"t know where on earth I"d ever get sixty dollars."
As she spoke she heard someone on the walk, and then the heavy feet of the Colonel climbing the porch steps. She heard him ask Susan if Miss Sally was inside, and heard the girl answer that she was, and she held Mrs. Smith"s hand tighter.
"Come in," she called, to the knock on the door, and the Colonel stumped into the room. He was hot and angry, so angry that he did not stop to offer his usual curt greetings.
"Look here," he said, by way of introduction, "you an" your fire-extinguishers has got me into a purty fix, Sally Briggs--a blame purty fix-an" I want to know do you intend to git me out or not? I don"t want no foolishness. Skinner is after me an" I"ve got to pay him back them sixty dollars, or somebody"ll go to jail for it. You ought to have knowed them wasn"t nothin" but lung-testers, afore you set me up to sellin" "em to Skinner, an" not let me go an" make a "tarnal fool out of myself. But that ain"t the thing now; the thing is, will you pay back them sixty dollars? I guess you"d better do it, an" do it quick.
Skinner"ll have the law on ye if ye don"t."
Miss Sally drew back toward Mrs. Smith as he scowled at her.
"Now, you git them sixty dollars an" hand "em over to me, that"s what you"d better do," said the Colonel. "I want to git shut of this business. I was a fool fer meddlin" in a woman"s affairs in the fust place. I don"t want to have no more hand in it. You git me that money, an" let me fix it up with Skinner. He"s mad, an" he won"t stand no foolin". It was all I could do to keep him from comin" in an" makin" a row right here in the house. He"s waitin" at the gate till he sees if I git the money, an" if I don"t----"
"But I haven"t got sixty dollars," Miss Sally gasped. "I gave that money to pa. I don"t know whether I can GET sixty dollars out of pa."
She was so helpless that Mrs. Smith"s blood boiled at the rude brutality of the Colonel, and she stepped forward and faced him.
"What is all this about?" she asked. "What is the matter with those fire-extinguishers? Why do you come bothering Miss Sally this way? Why don"t you settle it with Mr. Skinner yourself?"
"The matter is, them ain"t fire-extinguishers at all," said the Colonel rudely, "an" wasn"t, an" never was. Them things is lung-testers, an"
Sally was cheatin" Skinner when she sold "em to him. An" the reason I"m botherin" her is that she got the money fer "em, an" she"s got to find it somehow an" pay it back. An" as for me settlin" with Skinner, I ain"t got nothin" to do with it. I wasn"t nothin" but Sally"s agent. I done her a favor, an" that"s all, an" I"m sorry I ever meddled in it."
"But there certainly can"t be such haste needed," said Mrs. Smith. "Miss Sally is not going to run away. Mr. Skinner is not going to fail for want of sixty dollars, is he? You can wait until to-morrow, or to-night, when Miss Sally can see her father."
"No, I can"t," said the Colonel doggedly. "I can"t wait at all. By to-morrow mornin" that newspaper feller will have another paper printed up, an" I hear tell he"s goin" to give us all plain names, an" I ain"t goin" to wait. I want to git this thing fixed up right now. If Sally ain"t got sixty dollars, let her go borry it. I got to pay Skinner right now, an" I want Sally to pay me. I want to git shut of this."
"I don"t believe Mr. Skinner is in any such hurry as you pretend!"
exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "I don"t believe he is so ungenerous. I believe he is more chivalrous, I believe HE will have some manliness, if you have not."
She started for the door, but the Colonel grasped her by the arm.
"Hold on, here!" he said, but Mrs. Tarbro-Smith merely raised her eyebrows and looked, first at his hand on her arm, and then at his face, and his hand fell. He stood irresolute and uncomfortable as she went to the door and called to Mr. Skinner. The butcher walked up to the door, clearing his throat as he came. Mrs. Smith held the screen door wide for him to enter, and he walked into the parlor, holding his hat in his hands, and stood uneasily.
"The Colonel," said Mrs. Smith pleasantly, "has told us you wish Miss Sally to return the money you paid for what she supposed were fire-extinguishers."
"They was nothin" but lung-testers," said the butcher.
"So it seems," said Mrs. Smith, "and it is odd that a man of business like yourself should not know it in the first place. But of course Miss Sally did not know what they were. Who told you they were fire-extinguishers, Sally?"
"The Colonel," said Miss Sally, and the Colonel moved his feet uneasily.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith, giving the Colonel another of her paralyzing glances. "But Miss Sally will do whatever is right. She hasn"t the money at this moment. You can wait until to-morrow for the sixty dollars, can you not, until she can see her father?"
The butcher grew red in the face, redder than his naturally high coloring, but he shook his head.
"I want it now," he said. "Business is business." And after a moment he added, "It wasn"t sixty, it was one hundred. Four at twenty-five, that"s one hundred. One hundred dollars, that was what I handed Guthrie. I paid one hundred and I want one hundred back."
Miss Sally and Mrs. Smith looked at the Colonel.
"I had a right to make a commission," he bl.u.s.tered. "I ain"t no sich fool as to do business fer other folks an" lose time by it. I took out a commission, an" I had a right to, an" I don"t want to hear no more about it. A commission"s fair."
"You didn"t say anything about it," said poor Miss Sally. "Mrs. Smith was just surprised to learn of it."
"Surprised, my dear?" said Mrs. Smith, "No, indeed. Nothing that man would do could quite surprise me. But forty percent commission! Miss Sally hasn"t sixty dollars in the house," she added, turning to the butcher. "You know very well people here don"t have so much in the house at one time. If I had it I would gladly lend it to her, but I don"t happen to have so much with me to-day. You can wait until Mr. Briggs gets back from Clarence, or you can do what you please."
"I want the money," said Skinner doggedly.
"Very well," said Mrs. Smith. "Collect forty from the Colonel. That will keep you from starving until to-morrow. And now will you both kindly leave the house?"
"Now, look here, Mrs. Smith, ma"m," said the butcher. "You ain"t got any right to talk that way to me. Money matters is money matters, and a man has a right to look after his own the best way he can. I was cheated out of one hundred dollars by this man and Miss Sally, as easy as you please, and there"s bribery in it, and land knows what. But I ain"t mean. All I want is my money back, and I want it now. I hear T. J. Jones is going to get out an extry to-morrow morning all about this, and all I want is to do what is right. Hand me back my hundred dollars, and I"ll go to T. J. and explain that Miss Sally did what was right, and tell him to leave her out of what he writes, but if I don"t get the money I won"t say a word to him. He can guess all he wants about Miss Sally and the Colonel being in cahoots with this bribe business. All I want is my money."
"But I say you shall have it in the morning."
"Well, I don"t count much on what you"ll get out of Pap Briggs. You might get ten cents, if he was feeling liberal, but he don"t usually feel that way. What I want is one hundred dollars right now. I don"t need no lung-testers, and I"ve been cheated, and I won"t wait. If Miss Sally ain"t going to pay me, I"ll see what the law says about it."
"Mr. Skinner," said Mrs. Smith, "in consideration that Miss Sally is a lady and that you are a gentleman, will you not wait till to-morrow?"
"Business is business," he said flatly. "When I"m sellin" meat I ain"t a gentleman, I"m a butcher; and when Miss Briggs was sellin" lung-testers she wasn"t a lady, she was in business. Business is one thing an" bein"
pleasant is another. I"ve got to look after my money or I soon won"t have any."
When the two men went out Mrs. Smith could hear them begin to wrangle even before they quitted the yard, but she was more interested in what might happen to Miss Sally through the vindictiveness of the butcher.
She was surprised to hear that T. J. Jones had even thought of such a thing as bringing Miss Sally"s name into the matter as a conspirator, and she did not know enough about Iowa laws to know whether the butcher could take any summary action or not. The most satisfactory way to straighten things out would be to pay the butcher, but it must be done at once. She pleaded with Miss Sally to remember someone of whom she could borrow sixty dollars, but Miss Sally confessed that she knew no one who would be apt to lend so much. She even expressed her doubt that her father would ever release the money she had given him. The two women sat in the darkened parlor, Miss Sally weeping softly and Mrs. Smith thinking hard. The auth.o.r.ess was ashamed that she could devise no way to aid her friend, and there they sat, exchanging a brief word from time to time, and the gloom deepening every minute. Presently, when the atmosphere was so charged with sadness that it was almost too thick to breathe, Mrs. Smith called to Susan, and the girl came in.
"Sue," said Mrs. Smith, "will you run down to the TIMES office and see Mr. Jones? And--let me see--and tell him I very much want to see him before he begins to print his extra. You won"t mind, will you?"
"Oh, no," said Susan cheerfully, and she went, a fairy in filmy white, while the two women relapsed into gloom again.
So softly did the next comer mount the porch stairs that the two women did not hear him until a gentle tap on the door frame, followed by an apologetic cough, announced the return of Eliph" Hewlitt.
CHAPTER XVII. According to Jarby"s
When Eliph" Hewlitt, sad at heart, departed from his disastrous interview with Miss Sally, he felt, for the first time in his life, a doubt as to the infallibility of Jarby"s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. Here was a book he had praised, sold and believed, and it had failed him. Here was a book that was proclaimed, in the "Advice to Agents," to be so simply written and so easy of understanding that a child could follow its directions as well as a man, and it had only led him to defeat. He had courted according to "Courtship"; he had tried to win the affections according to "How to Win" them, and instead of the "Yes" that Jarby"s book led him to believe he would receive, he had been given a "No." This, then, was the book whose success he had made his life work! Caesar, when he saw Brutus draw his dagger, was wounded no more in spirit than Eliph"
Hewlitt was now.
The world seemed to slip from beneath his feet; his firmest foundation seemed to have crumbled away; his best friend seemed to have turned false. As he walked toward Doc Weaver"s house he decided what he would do: he would go to his room and tear his sample copy of Jarby"s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art to sc.r.a.ps and throw them out upon the wind; he would write to Jarby & Goss and resign his commission; he would have Irontail hitched to his buggy and leave Kilo at once and forever, and from some other town he would write to G. P. Hicks & Co., and solicit the agency for Hicks"
Facts for the Million, a book he had heretofore hated and despised. All this he resolved to do, and yet here he was again at Miss Sally"s door, and the sample copy of Jarby"s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art was under his arm!
Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, when she saw Eliph" Hewlitt at the door, uttered a little cry of joy and darted toward him. She put her finger to her lips and slipped out of the door and drew him to the seat that had once been a church pew, but was now doing duty as a garden-seat under an apple tree in the side yard. On Eliph"s face was no longer the care-worn expression of the rejected lover, but the full glow of confidence, radiating from between his side-whiskers.