CHAPTER VII. The Colonel
When Eliph" Hewlitt stepped out of the hotel the next morning, after he had eaten his breakfast, and stood, with a wooden toothpick between his lips, looking up and down the street, he felt a sense of exultation.
If he had been a victorious general, and Kilo a captured city of great importance, he would have had a similar feeling. Already he felt that, if he was not the captor of the town, he was one of its important citizens, and practically the husband of an attractive woman whose father owned sufficient property to be one of those who grumble about taxes.
To a man who had been a wanderer all his life it was pleasant to feel that he was soon to be kin to all the things he saw on Main Street, brother to the town-pump and cousin to the flag pole, and to consider that even the well-gnawed hitching rails were to be part of his future years. He nodded across the street to Billings, the grocer and general store man, as if he was an old acquaintance, and he watched Skinner, the butcher, sweeping the walk, with a pleasant smile, for he saw in him a future friend. He loved Kilo, and he was ready to like everything, from the post office to the creamery. His whole future seemed destined to be simple and pleasant, for he was resolved to do his best to make the town like him, and there seemed little opportunity for complications in a town that could all be seen at one glance.
Strangers think all small towns simple. The few stores are all plainly labeled, the streets run at right angles, and the houses are set well apart, like big letters in a primer. A small town looks like a story without a plot, like: "See the cat. Does the can see me? The cat sees the dog;" beside which a city is as unfathomable as a Henry James paragraph. To the stranger each man and woman he meets is a complete individual, each standing alone, like letters on an alphabet block, and not easily to be confused, one with the other. But these letters of the small town"s alphabet are often tangled into as long and complex words as those of the greatest city; it takes but twenty-six letters to spell all the pa.s.sions. The letter A, that looked so distinctly separate, is soon found to be connected with C and T in Cat, and with W and R in War, as well as cross-connected with the C and W in Caw, and with T and R in Tar; while the houses that stood so seemingly alone are all connected and criss-crossed by lines of love and hate, of petty policy and revenge and pride, quite as are nations or people who live in labyrinths, or in a metropolis.
It was still too early in the morning for Eliph" Hewlitt to call on Miss Sally, and there was no haste; the day was long. He even doubted whether it would be good policy to call on her in the morning; he might find her busy with household cares. Probably it would be best to wait for the afternoon, when she would be at leisure. This, he decided would be best. He would arrive in her presence at two o"clock, and four hours of conversation would carry them to the point of being well acquainted, as advised by Jarby"s Encyclopedia. The next day he could enter the second stage of the directions, and call with a book, present it; call after dinner with a box of candy, present it; call after supper, and propose a walk, visit the ice cream parlor, and on the way home offer his hand, and be accepted. The chapter on "Courtship--How to Win the Affections"
advised against haste, and Eliph" did not wish to be hasty. To a man of his spirit two days seemed rather long to devote to so simple a matter--a real waste of time--but he was willing to take longer than necessary, in order to follow the directions in spirit, as well as in letter.
Eliph" settled himself into one of the chairs before the hotel and opened his copy of Jarby"s Encyclopedia at the chapter on "Courtship--How to Win the Affections." He was deep in it when the landlord strolled around from the livery stable and sank into a chair by his side.
"So you made up your mind to stay here, Sammy?" he asked. "I guess the town"ll be glad enough to have you. All this town needs to be a big place is inhabitants. What you ought to do now it to settle down for good, an" get married. There"s some purty fine women in this town that ain"t picked up yet, but they won"t last long, they way they"re goin".
Somebody gets married every couple of months."
Eliph" looked up with a smile. Jim Wilkins did not know he had advised the very thing he meant to do.
"I"ve thought some about it," said Eliph", ""most everybody"s getting married now-a-days."
"It"s the popular thing "round here," said Jim. "Look across the street, yonder. See that feller just goin" up to the lawyer"s office? He"s one that"s in the marry cla.s.s, just now. That"s Colonel Guthrie. He lives out on the first farm beyond Main Street, and he"s goin" to marry Sally Briggs, daughter of old Pap Briggs, that we was talkin" to last night, here."
Eliph" Hewlitt stared at the Colonel, but he said nothing. He blamed himself; he had wasted his opportunity. This was what came of being slow! He should have completed his courtship at the picnic, or last night at the sale. Jim Wilkins interrupted the thought.
"Leastways," he said, "HE"LL get her if Skinner don"t. It"s a close run between him an" Skinner. Skinner ain"t so good lookin" as the Colonel, but he"s better fixed. It"s Skinner owns our butcher-shop, an" it"s Skinner is buildin" our Opery House Block. Some say Skinner"ll get Pap Briggs" money, an" some says the Colonel will."
"Are there any others?" asked Eliph", looking down the street to where the raw brick of the opera house glowed in the sun.
"After Sally?" asked Jim Wilkins. "Well, there"s sev"ral would like to get her, I dare say. Sally Briggs is a pretty fine sort of woman, an"
Pap Briggs has quite considerable money, but the Colonel an" Skinner has the inside track. No one else has a chance."
Eliph" stroked his whiskers softly and coughed gently behind his hand.
"Briggs, did you say the name was?" he asked. "Seems to me I met a lady at a picnic up Clarence way that had that name. You said the name was Sally Briggs?"
"That"s her," said Wilkins. "Sally Ann Briggs. She"s been visitin" up there in Clarence."
Eliph" nodded his head slowly.
"I seem to recollect her, since you mention it," he said indifferently, and then he added, "She spoke as if she might buy a copy of Jarby"s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art when I saw her at that picnic. I guess I"ll drop "round and see if she"s ready to buy. If she" goin" to be married she ought to have a copy."
CHAPTER VIII. The Medium-Sized Box
As Eliph" walked briskly toward Miss Sally"s house the Colonel was having an interesting conversation with Attorney Toole, in the attorney"s office over the Kilo Savings Bank.
Attorney Toole had been a lawyer at Franklin, and he had come down to Kilo because he preferred a being a big toad in a small puddle, rather than a little toad in a middle-sized one. This was one of his reasons, but another was that he had complete and full faith in Richard Toole, and intended to be a political power in the land. He could not be much of anything in Franklin, for that town was hard and fast Democratic, and Toole was a Republican. The first step to political preferment is to be elected to something or other, it does not make much difference what, and to rise from that to greater things, but a Republican had no chance in Franklin; couldn"t even get an appointment as dog police or wharfmaster; couldn"t get elected to any office at all.
So Toole packed up his law books and moved to Kilo, where he was in a Republican town, a Republican county, and a Republican congressional district, in a Republican State that formed part of a Republican nation.
He selected Kilo, after considering other good little Republican towns, because the Republicans of Kilo needed aid and a.s.sistance; they were out of office; kicked out.
Every so often the small town of the West turns the regular party out of office and puts in a Citizens" ticket, just to show that the people still rule, and to let the greedy officeholders, some of whom get as much as one hundred dollars a year in salary, know that their offices are not life positions. When Attorney Toole descended on Kilo, the Citizens" Party was "in," and the Republicans were "out," and the attorney saw an opportunity of making himself valuable to his party by working to put the party "in" again.
Never before had the Colonel climbed his stairs, and Toole smiled like an Irish sphinx when the Colonel entered his office. He smiled most of the time, not because he thought a smile becoming to his freckled face, but because he found things so eternally amusing. In law a man is considered innocent until he has been proved guilty; in Kilo Attorney Toole considered everything amusing until it had been proved serious, and he considered the Colonel and Skinner, and the whole Citizens" Party they had been instrumental I organizing, as parts of the same joke. They would stand until he was ready to lazily push out his hand and topple them over. It was almost time to topple them, now, and he was glad to see the Colonel; he motioned him to a seat, and smiled.
The Colonel took his hat from his mat of coa.r.s.e iron-gray hair, and laid it carefully on the floor. Out of his small sharp eyes ignorance and cunning peered, and the ma.s.s of beard that hid the greater part of his face could not hide the hard line of his mouth.
"I jest dropped up," he explained, after he had acknowledged the attorney"s cheerful greeting with a gruff "mornin"," "I jest dropped up, sort of friendly-like, thinkin" you might have nothin" to do, an" might like to sit an" chin a while. You don"t charge nothin" for sittin" an"
chinnin" do ye?"
Toole said he did not.
"I didn"t figger you did," said the Colonel. "If I"d thought you did I wouldn"t have dropped up, for I ain"t got no money to spend on lawyers.
I"d sooner throw money away than spend it at law. But I figgered you was young at the law yet, and didn"t have much to do at it, and I sort of run across a case I thought might amuse you, like, when you ain"t got nothin" to do. Folks don"t seem to have much faith in young lawyers, and you can"t blame "em; old ones don"t know much. All any of "em care for is to get people into trouble so they can charge "em fees to get "em out of it. So I thought mebby you"d like to hear of this case so you could kind of mull it over in your mind whilst you"re loafin" up here."
"That was kind of you," said Toole.
"I always like to do a good turn when I can," said the Colonel, "when it don"t cost nothin". An" this case I was tellin" you about is a mighty good one for a young lawyer to study over. Soon as I heard of it I says to myself "I"ll tell this case to Attorney Toole, an" he"ll be grateful to hear of it.""
The country client usually begins in some such way as this, anxious to get all the advice he can without having to pay for it, and Toole merely smiled.
"Mebby you know," said the Colonel, "that there was a feller took board of Sally Briggs a while back; feller by the name of William Rossiter, that come through here peddlin" lightnin" rods and pain killer and land knows what all. Well, he was a rascal. He took board off of Sally Briggs four weeks, and then he cleared out, and she nor no one else has seen hide nor hair of him since, and he never paid her one cent. All he ever let on was to leave this letter stickin" on the pin cushion in his bedroom."
The Colonel dug the letter out of his vest pocket, and Toole read it. It was short:
Dear Miss Briggs: I"m off. Good-by. Business in Kilo is no good. Sorry I can"t square up, but I leave you the box in my room in part payment. W.
R.
"Prosecution"s exhibit No. 1," said the attorney.
"Jest what I was tellin" Miss Sally," said the Colonel. "I says to her to keep that paper, and it might come handy. Mebby you heard that me and Miss Sally was what you might call keepin" company?"
"That"s interesting," said Toole. "Been keeping it long?"
"Quite some consid"able time," said the Colonel. "Long enough, land knows, and we"d a-been done with it by this time and married, if that Skinner hadn"t come crowdin" in where he wasn"t wanted. What right has a man like him to come pushin" in like that? His wife ain"t been dead twelve months yet. It ain"t decent of him, is it?"
"Do you want a legal opinion?" asked Toole, reaching for a large law book that lay on the table.
"No, I don"t!" cried the Colonel in alarm; "I don"t want to run up no charges. I don"t care whether it"s legal or not, it ain"t friendly, after him and me has worked together buildin" up this Citizens" Party, and all. What does he mean, sendin" Miss Sally porterhouses, when she only orders flank steak, like he was wrappin" up love and affection into every steak? He"s got mighty proud since he set out to build that there Kilo Opery House of his. He"s a fool to spend money on an opery house in this town. He"s a beefy, puffy old money bag, he is. He needn"t tell ME he expects to get even on what he spent on that Opery House Block out of what he"ll make on it; he just built it to make a show, so some dumb idiot like Sally Briggs would think he amounted to more than others, and marry him."
The Colonel brought down his hand with a bang on the attorney"s table.
"What kind of an idiot did you call Miss Briggs?" asked Toole pleasantly.