Again was Merton Gill saved from the need of instant speech, though not in a way he would have chosen to be saved. The three Ransom children ran up, breathless, shouting.
"Oh, Merton, here"s your pistol. I found it right in the road there."
"We found your pistol right in the dirt there. I saw it first." "You did not; I saw it first. Merton, will you let me shoot it off, Merton? I found your pistol, didn"t I, Merton? Didn"t I find it right in the road there?" The friendly tots did little step dances while they were thus vocal.
"Be quiet, children," commanded Merton, finding a voice. But they were not to be quelled by mere tones.
"He throwed Merton right off into the dirt, didn"t he, Merton? Merton, didn"t he throw you right off into the dirt, Merton? Did he hurt you, Merton?" "Merton, will you let me shoot it off just once--just once, and I"ll never ask again?" "He didn"t either find it first, Merton." "He throwed you off right into the dirt--didn"t he throw you right off into the dirt, Merton?"
With a harsher show of authority, or perhaps merely because he was bearded--so unreasoning are the inhibitions of the young--Gashwiler stilled the tumult. The dancing died. "What"s this mean?" he repeated.
"We nearly had an accident," said the lady.
"What"s this mean?"
An answer of sorts could no longer be delayed.
"Well, I thought I"d give Dexter a little exercise, so I saddled him up and was going to ride him around the block, when--when these kids here yelled and scared him so he ran away."
"Oh, what a story!" shouted the tots in unison. "What a bad story!
You"ll go to the bad place," intoned little Elsie.
"I swear, I don"t know what"s gettin" into you," declared Gashwiler.
"Don"t that horse get exercise enough during the week? Don"t he like his day of rest? How"d you like me to saddle you up and ride you round the block? I guess you"d like that pretty well, wouldn"t you?" Gashwiler fancied himself in this bit of sarcasm, brutal though it was. He toyed with it. "Next Sunday I"ll saddle you up and ride you round the block--see how you like that, young man."
"It was our clothesline," said the lady. "I could tell it right off."
With a womanish tenacity she had fastened to a minor inconsequence of the outrage. Gashwiler became practical.
"Well, I must say, it"s a pretty how-de-do, That horse"ll make straight back for the farm; we won"t have any delivery horse to-morrow. Sue, you get out; I"ll go down the road a piece and see if I can head him off."
"He turned the other way," said Merton.
"Well, he"s bound to head around for the farm. I"ll go up the road and you hurry out the way he went. Mebbe you can catch him before he gets out of town."
Mrs. Gashwiler descended from the car.
"You better have that clothesline back by seven o"clock to-morrow morning," she warned the offender.
"Yes, ma"am, I will."
This was not spoken in a Buck Benson manner.
"And say"--Gashwiler paused in turning the car--"what you doing in that outlandish rig, anyhow? Must think you"re one o" them Wild West cowboys or something. Huh!" This last carried a sneer that stung.
"Well, I guess I can pick out my own clothes if I want to."
"Fine things to call clothes, I must say. Well, go see if you can pick out that horse if you"re such a good picker-out."
Again Gashwiler was pleased with himself. He could play venomously with words.
"Yes, sir," said Merton, and plodded on up the alley, followed at a respectful distance by the Ransom kiddies, who at once resumed their vocal exercises.
"He throwed you off right into the dirt, didn"t he, Merton? Mer-tun, didn"t he throw you off right into the dirt?"
If it were inevitable he wished that they would come closer. He would even have taken little Woodrow by the hand. But they kept far enough back of him to require that their voices should be raised. Incessantly the pitiless rain fell upon him--"Mer-tun, he throwed you off right into the dirt, didn"t he, Merton?"
He turned out of the alley up Spruce Street. The Ransom children lawlessly followed, forgetting their good home, their poor, sick mother and the rules she had laid down for their Sabbath recreation. At every moment the shrill cry reached his burning ears, "Mer-tun, didn"t he throw you off?" The kiddies appeared to believe that Merton had not heard them, but they were patient. Presently he would hear and rea.s.sure them that he had, indeed, been thrown off right into the dirt.
Now he began to meet or pa.s.s early churchgoers who would gaze at him in wonder or in frank criticism. He left the sidewalk and sought the centre of the road, pretending that out there he could better search for a valuable lost horse. The Ransom children were at first in two minds about following him, but they soon found it more interesting to stay on the sidewalk. They could pause to acquaint the churchgoers with a matter of common interest. "He throwed Merton off right into the dirt."
If the people they addressed appeared to be doubting this, or to find it not specific enough, they would call ahead to Merton to confirm their simple tale. With rapt, shining faces, they spread the glad news, though hurrying always to keep pace with the figure in the road.
Spruce Street was vacant of Dexter, but up Elm Street, slowly cropping the wayside herbage as he went, was undoubtedly Merton"s good old pal.
He quickened his pace. Dexter seemed to divine his coming and broke into a kittenish gallop until he reached the Methodist Church. Here, appearing to believe that he had again eluded pursuit, he stopped to graze on a carefully tended square of gra.s.s before the sacred edifice.
He was at once shooed by two scandalized old ladies, but paid them no attention. They might perhaps even have tickled him, for this was the best gra.s.s he had found since leaving home. Other churchgoers paused in consternation, looking expectantly at the approaching Merton Gill. The three happy children who came up with him left no one in doubt of the late happening.
Merton was still the artist. He saw himself approach Dexter, vault into the saddle, put spurs to the beast, and swiftly disappear down the street. People would be saying that he should not be let to ride so fast through a city street. He was worse than Gus Giddings. But he saw this only with his artist"s eye. In sordid fact he went up to Dexter, seized the trailing bridle reins and jerked savagely upon them. Back over the trail he led his good old pal. And for other later churchgoers there were the shrill voices of friendly children to tell what had happened--to appeal confidently to Merton, vaguely ahead in the twilight, to confirm their interesting story.
Dexter, the anarchist, was put to bed without his goodnight kiss. Good old Pinto had done his pal dirt. Never again would he be given a part in Buck Benson"s company. Across the alley came the voices of tired, happy children, in the appeal for an encore. "Mer-tun, please let him do it to you again." "Mer-tun, please let him do it to you again."
And to the back porch came Mrs. Gashwiler to say it was a good thing he"d got that clothesline back, and came her husband wishing to be told what outlandish notion Merton Gill would next get into the thing he called his head. It was the beginning of the end.
Followed a week of strained relations with the Gashwiler household, including Dexter, and another week of relations hardly more cordial.
But thirty dollars was added to the h.o.a.rd which was now counted almost nightly. And the cruder wits of the village had made rather a joke of Merton"s adventure. Some were tasteless enough to rally him coa.r.s.ely upon the crowded street or at the post office while he awaited his magazines.
And now there were two hundred and seventy-five dollars to put him forever beyond their jibes. He carefully rehea.r.s.ed a scathing speech for Gashwiler. He would tell him what he thought of him. That merchant would learn from it some things that would do him good if he believed them, but probably he wouldn"t believe them. He would also see that he had done his faithful employee grave injustices. And he would be left, in some humiliation, having found, as Merton Gill took himself forever out of retail trade, that two could play on words as well as one. It was a good warm speech, and its author knew every word of it from mumbled rehearsal during the two weeks, at times when Gashwiler merely thought he was being queer again.
At last came the day when he decided to recite it in full to the man for whom it had been composed. He confronted him, accordingly, at a dull moment on the third Monday morning, burning with his message.
He looked Gashwiler firmly in the eye and said in halting tones, "Mr.
Gashwiler, now, I"ve been thinking I"d like to go West for a while--to California, if you could arrange to let me off, please." And Mr.
Gashwiler had replied, "Well, now, that is a surprise. When was you wishing to go, Merton?"
"Why, I would be much obliged if you"d let me get off to-night on No.
4, Mr. Gashwiler, and I know you can get Spencer Grant to take my place, because I asked him yester-day."
"Very well, Merton. Send Spencer Grant in to see me, and you can get off to-night. I hope you"ll have a good time."
"Of course, I don"t know how long I"ll be gone. I may locate out there.
But then again--"
"That"s all right, Merton. Any time you come back you can have your same old job. You"ve been a good man, and they ain"t so plenty these days."
"Thank you, Mr. Gashwiler."
No. 4 was made to stop at Simsbury for a young man who was presently commanding a meal in the palatial diner, and who had, before this meal was eaten, looked out with compa.s.sion upon two Simsbury-like hamlets that the train rushed by, a blur of small-towners standing on their depot platforms to envy the inmates of that splendid structure.
At last it was Western Stuff and no fooling.