Mr. Van Kamp cast a hasty glance out of the window, The other man was getting out of the coach. His own wife was stepping on the porch.
"What do you ask for meals and lodging until this time to-morrow?" he interrupted.
The decisive moment had arrived. Uncle Billy drew a deep breath.
"Two dollars a head!" he defiantly announced. There! It was out! He wished Margaret had stayed to hear him say it.
The guest did not seem to be seriously shocked, and Uncle Billy was beginning to be sorry he had not said three dollars, when Mr. Van Kamp stopped the landlord"s own breath.
"I"ll give you fifteen dollars for the three best rooms in the house,"
he calmly said, and Landlord Tutt gasped as the money fluttered down under his nose.
"Jis" take yore folks right on up, Mr. Kamp," said Uncle Billy, pouncing on the money. "Th" rooms is th" three right along th" hull front o" th" house. I"ll be up and make on a fire in a minute. Jis"
take th" _Jonesville Banner_ an" th" _Uticky Clarion_ along with ye."
As the swish of skirts marked the pa.s.sage of the Van Kamps up the wide hall stairway, the other party swept into the room.
The man wrote, in a round flourish, "Edward Eastman Ellsworth, wife, and son."
"I"d like three choice rooms, en suite," he said.
"Gosh!" said Uncle Billy, regretfully. "That"s what Mr. Kamp wanted, fust off, an" he got it. They hain"t but th" little room over th"
kitchen left. I"ll have to put you an" your wife in that, an" let your boy sleep with th" driver."
The consternation in the Ellsworth party was past calculating by any known standards of measurement. The thing was an outrage! It was not to be borne! They would not submit to it!
Uncle Billy, however, secure in his mastery of the situation, calmly quartered them as he had said. "An" let "em splutter all they want to," he commented comfortably to himself.
IV
The Ellsworths were holding a family indignation meeting on the broad porch when the Van Ramps came contentedly down for a walk, and brushed by them with unseeing eyes.
"It makes a perfectly fascinating suite," observed Mrs. Van Kamp, in a pleasantly conversational tone that could be easily overheard by anyone impolite enough to listen. "That delightful old-fashioned fireplace in the middle apartment makes it an ideal sitting-room, and the beds are so roomy and comfortable."
"I just knew it would be like this!" chirruped Miss Evelyn. "I remarked as we pa.s.sed the place, if you will remember, how charming it would be to stop in this dear, quaint old inn over night. All my wishes seem to come true this year."
These simple and, of course, entirely unpremeditated remarks were as vinegar and wormwood to Mrs. Ellsworth, and she gazed after the retreating Van Kamps with a glint in her eye that would make one understand Lucretia Borgia at last.
Her son also gazed after the retreating Van Kamp. She had an exquisite figure, and she carried herself with a most delectable grace. As the party drew away from the inn she dropped behind the elders and wandered off into a side path to gather autumn leaves.
Ralph, too, started off for a walk, but naturally not in the same direction.
"Edward!" suddenly said Mrs. Ellsworth. "I want you to turn those people out of that suite before night!"
"Very well," he replied with a sigh, and got up to do it. He had wrecked a railroad and made one, and had operated successful corners in nutmegs and chicory. No task seemed impossible. He walked in to see the landlord.
"What are the Van Kamps paying you for those three rooms?" he asked.
"Fifteen dollars," Uncle Billy informed him, smoking one of Mr. Van Kamp"s good cigars and twiddling his thumbs in huge content.
"I"ll give you thirty for them. Just set their baggage outside and tell them the rooms are occupied."
"No sir-ree!" rejoined Uncle Billy. "A bargain"s a bargain, an" I allus stick to one I make."
Mr. Ellsworth withdrew, but not defeated. He had never supposed that such an absurd proposition would be accepted. It was only a feeler, and he had noticed a wince of regret in his landlord. He sat down on the porch and lit a strong cigar. His wife did not bother him. She gazed complacently at the flaming foliage opposite, and allowed him to think. Getting impossible things was his business in life, and she had confidence in him.
"I want to rent your entire house for a week," he announced to Uncle Billy a few minutes later. It had occurred to him that the flood might last longer than they antic.i.p.ated.
Uncle Billy"s eyes twinkled.
"I reckon it kin be did," he allowed. "I reckon a _ho_-tel man"s got a right to rent his hull house ary minute."
"Of course he has. How much do you want?"
Uncle Billy had made one mistake in not asking this sort of folks enough, and he reflected in perplexity.
"Make me a offer," he proposed. "Ef it hain"t enough I"ll tell ye. You want to rent th" hull place, back lot an" all?"
"No, just the mere house. That will be enough," answered the other with a smile. He was on the point of offering a hundred dollars, when he saw the little wrinkles about Mr. Tutt"s eyes, and he said seventy-five.
"Sho, ye"re jokin"!" retorted Uncle Billy. He had been considered a fine horse-trader in that part of the country. "Make it a hundred and twenty-five, an" I"ll go ye."
Mr. Ellsworth counted out some bills.
"Here"s a hundred," he said. "That ought to be about right."
"Fifteen more," insisted Uncle Billy.
With a little frown of impatience the other counted off the extra money and handed it over. Uncle Billy gravely handed it back.
"Them"s the fifteen dollars Mr. Kamp give me," he explained. "You"ve got the hull house fer a week, an" o" course all th" money that"s tooken in is your"n. You kin do as ye please about rentin" out rooms to other folks, I reckon. A bargain"s a bargain, an" I allus stick to one I make."
V
Ralph Ellsworth stalked among the trees, feverishly searching for squirrels, scarlet leaves, and the glint of a brown walking-dress, this last not being so easy to locate in sunlit autumn woods. Time after time he quickened his pace, only to find that he had been fooled by a patch of dogwood, a clump of haw bushes or even a leaf-strewn knoll, but at last he unmistakably saw the dress, and then he slowed down to a careless saunter.
She was reaching up for some brilliantly colored maple leaves, and was entirely unconscious of his presence, especially after she had seen him. Her pose showed her pretty figure to advantage, but, of course, she did not know that. How should she?
Ralph admired the picture very much. The hat, the hair, the gown, the dainty shoes, even the narrow strip of silken hose that was revealed as she stood a-uptoe, were all of a deep, rich brown that proved an exquisite foil for the pink and cream of her cheeks. He remembered that her eyes were almost the same shade, and wondered how it was that women-folk happened on combinations in dress that so well set off their natural charms. The fool!
He was about three trees away, now, and a panic akin to that which hunters describe as "buck ague" seized him. He decided that he really had no excuse for coming any nearer. It would not do, either, to be seen staring at her if she should happen to turn her head, so he veered off, intending to regain the road. It would be impossible to do this without pa.s.sing directly in her range of vision, and he did not intend to try to avoid it. He had a fine, manly figure of his own.