Part 10

“I could take a stick an' baste the life out'n Ned,” growled the black woman, leaning against the veranda post; she knew better than to sit down in the presence of her mistress, even if her mistress had invited her to talk.

“Oh, he didn't know any better,” said Mrs. Barclay. “He always would trot his legs off for Dolly, and”--Mrs. Barclay's tone was tentative--“it wouldn't surprise me if Alan Bishop paid him to help to-night.”

“No, he didn't help, Miss Annie. Ned's been in bed ever since he come back fum town des atter supper. He tol' me des now dat de young man was in a room at de hotel playin' cyards wid some more boys an' he got up an' writ Miss Dolly er note; but Ned went straight to bed when he got home.”

“Then, Alan must have got her to meet him at the front gate, don't you reckon? He didn't drive up to the house either, for I think I would have heard the wheels. He must have left his turn-out at the corner.”

“Are you a-goin' to set there all night?” thundered the Colonel from his bed. “How do you expect anybody to sleep with that low mumbling going on, like a couple of dogs under the house?”

Mrs. Barclay got up, with a soft, startled giggle.

“He can' t sleep because he's bothered,” she said, in a confidential undertone. “We'd better go in. I don't want to nag him too far; it's going hard with Dolly as it is. I'm curious to see if he really will refuse to let her come back. Do you reckon he will, Milly?”

“I sw'ar I don't know, Miss Annie,” replied the dark human shape from the depths of her blanket. “He sho is a caution, an' you kin see he's tormented. I 'll bet Ned won't have a whole skin in de mornin'.”

The Colonel, despite his sullen effort to conceal the fact from his wide-awake wife, slept very little during the remainder of that night, and when he rose at the usual hour he went out to see his horse fed.

Mrs. Barclay was fluttering from the dining-room to the kitchen, gossiping with the cook, who had run out of anything to say on the subject and could only grunt, “Yes'um, and no'um,” according to the reply she felt was expected. Aunt Milly was taking a plate of waffles into the dining-room when a little negro boy, about five years of age, the son of the cook at the Alexanders', crawled through a hole in the fence between the two houses and sauntered towards the kitchen. On the door-step he espied a black kitten that took his fancy and he caught it and began to stroke it with his little black hand.

“What you want _now?_” Aunt Milly hovered over him like an angry hen. “Want ter borrow suppen, I boun' you; yo'-alls folks is de beatenes' people ter borrow I ever lived alongst.”

The boy seemed to have forgotten his errand in his admiration for the kitten.

“What you atter now?” snarled Aunt Milly, “eggs, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, flat-iron? Huh, we-all ain't keepin' er sto'.”

The boy looked up suddenly and drew his ideas together with a jerk. “Miss Dolly, she say sen 'er Mother Hubbub wrappin' dress, hangin' on de foot er her bed-post.”

“What?” gasped Aunt Milly, and, hearing the exclamation, Mrs. Barclay came to the door and paused to listen.

“Miss Dolly,” repeated the boy, “she say sen 'er 'er wrappin' dress off'n de foot-post er 'er bed; en, en, she say keep 'er two waffles hot en, en dry--not sobby--en ter git 'er dat fresh cream fer 'er coffee in 'er lill pitcher whut she lef' in de ice-box.”

“Dolly? Dolly?” cried Mrs. Barclay. “You are surely mistaken, Pete. Where did you see her?”

“Over 't we-all's house,” said the boy, grabbing the kitten which had slid from his momentarily inattentive fingers.

“Over 't yo'-all's house!” cried Milly, almost in a tone of horror, “en, en is her husban' wid 'er?”

The boy grinned contemptuously.

“Huh, Miss Dolly ain't no married ooman--you know she ain't, huh! I seh, married! Look heer”--to the kitten--“don't you scratch me, boy!”

Mrs. Barclay bent over him greatly excited. “What was she doing over at your house, Pete?”

“Nothin' w'en I seed 'er 'cep'jest her en Miss Hattie lyin' in de bed laughin' en car'yin' on.”

“Oh, Lordy!” Mrs. Barclay's eyes were riveted on Aunt Milly's beaming face, “do you reckon--?”

“She's slep 'over dar many times before now, Miss Annie,” said Aunt Milly, and she burst into a round, ringing laugh, her fat body shaking like a mass of jelly. “She done it time en ergin--time en ergin.”

“Well, ain't that a purty mess?” said Mrs. Barclay, almost in a tone of disappointment. “I 'll get the wrapper, Pete, and you tell her to put it on and hurry over here as soon as she possibly can.”

A few minutes later Dolly came from the Alexander's and met her mother at the gate. “Oh, Dolly,” Mrs. Barclay cried, “you've got us in an awful mess. We missed you about midnight and we thought--your father made Ned acknowledge that he took a note to Alan Bishop from you, and we thought you had gone off to get married. Your father's in an awful temper, swearing you shall never--”

Dolly tossed her head angrily. “Well, you needn't say I got you into it; you did it yourselves and I don't care how much you suffer. I say! When I go to get married it will not be that way, you can depend on it. Now, I reckon, it will be all over town that--”

“No, it needn't get out of the family,” Mrs. Barclay assured her, in a guilty tone of apology. “Your pa wouldn't let me raise any alarm. But you _did_ send a note to Alan Bishop, Dolly.”

“Yes, I knew he was in town, and would be here to-day, and I simply wrote him that father was angry at our seeing each other again and that I hoped he would avoid meeting him just now--that was all.”

“Well, well, well.” Mrs. Barclay hurried through the house and out to where Barclay stood at the lot fence watching Ned curry his horse.

“What do you reckon?” she gasped. “Dolly didn't go off at all; she just went to spend the night with Hattie Alexander.”

His face changed its expression against his will; the blood flowed into the pallor and a satisfied gleam shot from his half-closed eyes. He turned from her, looking over the fence at the horse.

“You're leavin' a splotch on that right hind leg,” he said. “Are you stone blind?”

“I was gittin' roun' to it, marster,” said the negro, looking his surprise over such an unexpected reproof. “No; she just wrote Alan that you was displeased at them getting together yesterday and advised him to dodge you to-day while he is in town.”

“Well, he'd better!” said the Colonel, gruffly, as they walked towards the house. “You tell her,” he enjoined--“you tell her what I said when I thought she _was_ gone. It will be a lesson to her. She can tell now how I 'll do if she _does_ go against me in this matter.”

“I reckon you are glad she didn't run off,” replied his wife thoughtfully. “The Lord only knows what you'd do about writing your letters without her help. I believe she knows more about your business right now than you do, and has a longer head. You'd' a' saved a thousand dollars by taking her advice the other day about that cotton sale.”

XVII

N his way to Rayburn Miller's office that morning Alan decided that he would not allude to the note he had received the previous evening from Dolly. He did not like the cynical mood into which such subjects seemed to draw his friend. He knew exactly what Miller would say, and felt that it would be too personal to be agreeable.

He found the lawyer standing in the door of his little office building waiting for him.

“I reckon my message surprised you,” Miller said, tentatively, as he shook hands.

“It took me off my feet,” smiled Alan. “You see, I never hoped to get you interested in that scheme, and when I heard you were actually going to Atlanta about it, I hardly knew what to make of it.”

Miller turned into his office, kicked a chair towards Alan and dropped into his creaking rocker.

“It was not due to you that I did get interested,” he said. “Do you know, I can't think of it without getting hot all over with shame. To tell you the truth, there is one thing I have always been vain about. I didn't honestly think there was a man in Georgia that could give me any tips about investments, but I had to take back water, and for a woman. Think of that--a woman knocked me off my perch as clean and easy as she could stick a hair-pin in a ball of hair. I'm not unfair; when anybody teaches me any tricks, I acknowledge the corn an' take off my hat. It was this way: I dropped in to see Miss Dolly the other evening. I accidentally disclosed two things in an offhand sort of way. I told her some of the views I gave you at the dance in regard to marriage and love and one thing and another, and then, in complimenting you most highly in other things, I confess I sort o' poked fun at your railroad idea.”

“I thought you had,” said Alan, good-naturedly; “but go on.”

“Well, she first read me a lecture about bad, empty, shallow men, whose very souls were damned by their past careers, interfering with the pure impulses of younger men, and I 'll swear I felt like crawling in a hole and pulling the hole in after me. Well, I got through that, in a fashion, because she didn't want me to see her real heart, and that helped me. Then she took up the railroad scheme. You know I had heard that she advised her father in all his business matters, but, geewhilikins! I never dreamt she could give me points, but she did--she simply did. She looked me straight in the eye and stared at me like a national bank examiner as she asked me to explain why that particular road could not be built, and why it would not be a bonanza for the owners of the timber-land. I thought she was an easy fish at first, and I gave her plenty of line, but she kept peppering me with unanswerable questions till I lay down on the bank as weak as a rag. The first bliff she gave me was in wanting to know if there were not many branch roads that did not own their rolling stock. She said she knew one in the iron belt in Alabama that didn't own a car or an engine, and wouldn't have them as a free gift. She said if such a road were built as you plan these two main lines would simply fall over each other to send out cars to be loaded for shipment at competitive rates. By George! it was a corker. I found out the next day that she was right, and that doing away with the rolling stock, shops, and so forth, would cut down the cost of your road more than half.”

“That's a fact,” exclaimed Alan, “and I had not thought of it.”

“She's a stronger woman than I ever imagined,” said Miller. “By George! if she were not on your string, I'd make a dead set for her. A wife like that would make a man complete. She's in love with you--or thinks she is--but she hasn't that will o' the wisp glamour. She's business from her toes to her fingertips. By George! I believe she makes a business of her love affair; she seems to think she 'll settle it by a sum in algebra. But to get back to the railroad, for I've got lots to tell you. What do you reckon I found that day? You couldn't guess in a thousand years. It was a preliminary survey of a railroad once planned from Darley right through your father's purchase to Morganton, North Carolina. It was made just before the war, by old Colonel Wade, who, in his day, was one of the most noted surveyors in the State. This end of the line was all I cared about, and that was almost as level as a floor along the river and down the valley into the north end of town. It's a bonanza, my boy. Why that big bottle of timber-land has never been busted is a wonder to me. If as many Yankees had been nosing about here as there have been in other Southern sections it would have been snatched up long ago.”

“I'm awfully glad to hear you say all this,” said Alan, “for it is the only way out of our difficulty, and something has to be done.”

“It may cost you a few years of the hardest work you ever bucked down to,” said Miller, “and some sleepless nights, but I really believe you have fallen on to a better thing than any I ever struck. I could make it whiz. I've already done something that will astonish you. I happen to know slightly Tillman Wilson, the president of the Southern Land and Timber Company. Their offices are in Atlanta. I knew he was my man to tackle, so when I got to Atlanta yesterday I ran upon him just as if it were accidental. I invited him to lunch with me at the Capitol City Club--you know I'm a non-resident member. You see, I knew if I put myself in the light of a man with something to sell, he'd hurry away from me; but I didn't. As a pretext, I told him I had some clients up here who wanted to raise a considerable amount of money and that the security offered was fine timber-land. You see that caught him; he was on his own ground. I saw that he was interested, and I boomed the property to the skies. The more I talked the more he was interested, till it was bubbling out all over him. He's a New-Englander, who thinks a country lawyer without a Harvard education belongs to an effete civilization, and I let him think he was pumping me. I even left off my g's and ignored my r's. I let him think he had struck the softest thing of his life. Pretty soon he begun to want to know if you cared to sell, but I skirted that indifferently as if I had no interest whatever in it. I told him your father had bought the property to hold for an advance, that he had spent years of his life picking out the richest timber spots and buying them up. Then he came right out, as I hoped he would, and asked me the amount you wanted to borrow on the property. I had to speak quick, and remembering that you had said the old gentleman had put in about twenty thousand first and last, I put the amount at twenty-five thousand. I was taking a liberty, but I can easily get you out of it if you decide not to do it.”

“Twenty-five thousand! On that land?” Alan cried. “It would tickle my father to death to sell it for that.”

“I can arrange the papers so that you are not liable for any security outside of the land, and it would practically amount to a sale if you wished it, but you don't wish it. I finally told him that I had an idea that you would sell out for an even hundred thousand.”

“A hundred thousand!” repeated Alan, with a cheery laugh. “Yes, we'd let go at that.”

“Well, the figures didn't scarce him a bit, for he finally came right out and asked me if it was my opinion that in case his company made the loan, you would agree to give him the refusal of the land at one hundred thousand. I told him I didn't know, that I thought it possible, but that just then I had no interest in the matter beyond borrowing a little money on it. He asked me how long I was going to stay in Atlanta. I told him I was going to a bank and take the night train back. 'The banks will stick you for a high rate of interest,' he said, jealously. 'They don't do business for fun, while, really, our concern happens just now to have some idle capital on hand. Do you think you could beat five per cent.? I admitted that it was low enough, but I got up as if I was suddenly reminded that the banks close early in the afternoon. 'I think we can make the loan,' he said, 'but I must first see two or three of the directors. Can't you give me two hours?' I finally gave in and promised to meet him at the Kimball House at four. I went to a matinée, saw it half over, and went in at the ladies' entrance of the hotel. I saw him looking about for me and dodged him.”

“Dodged him?” echoed Alan. “Why--”

Miller laughed. “You don't suppose I'd let a big fish like that see me flirting my hook and pole about in open sunlight, do you? I saw by his manner that he was anxious to meet me, and that was enough; besides, you can't close a deal like that in a minute, and there are many slips. I went back to the club and threw myself on a lounge and began to smoke and read an afternoon paper. Presently he came in a cab. I heard him asking for me in the hall and buried my head in the paper. He came in on me and I rose and looked stupid. I can do it when I try--if it _is_ something God has failed at--and I began to apologize.

“He didn't seem to care. 'If it had been a deal of your own,' he said with a laugh, 'you'd have been more prompt,' and I managed to look guilty. Then he sat down.

“'Our directors are interested,' he said, confidentially. 'The truth is there is not another concern in America that can handle that property as cheaply as we can. We happen to have a railroad about that length up in East Tennessee that has played out, and you see we could move it to where it would do some good.'

“As soon as he told me that I knew he was our meat; besides, I saw trade in his eye as big as an arc-light. To make a long tale short, he is coming up here tonight, and if your father is willing to accept the loan, he can get the money, giving only the land as security--provided we don't slip up. Here's the only thing I'm afraid of. When Wilson gets here he may get to making inquiries around and drop on to the report that your father is disgusted with his investment, and smell a mouse and pull off. What I want to do is to get at him the first thing after breakfast in the morning, so you'd better bring your father and mother in early. If we once get Wilson's twenty-five thousand into it, we can eventually sell out. The main thing is the loan. Don't you think so?”

“I certainly do,” said Alan. “Of course, a good many things might interfere; we'd have to get a right of way and a charter before the road could be built, and I reckon they won't buy till they are sure of those things.”

“No it may take a long time and a lot of patience,” said Miller. “But your father could afford to wait if he can get his money back by means of the loan. I tell you that's the main thing. If I had offered to sell Wilson the whole thing at twenty-five thousand he never would have come up here, but he is sure now that the property is just what he is looking for. Oh, we are not certain of him by a long jump! It all depends on whether he will insist on going over there or not. If he does, those moss-backs will bu'st the thing wide open. If he comes straight to my office in the morning the deal may be closed, but if he lies around the hotel talking, somebody will spoil our plans and Wilson will hang off to make his own terms later--if he makes any at all. It's ticklish, but we may win.”

“It _is_ a rather ticklish situation,” admitted Alan, “but even if we do get the loan on the property, don't you think Wilson may delay matters and hope to scoop the property in for the debt?”

“He might,” Miller smiled, “if he didn't want to move that railroad somewhere else, and, besides, your father can keep the money in suitable shape to pay off the note in any emergency and free himself.”

“I don't know how to thank you, old man,” answered Alan. “If you had been personally interested in this you could not have done more.”

Miller threw himself back in his chair and smiled significantly. “Do I look like a man with nothing in it?” he asked.

“But you haven't anything in it,” retorted Alan, wonderingly.

“That's all you know about it” Miller laughed.

“If the road is built I 'll make by it. This is another story. As soon as I saw you were right about putting a railroad into the mountains, I began to look around for some of that timber-land. I didn't have long to wait, for the only man that holds much of it besides Colonel Barclay--Peter Mosely, whom Perkins fooled just as he did your father--came in. He was laying for me, I saw it in his eye. The Lord had delivered him to me, and I was duly thankful. He was a morsel I liked to look at. He opened up himself, bless you! and bragged about his fine body of virgin timber. I looked bored, but let him run on till he was tired; then I said:

“'Well, Mosely, what do you intend to do with your white elephant? You know it's not just the sort Barnum is looking for.'

“He kind o' blinked at that, but he said, 'I've half a notion to sell. The truth is, I've got the finest investment open to me that I ever had. If I could afford to wait a few years I could coin money out of this property, but I believe in turning money quick.'

“'So do I,' said I, and watched him flirt about in the frying-pan. Then I said, 'What is the price you hold it at?'

“'I thought,' said he, 'that I ought to get as much as I paid.'

“'As much as you paid Abe Tompkins and Perkins?' I said, with a grin. 'Do you think you could possibly sell a piece of land for as much as those sharks? If you can, you'd better go in the real-estate business. You'd coin money. Why, they yanked two thousand out of you, didn't they?'

“'I don't really think Perkins had anything to do with it,' he said. 'That's just a report out about old man Bishop's deal. I bought my land on my own judgment.'

“'Well,' I said, 'how will fifteen hundred round wheels strike you?'

“'I believe I 'll take you up,' he said. 'I want to make that other investment.' So we closed and I went at once to have the deed recorded before he had a chance to change his mind. Now, you see, I'm interested in the thing, and I'm going to help you put it through. If your folks want the loan, bring them in in the morning, and if we can manage our Yankee just right, we 'll get the money.”

XVIII

FTER supper that evening the Bishops sat out on the veranda to get the cool air before retiring. There was only one light burning in the house, and that was the little, smoky lamp in the kitchen, where the cook was washing the dishes. Bishop sat near his wife, his coat off and vest unbuttoned, his chair tilted back against the weatherboarding. Abner Daniel, who had been trying ever since supper to cheer them up in regard to their financial misfortune, sat smoking in his favorite chair near the banisters, on top of which he now and then placed his stockinged feet.

“You needn't talk that away, brother Ab,” sighed Mrs. Bishop. “Yo're jest doin' it out o' goodness o' heart. We might as well face the truth; we've got to step down from the position we now hold, an' present way o' livin'. And thar's Adele. Pore child! She said in 'er last letter that she'd cried 'er eyes out. She was bent on comin' home, but 'er uncle William won't let 'er. He said she'd not do any good.”

“An' she wouldn't,” put in Bishop, gruffly. “The sight o' you an' Alan before me all the time is enough to show me what a fool I've been.”

“You are both crossin' bridges 'fore you git to 'em,” said Abner. “A lots o' folks has come out'n scrapes wuss'n what you are in, ten to one. I'ain't never mentioned it, but my land hain't got no mortgage on it, an' I could raise a few scads, to he'p keep up yore intrust an' taxes till you could see yore way ahead.”

“Huh!” snorted his brother-in-law. “Do you reckon I'd let as old a man as you are, an' no blood kin, stake his little all to help me out of a hole that is gittin' deeper an' wider all the time--a hole I deliberately got myse'f into? Well, not much!”

“I wouldn't listen to that nuther,” declared Mrs. Bishop, “but not many men would offer it.”

They heard a horse trotting down the road and all bent their heads to listen. “It's Alan,” said Abner. “I was thinkin' it was time he was showin' up.”

Mrs. Bishop rose wearily to order the cook to get his supper ready, and returned to the veranda just as Alan Was coming from the stable. He sat down on the steps, lashing the legs of his dusty trousers with his riding-whip. It was plain that he had something of importance to say and they all waited in impatient silence.

“Father,” he said, “I've had a talk with Rayburn Miller about your land; he and I have lately been working on a little idea of mine. You know there are people who will lend money on real-estate. How would it suit you to borrow twenty-five thousand dollars on that land, giving that alone as security.”

There was a startled silence, and Bishop broke it in a tone of great irritation.