Part 3

So it came to pass that within ten minutes Philip was furnishing his new home with the contents of the old. The possible contents of a New York flat for two are small, at best; yet as each bit of furniture, upholstery, and bric-à-brac was placed in position in the Jethro Somerton house, the plain rooms looked less bare, so Philip was correspondingly elated. True, he had to use ordinary iron nails to hang his pictures, and was in desperation for some moments for lack of rods for portières and curtains, but he supplied their places with rake-handles from the store and rested them in meat-hooks. He worked so long, and hurried so often into the store for one makeshift after another, that Caleb became excited and peered through the windows of the store's back room at his first opportunity, just in time to see the upright piano moved in. Unable to endure the strain of curiosity any longer, he quickly devised an excuse, in the shape of a cup of coffee and some buttered toast, all made at the stove in the back room of the store. Coaxing a trustworthy but lounging customer to "mind store" for him a minute or two, Caleb put the refreshments in a covered box and timed himself to meet Philip as the latter emerged from the warehouse with an armful of books.

"Didn't want to disturb you, but seein' that you let the hotel dinner-hour pass an' was workin' hard, I thought mebbe a little snack" (here Caleb lifted the lid of the box) "'d find its way to the right place."

"Mr. Wright, you're a trump! Would you mind bringing it into the house for me, my hands being full?"

"Don't want to intrude."

"Nonsense! Aren't we friends? If not, we're going to be. Besides, I really want some one to rejoice with me over the surprise I'm going to give my wife. Come right in. Drop the box on this table."

"Well!" exclaimed Caleb, after a long suspiration, "I reckon I done that just in time! A second more, an' I'd ha' dropped the hull thing on this carpet--or is it a shawl? Why, 'taint the same place at all! Je-ru-salem! What would your Uncle Jethro say if he could look in a minute? Reckon he'd want to come back an' stay. I dunno's I ought to have said that, though, for I've always b'lieved he was among the saved, an' of course your house ain't better'n heaven, but--"

"But 'twill be heaven to my wife and me," said Philip.

"Well, I reckon homes was invented 'specially to prepare folks for heaven,--or t'other place, 'cordin' to the folks."

"Come into the parlor," said Philip, toast and coffee in hand. For a moment or two Caleb stood speechless in the doorway; then he said:--

"Je-ru-salem! This reminds me to take off my hat. Why, I s'posed you folks wasn't over-an'-above well fixed in the city, but this is a palace!"

"Not quite," said Philip, although delighted by Caleb's comments. "Thousands of quiet young couples in New York have prettier parlors than this."

"I want to know!" Then Caleb sighed. "I reckon that's why young people that go there from the country never come home again. I've knowed a lot of 'em that I'd like to see once more. Hello! I reckon that's a pianner; I've seen pictures of 'em in advertisements. A firm in the city once wanted your uncle to take the county agency for pianners." Caleb laughed almost convulsively as he continued, "Ye ort to have seen Jethro's face when he read that letter!"

"Do you mean to say that there are no pianos in this county?" asked Philip.

"I just do. But there once was an organ. Squire Pease, out in Hick'ry Township, bought one two or three years ago for his gals. He was runnin' for sheriff then, an' thought somethin' so new an' startlin' might look like a sign of public spirit, an' draw him some votes. But somehow his gals didn't get the hang of it, an' the noises it made always set visitors' dogs to howlin', an' to tryin' to get into the house an' kill the varmint, whatever it was, an' Pease's dogs tried to down the visitors' dogs, an' that made bad feelin'; so Pease traded the organ to a pedler for a patent corn-planter, an' he didn't get 'lected sheriff, either. I allers reckoned that ef anybody'd knowed how to play on it, that organ might ha' been a means of grace in these parts, for I've knowed a nigger's fiddle to stop a drunken fight that was too much for the sheriff an' his posse." Caleb looked the piano over as if it were a horse on sale, and continued:--

"Don't seem to work with a crank."

"Oh, no," replied Philip, placing a chair in front of the instrument and seating himself. "This is the method." He indulged in two or three "runs," and then, with his heart on Grace, he dashed into the music dearest to him and his wife--perhaps because it was not played at their own very quiet marriage,--the Mendelssohn Wedding March.

"Je-ru-salem!" exclaimed Caleb. "That's a hair-lifter! What a blessin' such a machine must be to a man that knows the tunes!"

Rightly construing this remark as an indication that Caleb longed to hear music with which he was acquainted, Philip searched his memory for familiar music of the days when he was a country boy, and which would therefore be recognized by Caleb. Suddenly he recalled an air very dear to several religious denominations, although it has been dropped from almost all modern hymnals, probably because its vivacity, repetitions, and its inevitable suggestion of runs and variations had made it seem absolutely indecorous to ears that were fastidious as well as religious. Philip had heard it played (by request) as a quick march, by a famous brass band, at the return of troops from a soldier's funeral in New York; so, after playing a few bars of it softly, he tried to recall and imitate the march effect. He succeeded so well that soon he was surprised to see Caleb himself, an ex-soldier, striding to and fro, singing the hymn beginning:--

"Am I a soldier of the Cross?"

When Philip stopped, Caleb shouted:--

"Three cheers for the gospel! Say! I wish--"

"Well?"

"Never mind," replied Caleb. "I was only thinkin' that if our church could hear that, there'd be an almighty revival of religion. Reckon I'd better git back to the store. Say, you've been so full of palace-makin' that you've let the fires go out. I'll just load 'em up again for you; afterwards, if you chance to think of 'em, there's lots of good dry hick'ry in the woodshed, right behind the kitchen."

Philip continued to make hurried dashes into the store for necessities and makeshifts. When finally he entered for candles, Caleb remarked:--

"I'll call you in when your wife comes; but if you don't want her to smell a rat, you'd better shut the front shutters. There's already been people hangin' on the fence, lookin' at them lace fixin's in the winders, an' women are powerful observin'. An' say, here's a new tea-kettle, full of water; better set it on the kitchen stove. Pianners are splendid,--I never would have believed there could be anythin' like 'em,--but the singin' of a tea-kettle's got a powerful grip on most women's ears. I didn't see no ev'ryday dishes among your things. Don't you want some?"

Philip thought he did not, and he hurried to the house. He was soon summoned to the store, and through the coming darkness of the sunset hour he saw at the back door his wife, who said:--

"Oh, Phil! Mrs. Taggess is the dearest woman! We were of the same age before I'd been with her an hour."

"Eh? You don't look a moment older."

"But she looked twenty years younger. When she's animated, she--oh, I never saw such a complexion."

"Not even in your mirror?"

"No, you silly dear! And her home is real cosey. There's nothing showy or expensive in it; but if ever I get homesick, I'm going to hurry up there, even if the mud is a foot deep."

"Good! Perhaps you got some ideas of how to fix up our own dismal barn of a house. Come down and look about it once more."

Together they started. As they reached the front door, and Philip threw it open, Caleb, with his eye at the back window of the store, saw Grace stop and toss up her hands. As the door closed, Caleb jumped up and down, and afterward said to himself:--

"There are times when I wish, church or no church, that I'd learned how to dance."

"Phil! Phil! Phil!" exclaimed Grace, dashing from one room to another, all of which were as well lighted as candles could make them. "How did you?--how could you? No woman could have done better! Oh! home!--home!--home! And a few hours ago, right here, I was the most disheartened, rebellious, wicked woman in the world! Come here to me--this instant!"

There are times when manly obedience is a natural virtue. For a few moments a single easy chair was large enough for the couple, who laughed, and cried, and otherwise comported themselves very much as any other healthy and affectionate couple might have done in similar circumstances. A knock at the door recalled them to the world.

"Don't like to disturb you," said Caleb, "but Doc Taggess has dropped in again an' asked for Mr. Somerton, an' as his time's not all his own, mebbe you'd--"

"Do tell him how I enjoyed my day with his wife," said Grace. "I tried to, when he brought me down, but I don't feel that I said half enough."

Philip hurried to the store; Caleb lingered and said to Grace:--

"Reckon you've had a little s'prise, hain't you? Your husband showed me 'round a little."

"Little surprise? Oh, Mr. Wright! 'Twas the greatest, dearest surprise of my life. But 'twas just like Phil; he's the thoughtfullest, smartest man in the world."

"Is, eh? Well, stick to that, an' you'll always be happy, even if you should chance to be mistaken. But say,--'what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' as I reckon you've heard. Don't you want to give your husband a pleasant s'prise?"

"Oh, don't I!"

"Well, I'm kind o' feared to ask you, after seein' all these fine things; but you said you was brought up in the country. Can you cook?"

"Indeed I can! I've cooked all our meals at home since we were married--except those that Phil prepared."

"Good! Well, there's self-raisin' flour an' all sorts o' groceries in the store, an' eggs an' butter in the store cellar, an' alongside of the warehouse there's an ice-house, with three or four kinds o' meat. We have to take all sorts o' things in trade from country customers, an' some of 'em won't keep without ice. Now, if you was to s'prise your husband with a home-made supper, he wouldn't have to go down to the hotel, an' mebbe your own heart wouldn't break not to have to eat down there again."

"Oh, Mr. Wright! You're a genius! I wonder whether I could manage the kitchen stove."

"Best way to find out's to take a look at it."

Grace followed the suggestion. Caleb explained the draught and dampers, and took Grace's orders, saying, as he departed:--

"Doc'll keep him in the store till I get back,--that's what he's there for,--an' I'll keep him afterwards. When you want him, pull this rope: it starts an alarm in my room, over the store, an' I'll hear it."

Doctor Taggess gave Philip some health counsel, at great length. Claybanks and the surrounding country was very malarious, he said, and newcomers, especially healthy young people from the East, could not be too careful about diet, dress, and general habits until entirely acclimatized. Then he got upon some of his hobbies, and Philip thought the conversation might be very entertaining if Grace and the new home were not within a moment's walk. No sooner had the Doctor departed than Caleb insisted on a decision regarding an account that was in dispute, because the debtor was likely to come in at any moment, and the matter was very important. He talked details until Philip was almost crazed with impatience, but suddenly a muffled whir caused Caleb to say abruptly:--

"But it's better for him to suffer than for your wife to do it; an' if you don't be ready to start her for supper the minute the hotel bell rings, you won't get the best pickin's."

Philip escaped with great joy, and a minute later was in his new sitting room and staring in amazement at a neatly set table, with Grace at the head of it, and upon it an omelette, a filet of beef, some crisp fried potatoes, tea-biscuits, cake, and a pot of coffee. After seating himself and bowing his head a moment, he succeeded in saying:--

"'How did you?--how could you?' as you said to me."

"How could I help it," Grace replied, "after the delicate hint you left behind you,--the kettle boiling on the stove?"

"My dear girl, like little George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. Caleb was responsible for that tea-kettle; he brought it from the store, and said something poetical about the singing of a kettle being music to a woman's ear."

"Caleb did that?" exclaimed Grace, springing from her chair. "Set another place, please!" Then she dashed through the darkness, into the store, and exclaimed:--

"Mr. Wright, I shan't eat a single mouthful until you come down and join us. Lock the store--quick--before things get cold."

"Your word's law, I s'pose," said Caleb, locking the front door, "but--"

"'But me no buts,'" Grace said, taking his hand and making a true "home run." Caleb seated himself awkwardly, looked around him, and said:--

"Hope you asked a blessin' on all this?"

"I never ate a meal without one," Philip replied.

"Reckon you'll get along, then," said Caleb, looking relieved and engulfing half of a tea-biscuit.

V--BUSINESS WAYS

PHILIP engaged a plumber from the nearest city and had one of his upper chambers transformed into a bath-room, and Caleb, by special permission, studied every detail of the work and went into so brown a study of the general subject that Philip informed Grace that either the malarial soaking, mentioned in Uncle Jethro's letter, had reached the point of saturation, or that the Confederate bullet had found a new byway in its meanderings.

But Caleb was not conscious of anything out of the usual--except the bath-room. By dint of curiosity and indirect questioning he learned that in New York Philip and his wife had bathed daily. Afterward he talked bathing with the occasional commercial travellers who reached Claybanks--men who seemed "well set up," despite some distinct signs of bad habits, and learned that men of affairs in the great city thought bathing quite as necessary as eating. He talked to Doctor Taggess on the subject, and was told in reply that, in the Doctor's opinion, cleanliness was not only next to godliness, but frequently an absolute prerequisite to cleanly longings and a clean life.

So one day, after a fortnight of self-abstraction, he announced to Philip that a bath-room ought to be regarded as a means of grace.

"Quite so," assented Philip, "but I wish it weren't so expensive at the start. Do you know what that bath-room, with its tank, pump, drain, etc., has cost? The bill amounts to about a hundred and fifty dollars, and it can't be charged to my account for six months, like most of our purchases for the store."

"That so?" drawled Caleb, carelessly, though in his heart he was delighted; for Philip had also engaged from the city a paper-hanger, and he had employed a local painter to do a lot of work; and Caleb, who knew the business ways of country stores, had trembled for the bills, yet doubted his right to speak of them. "Well, have you got the money to pay for it?"

"Yes, but not much more; and in the two weeks I've been here the store has taken in about forty dollars in cash."

"That's about it, I b'lieve. Well, realizin'-time is comin'; it's right at hand, in fact, an' I've wanted a chance to have a good long talk with you 'bout it. When I was a boy I used to lie on my back in the woods for hours at a time, catchin' backaches an' rheumatiz for the sake of watchin' the birds makin' their nests an' startin' their house-keepin'. Watchin' you an' your wife gettin' to rights has made me feel just like I did in them days--except for the backaches and rheumatiz. I wouldn't have pestered the birds for a hull farm, an' I hain't wanted to pester you, but the quicker you can give more 'tention to the business, the better 'twill be for your pocket."

"Why, Mr. Wright--"

"Call me Caleb, won't you? Ev'rybody else does, 'xcept you an' your wife, an' I can talk straighter when I ain't 'mistered.'"

"Thank you, good friend, for the permission. I'll take it, if you'll call me Philip."

"That's a bargain," said Caleb, with visible signs of relief. "Well, as I was sayin', the more time you can give the business, the better 'twill be for your pocket. Your uncle kept first place in this town an' county, an' you need to do the same, if you want to keep your mind easy about other things. I've said all sorts of good things about you to the customers, though I haven't stretched the truth an inch. They all think you bright, but you need to show 'em that you're sharp too, else they'll do their best to dull you. Business is business, you know; likewise, human nature's human nature."

"Correct! Go on."

"Well, I'm doin' my best to keep an eye on ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody, but I'm not boss. Besides, it took two of us to do it all when your uncle was alive, though he was about as smart as they make 'em. There's one thing you won't have no trouble about, an' that's beatin' down. This is the only strictly one-price store in the county, an' it saves lots o' time by keepin' away the slowest, naggiest traders. It might ha' kept away some good customers, too, if your uncle hadn't been a master hand at gettin' up new throw-ins."

"Throw-ins? What are they?"

"What? You brought up in the country, an' not know what a 'throw-in' is? Why, when a man buys somethin', he gen'rally says, 'What ye goin' to throw in?' That means, 'What are you goin' to give me for comin' here instead of buyin' somewhere else?' When it's stuff for clothes, there's no trouble, for any merchant throws in thread and buttons to make it up if it's men's goods, or thread an' hooks an' eyes if it's women's. Up at Bustpodder's store they throw in a drink o' whiskey whenever a man buys anythin' that costs a quarter or more, an' it draws lots o' trade; but your uncle never worked for drinkin' men's trade, unless for cash, so we've never kept liquor, but that made him all the keener to get other throw-ins. One year 'twas wooden pipes for men, an' little balls of gum-camphor for women. Then 'twas hair-ile for young men an' young women. Whatever 'twas, 'twas sure to be somethin' kind o' new, an' go-to-the-spotty. Shouldn't wonder if your wife, havin' been in a big store, might think of a lot o' new throw-ins for women-folks. But that's only a beginnin'."

"H'm! Now tell me everything I ought to do that I haven't been doing."

"Well, in the first place, when you meet a customer, you want to get a tight grip on him, somehow, 'fore he leaves. Then you want to get into your mind how much each one owes you, an' ask when he's goin' to begin to bring in his produce. None of the men on our books mean to be dishonest; but if you don't keep 'em in mind of their accounts at this time o' year, some of 'em may sell their stuff to somebody else for cash, an' country folks with cash in their pockets is likely to think more of what they'd like to buy than what they owe. I reckon, from some things I've heerd, that some city folks are that way too."

"Quite likely. Well?"

"Well, if say a dozen of your biggest country customers sell for cash an' don't bring you the money, you'll find yourself in a hole about your own bills, for some of your customers are on the books for three or four hundred apiece. Your uncle sold 'em all he could, for he knew their ways an' that he could bring 'em to time."

"H'm! Suppose they fail to pay after having been trusted a full year, isn't the law good for anything?"

"Oh, yes; but sue a customer an' you lose a customer, an' there ain't any too many in this county, at best. Now, your uncle made sure, before he died, about all of 'm whose principal crop was wheat; but the wheat's then brought in an' sold, an' most of the money for it, after his own bills were paid, was in the check the lawyers sent you. The rest of the customers raised mostly corn an' pork,--most gen'rally both, for the easiest way to get corn to market is to put it into pork; twenty bushels o' corn, weighin' over a thousan' poun's, makes two hundred pound o' pork, an' five times less haulin'; besides, pork's always good for cash, but sometimes you can't hardly give corn away. Queer about corn; lot's o' folks that's middlin' sensible about a good many things seems to think that corn's only fit to feed to hogs an' niggers. Why, some o' 'em's made me so touchy about it that I've took travellin' business men up into my room, over the store, an' give 'em a meal o' nothin' but corn an' pork, worked up in half a dozen ways, an' it seemed as if they couldn't eat enough, but I couldn't see that the price o' corn went up afterwards. I'd like to try a meal o' that kind on you an' your wife some day. If the world took as easy to corn when it's ground into meal as when it's turned into whiskey, this section o' country would get rich."

"I shouldn't wonder if it would. But what else?"

"Well, you must get a square up-an'-down promise from each o' your customers that their pork's to come to you, you promisin' to pay cash, at full market price, for all above the amount that's owed you. You must have the cash ready, too."

"But where am I to get it?"

"Why, out of the first pork you can get in an' ship East or South. You must be smart enough to coax some of 'em to do their killin' the first week the roads freeze hard enough to haul a full load. They'll all put it off, hopin' to put a few more pounds o' weight on each hog, an' that mebbe the price'll go up a little."

"But how am I to coax them?"

"Well, there's about as many ways as customers. I'll put you up to the nature of the men, as well as I can, an' help you other ways all I can, but you must do the rest; for, as I said before, you're boss, an' they're all takin' your measure, agin next year an' afterwards. As to ways o' coaxin',--well, the best is them that don't show on their face what they be. Your uncle held one slippery customer tight by pertendin' to be mighty fond o' the man's only son, who was the old fellow's idol. Your uncle got the boy a book once in a while, an' spent lots o' spare moments answerin' the youngster's questions, for your uncle knew a lot about a good many things. There was another customer that thought all money spent on women's clothes was money throwed away--p'raps 'twas 'cause his wife was more'n ordinary good-lookin', an' liked to show off. One year, in one of our goods boxes from the East, was a piece of silk dress-goods that would have put your eyes out. Black silk was the only kind that ever came here before, and it had always been satisfyin'. Next to plenty o' religion and gum-camphor, a black silk dress is what ev'ry self-respectin' woman in the county hankers for most. Well, your uncle never showed that blue an' white an' yaller an' purple an' red silk to nobody till about this time o' year; he told me not to, too, but one day, when the feller's wife was in town, an' warmin' her feet at the backroom stove, your uncle took that silk in there an' showed it, an' he see her eyes was a-devourin' it in less than a minute.

"'There's only enough of it for one dress,' said he, 'an' I ain't sure I could get any more like it. You're the style o' woman that would set it off, so you'd better take it before somebody else snaps it up.'

"'Take it?' said she, lookin' all ways to once; 'why, if I was to have that charged, my husband would go plum crazy, or else he'd send me to an asylum.'