Part 4

"'Not a bit of it!' said your uncle. 'Tell you what I'll do; I'll lay that silk away, an' not show it to anybody till your husban' brings me in his pork an' we have our settlement. You come with him, an' I'll wrap up the silk for you, an' if he objects to payin' for it--oh, I know his ways, but I tell you right here, that if he objects to payin' for it, I'll make you a present of it, an' you can lay all the blame on me, sayin' I pestered you so hard that you had to take it.' Well, your uncle got the pork; the wife gave the man no peace till he promised to fetch it here, an' she got the dress, an' her husband--Hawk Howlaway, his name was,--was so tickled that he told all the county how he got the best of old Jethro."

"Pretty good--for one year, if the dress didn't cost too much."

"It only cost seventy cents a yard, an' there was fifteen yards of it. The pork netted more'n four hundred dollars. But that wa'n't the end of it. The woman hadn't wore the dress to church but one Sunday when her husband came into the store one day an' hung 'round a spell, lookin' 'bout as uneasy as a sinner under conviction, an' at last he winked your uncle into the back room, an' says Howlaway, says he:--

"'Jethro, you've got me in a heap o' trouble, 'cause of that silk dress you loaded on to my wife. She looks an' acts as if my Sunday clothes wasn't good enough to show alongside of it, an' other folks looks an' acts so too. So, Jethro, you've got to help me out. I've got to have some new clothes, an' they've got to be just so, or they won't do.' Your uncle said, 'All right,' an' got off a line from an advertisement in a city paper, about 'No fit, no pay.' Then he wrote to a city clothin' store for some samples of goods, an' for directions how to measure a man for a suit of clothes. Oh, he was a case, your uncle was; why, I do believe he'd ha' took an order from an angel for a new set of wing-feathers an' counted on gettin' the goods some way. I don't say he made light of it, though. I never see him so close-minded as he was for the next two weeks. One day I chaffed him a little about wastin' a lot o' time on a handsome hardware-goods drummer that hadn't much go, an' whose prices was too high anyway; but your uncle said:--

"'He's just about the height and build of Hawk Howlaway, an' he knows how to wear his clothes.' Then I knowed what was up. Well, to make a long story short, the clothes come, in the course o' time, and on an app'inted day Howlaway come too, lookin' about as wish-I-could-hide as a gal goin' to be married. Your uncle stuck up four lookin'-glasses on the back room wall, one over another, an' then he turned Howlaway loose in the room, with the clothes, an' a white shirt with cuffs an' collar on it, an' told him to lock himself in an' go to work, an' to pound on the door if he got into trouble. In about ten minutes he pounded, an' your uncle went in, an' Hawk was lookin' powerful cocky, though he said:--

"'There's somethin' that ain't quite right, though I don't know what 'tis.'

"'It's your hair--an' your beard,' said your uncle. 'Now, Hawk, you slip out o' them clothes, an' go down to Black Sam, that does barberin', an' tell him you want an all-round job: 't'll only cost a quarter. But wait a minute,' an' with that your uncle hurried into the store, took out of the cash-drawer a picture that he'd cut out of a paper that he'd been studyin' pretty hard for a week, took it back, an' said, 'Take this along, an' tell the barber it's about the style you want.'

"Well, when Hawk saw his own face in the glass after that reapin', he hardly knowed himself, an' he sneaked into the store by climbin' the fence an' knockin' at the back door, for fear of havin' to be interdooced to any neighbors that might be hangin' 'round the counters. Then he made another try at the clothes, an' called your uncle in again, and said:--

"'They looked all right until I put my hat on, an' then somethin' went wrong again.'

"'Shouldn't wonder if 'twas your hat,' said your uncle, comin' back for a special hat an' a pair of Sunday shoes, all Howlaway's size, that he'd ordered with the clothes. He took 'em in an' said:--

"'When you start to dress like a gentleman, to stand 'longside of a lady, you want to go the whole hog or none.'

"Well,--I didn't know this story was so long when I begun to tell it,--Hawk sneaked the clothes home, an' it come out in the course o' time that when on Sunday mornin' he dressed up an' showed off to his wife, she kissed him for the first time in three year, which sot him up so that he had the courage to go to church without first loadin' up with whiskey, as he'd expected to, to nerve him up to be looked at in his new things, an' when hog-killin' an' settlement time came round again, Hawk brought his pork to us, an' when he found his wife's silk dress hadn't been charged to him, he said in a high an' mighty way that he reckoned that until he was dead or divorced he could afford to pay for his own wife's duds, hearin' which, your uncle, who'd already socked the price of the dress onto the price of Hawk's own clothes, smiled out o' both sides of his mouth, an' all the way round to the back of his neck. An' since then, Hawk's always brought his pork to us, an' got a new silk dress ev'ry winter for his wife, an' new Sunday clothes for himself, an' nobody would he buy of but your uncle. Let's see; what was we talkin' 'bout when I turned off onto this story?"

"We were talking of ways of cajoling customers into paying their year's bills," said Philip. "Apparently I ought, just as a starter, to know how to coddle customer's boys, and supply hair-cutting and shaving plans to the village barber, and to play wife against husband, and learn to measure a man for clothes, like a--"

"That's so," said Caleb, "an' you can't be too quick about that, either, for Hawk'll want a new suit pretty soon."

"Anything else? By the way: what you said about the need of ready money reminds me of some questions I've been intending to ask, but forgotten. There are some mortgages in the safe on which interest will be due on the first of the year,--only a fortnight off. 'Twill aggregate nearly a thousand dollars."

"Yes,--when you get it, but interest's the slowest pay of all, in these parts, unless you work an' contrive for it. They know you won't foreclose on 'em; for while the security's good enough if you let it alone, there ain't an estate in the county that would fetch the face of its mortgage under the hammer. Besides, a merchant gen'rally dassent foreclose a mortgage, unless it's agin some worthless shack of a man. Folks remember it agin him, an' he loses some trade."

"Then those mortgages are practically worthless?"

"Oh, no. The money's in 'em, principal an' int'rest in full,--but the holder's got to know how to git it out. That's the difference between successful merchants and failures."

"H'm--I see. Apparently country merchants should be, like the disciples, as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves."

"That's it in a nutshell. I reckon any fool could make money in the store business if there was nothin' to do but weigh an' measure out goods an' take in ready cash for 'em. But there ain't no ready money in this county, 'xcept what the merchants get in for the produce they send out. There ain't no banks, so the store-keepers have to be money-lenders, an' have money in hand to lend; for while there's some borrowers that can be turned off, there's some it would never do to say 'No' to, if you wanted further dealin's with 'em, for they'd feel as if they'd lost their main dependence, an' been insulted besides. Why, some of our customers come in here Saturdays an' get a few five an' ten cent pieces, on credit like any other goods, so's their families can have somethin' to put in the plate in church on Sunday."

"But there are rentals due from several farms, and from houses in town. Are they as hard to collect as interest on mortgages?"

"Well, no--oh, no. The rent of most of the farms is payable in produce; there's ironclad written agreements, recorded in the county clerk's office, that the renters shan't sell any of their main crops anywhere else until the year's rent is satisfied. One of 'em pays by clearin' five acre of woodland ev'ry winter, an' gettin' it under cultivation in the spring, and another has to do a certain amount of ditchin' to drain swampy places. You'll have to watch them two fellers close, or they'll skimp their work, for there's nothin' farmers hate like clearin' an' ditchin'. I don't blame 'em, either."

"And the houses in town?"

"Oh, they're all right. The man in one of 'em, at two dollars a month, cuts all the firewood for the store an' house; that about balances his bill. Another house, at three thirty-three a month, has a cooper in it; he pays the rent, an' all of the stuff he buys at the store, in barrels for us in the pork-packin' season. The three an' a-half a month house man works out his rent in the pork-house durin' the winter, an' the four dollar house has your insurance agent in it; there's always a little balance in his favor ev'ry year. The--"

"Caleb!" exclaimed Philip, "wait a minute; do you mean to tell me that houses in Claybanks rent as low as four dollars, three and a half, three and a third, and even as low as two dollars a month?"

"That's what I said. Why, the highest rent ever paid in this town was six dollars a month. The owner tried to stick out for seventy-five a year, but the renter wouldn't stand the extra twenty-five cents a month."

Philip put his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and said:--

"Six dollars a month! And in New York I paid twenty-five dollars a month for five rooms, and thought myself lucky!"

"Twenty--five--dollars--a month!" echoed Caleb. "Why, if it's a fair question, how much money did you make?"

"Eighty dollars a month, with a certainty of a twenty per cent increase every year. 'Twasn't much, but I was sure of getting it. From what you've been telling me, I'm not absolutely sure of anything whatever here, unless I do a lot of special and peculiar work--and after I've earned the money by delivering the goods."

"Well, your uncle averaged somethin' between three an' four thousan', clear, ev'ry year, an' he come by it honestly, too, but there's no denyin' that he had to work for it. From seven in the mornin' to nine at night in winter; five in the mornin' till sundown in summer, to say nothin' of watchin' the pork-house work till all hours of the night throughout the season--a matter o' two months. He always went to sleep in church Sunday mornin', but the minister didn't hold it agin him. That reminds me: your uncle was a class-leader, an' the brethren are quietly sizin' you up to see if you can take the job where he left off. I hope you'll fetch."

"Thank you, Caleb," said Philip, closing his eyes as if to exclude the prospect. "But tell me," he said a moment later, "why my uncle did so much for so little. Don't imagine that I underrate three or four thousand dollars a year, but--money is worth only what it really brings or does. That's the common-sense view of the matter, isn't it?"

"Yes; I can't see anythin' the matter with it."

"But uncle got nothing for his money but ordinary food, clothes, and shelter, and seems to have worked as hard as any overworked laborer."

"Well, I reckon he was doin' what the rest of us do in one way or other; he was countin' on what there might be in the future. He b'lieved in a good time comin'."

"Yes,--in heaven, perhaps, but not here."

"That's where you're mistaken, for he did expect it here--right here, in Claybanks."

Philip looked incredulous, and asked:--

"From what?"

"Well, he could remember when Chicago was as small as Claybanks is now, an' had a good deal more swamp land to the acre, too--an' now look at it! He'd seen St. Paul an' Minneapolis when both of 'em together could be hid in a town as big as Claybanks--but now look at 'em!"

"But St. Paul and Minneapolis had an immense water-fall and water-power to attract millers of many kinds."

"Well, hain't we got a crick? They calculate that with a proper dam above town, we'd have water-power nine months every year, an' there ain't nothin' else o' the kind within fifty mile. Then there's our clay banks that the town was named after; they're the only banks of brick clay in the state; ev'rywhere else folks has to dig some feet down for clay to make bricks, so we ought to make brick cheaper'n any other town, an' supply all the country round--when we get a railroad to haul 'em out. They're not as red as some, bein' really brown, but they're a mighty sight harder'n any red brick, so they're better for foundations an' for walls o' big buildings. Chicago didn't have no clay banks nor water-power, but just look at her now! All that made her was her bein' the first tradin' place in the neighborhood; well, so's Claybanks, an' it's been so for forty year or more, too, so its time must be almost come. Your uncle 'xpected to see it all in his time, but, like Moses, he died without the sight. Why, there's been three or four railroads surveyed right through here--yes, sir!"

"Is there any Western town that couldn't say as much, I wonder?" Philip asked.

"Mebbe not, but they hain't all got clay banks an' a crick; not many of 'em's got eleven hundred people in forty year, either. An' say--it's all right for you to talk this way with me--askin' questions an' so on, an' wonderin' if the place'll ever 'mount to anythin', but don't let out a bit of it to anybody else--not for a farm. You might's well be dead out here as not to believe in the West with all your might, an' most of all in this part of it."

"Thank you; I'll remember."

Then Philip went out and walked slowly about the shabby village until he found himself in the depths of the blues.

VI--THE UNEXPECTED

"THE nicer half of the You-I seems buried in contemplation this morning," said Philip at his breakfast table, the Saturday before Christmas.

"The home-half of the You-I," Grace replied, after a quick rally from a fit of abstraction, "was thinking that it saw very little of the store-half this week, except when she went to the store to look for it. Was business really so exacting, or was it merely absorbing?"

"'Twas both, dear girl," said Philip, wishing he might repeat to her all that Caleb had said to him as recorded in the preceding chapter, and then scolding himself for the wish.

"I wonder," Grace said, "whether you know you often look as if you were in serious trouble?"

"Do I? I'm sorry you noticed it, but now that it's over, I don't object to telling you that if a single money package had arrived six hours later than it did, the principal general store of this county would have taken second or third place in the public esteem."

"Phil! Was it so large a sum?"

"Oh, no; merely two hundred dollars, but without it I would have had to decline to buy two or three wagon-loads of dressed hogs."

"'Dressed hogs'! What an expression!"

"Quite so; still, 'tis the meatiest one known in this part of the country. I can't say, however, that 'tis an ideal one for use when ladies are present, so I beg to move the previous question. What was it?"

"'Twas that I've seen very little of you this week except when I've been to the store to look for you. Won't the business soon be easier, as you become accustomed to it, so we may have our evenings together once more?"

"I hope so," said Philip.

"You didn't say that as if you meant it."

"Didn't I? Well, dear girl, to-morrow will be Sunday, and you shall have every moment of my time, and 'I shall bathe my weary soul in seas of heavenly rest,' as Caleb frequently sings to himself."

"You poor fellow! You need more help in the store, if you don't wish to become worn out."

"I don't see how any one could assist me. Caleb is everything he should be, but he has given me to understand that everything really depends upon the proprietor, and the more I learn of the business, the more plainly I see that he is right."

Grace asked a few questions, and after Philip had answered them he exclaimed:--

"You artful, inquisitive, dreadful woman! You've dragged out of me a lot of things that I'd determined you shouldn't know, for I've always had an utter contempt for men who inflict their personal troubles upon their wives. But you can imagine from what I've told you that no one but a partner could relieve me of any of my work."

"Then why not teach your partner the business?"

"'Twill be time to do that when I get one."

"Don't be stupid, Phil," Grace said, rising from her chair, going to her husband, and bestowing a little pinch and a caress. "Don't you know who I mean?"

"Dear girl," said Philip, "you're quite as clever as I,--which is no compliment,--and everybody adores you. But the idea of your dickering by the hour with farmers and other countrymen--and dickering is simply the soul of our business--is simply ridiculous."

"I don't see why," Grace replied, with a pout, followed by a flash in her deep brown eyes. "Some of the farmers' wives 'dicker,' as you call it, quite as sharply as their husbands. Am I stupider than they?"

"No--no! What an idea! But--they've been brought up to it."

"Which means merely that they've learned it. What women have done woman can do. I hope I'm not in the way in the store when you're talking business?"

"In the way! You delicious hypocrite!"

"Well, I've listened a lot for business' sake, instead of merely for fun. Besides, I do get dreadfully lonesome in the house at times, in spite of a little work and a lot of play--at the piano. Oh, that reminds me of something. Prepare to be startled. A great revival effort is to begin at the church to-morrow night, and a committee of two, consisting of Caleb and Mr. Grateway, the minister, have been to me to know--guess what they wanted."

"H'm! I shouldn't wonder if they wanted you to promise to sit beside the minister, so that all the susceptible young men might be coaxed to church and then shaken over the pit and dragged into the fold. Caleb and the minister have long heads."

"Don't be ridiculous! What they ask is that you'll have our piano moved to the church, and that you'll play the music for the hymns. There's to be a lot of singing, and the church hasn't any instrumental music, you know, and Caleb has been greatly impressed by your playing."

"Well, I'll be--I don't know what. Old fools! I wish they'd asked me direct! They'd have got a sharp, unmistakable 'NO!'"

"So they said; that was the reason they came to me."

"And you said--"

"That I'd consult you, and that if for any reason you felt that you must decline, I would play for them."

"Grace--Somerton!"

"Why shouldn't I? I often played the melodeon for the choir in our village church before I went to New York."

"Did you, indeed? But I might have imagined it, for there seems to be nothing that you can't do, or won't attempt. But let us see where we are. You've promised, practically, that they shall have the music; if I decline to play, they'll think I'm stuck up, or something of which, for business' sake, I can't afford to be suspected. Besides, when I married you I made some vows that weren't in the service, and one of them was that I never would shift any distasteful duty upon my wife. On the other hand, these Methodists are a literal lot of people. They've wanted me to become a class-leader because Uncle Jethro was one. I believe the duties are to inflict spiritual inquisition every Sunday upon specified people in the presence of one another. I escaped only by explaining that I was not a member of their denomination. But give them an inch and they'll take an ell. If I play for them that night, they'll expect me to do it the next, and again and again, probably every Sunday, and I certainly shan't have our piano jogged once a week over frozen roads, with the nearest tuner at a city seventy-five miles away."

"Then let me tell them that you won't allow them to be disappointed, but that as you've not been accustomed to play for church singing, and I have, that I will play for them."

"That means that every one in the church will stare at you, which will make your husband feel wretchedly uncomfortable. Aside from that, you'll distract attention from the minister; so although I know that you personally are a means of grace--Grace, itself, indeed, ha, ha!--the effect of the sermon won't be worth any more than a bag of corn-husks."

"Oh, Phil! don't imagine that everybody sees me through your eyes. Besides, except while playing I shall sit demurely on a front bench, with my back to the congregation."

So Caleb and the minister were rejoiced, and spread the announcement throughout the town, and Grace rehearsed the church's familiar airs to all the hymns on the list which the minister gave her, though some of them she had to learn by ear, by the assistance of Caleb, who whistled them to her. Soon after dark on Sunday night six stalwart sinners, carefully selected by Caleb, exulted in the honor of carrying the little upright piano to the church, where they remained so as to be sure of seats from which to hear the music.

The Methodist church edifice in Claybanks could seat nearly three hundred people and give standing room to a hundred more. Seldom had it been filled to its extreme capacity; but when the opening hymn was "given out" on the night referred to, the building was crowded to the doors and a hundred or more persons outside begged and demanded that windows and doors should remain open during the singing. Pastor Grateway, who had been in the ministry long enough to make the most of every opportunity, improved this occasion to announce that according to custom in all churches possessing instruments, the music of each hymn would be played before the singing began. Grace, quite as uncomfortable as her husband would have been in her place, was nevertheless familiar with the music and the piano, and the congregation rose vociferously to the occasion. Even the sinners sang, and one back-seat ruffian, who had spent a winter in a city and frequented concert saloons, became so excited as to applaud at the end of the first hymn, for which he was promptly tossed through an open window by his more decorous comrades.

The hymn after the prayer was equally effective, so the minister interpolated still another one after the scripture reading called the "second lesson." He, too, had been uplifted by the music--so much uplifted that he preached more earnestly than usual and also more rapidly, so as to reach the period of "special effort." At the close of the sermon he said:--

"As we sing the hymn beginning 'Come, ye Sinners, Poor and Needy,' let all persons who wish to flee from the wrath to come, and desire the prayers of true believers, come forward and kneel at the mourners' bench."

The hymn was sung, and two or three persons approached the altar and dropped upon their knees. As the last verse was reached, Caleb whispered to the minister, who nodded affirmatively; then he whispered to Grace, who also nodded; then he found Philip, who was seated near the front, to be within supporting distance of his wife, and whispered:--

"Give your wife a spell for a minute; play 'Am I a Soldier of the Cross' the way you did the other day for me. That'll fetch 'em!"