by W. W. Jacobs
ENTRY NO. IV
BISHOP'S HIRED MAN
Miss Harding is still in the city, and I have added nothing to thisdiary for several days. She is expected back to-morrow.
I do not know how to account for it, but since the coming of theHardings my game has fallen off several strokes. It seems impossible forme to concentrate my mind on my shots.
Ninety-one is very poor golf for nine holes, and I am sure that withpractice under a capable golfer Miss Harding could do much better. Shehas just the figure for a long, true and swinging stroke. I shall makeit a point to ask her to play before Carter gets a chance to forestallme.
Unless I am entirely in error Carter is badly smitten with Miss Harding.It also occurs to me that I have written enough about that young lady.
Mr. Harding is also in the city. I wish I had his opinion about thefuture of N.O. & G. railroad stock. It has gone down another point,which means the loss of two thousand dollars to me.
An odd sort of an incident happened yesterday morning. None of thescratch players was about, so I accepted an invitation to play a roundwith LaHume and Miss Lawrence. She is a very pretty girl, though in myopinion she is not to be compared with Miss Harding. LaHume is devotedto her, as much as he can be devoted to any one or anything, and therehave been rumours now and then that they were engaged or about to beengaged, but since it has always been possible to trace these reportsback to LaHume I have had my doubts of their accuracy. Miss OliveLawrence has inherited a large fortune, and is the master of it and ofherself.
LaHume has been a persistent fortune hunter, and if patience be a virtuehe deserves to win. He had a tiff yesterday with Miss Lawrence, and itcame about curiously enough.
The Bishop farm adjoins the club grounds on the east, and everyone formiles about knows Bishop. He has little use for anything but work andmoney, and he always has difficulty in keeping farm labourers, or "hiredmen," as he terms them.
About a month ago he employed a fellow named Wallace, who admitted thathe did not know much about farming, but who said he was strong andhealthy and was willing to do the best he could. It was in the hayingseason and Bishop was short of men, so he gave this chap a chance.
I met Bishop one day shortly after he put Wallace to work, and he toldme something about him.
"He's strong an' willin' enough," said Bishop, as we stood talking overthe fence, "but he surely is the blamedest, funniest hired man I everhad, an' I've had some that'd make a man quit the church. What do youthink he wants?"
I assured him that I could not imagine.
"Soap in his room, and cake soap at that!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn'tgiven it to him he'd a quit, so I had to give it to him. He takes a bathevery morning, an' shaves. That's what he does! Gets up about fouro'clock and goes down to the old swimming hole in the crick, paddlesaround a while, an' then comes back to the house an' shaves, an' thengoes out an' milks an' cleans out the stables. Never saw a man wash hishands so much in my life, but accordin' to his lights he's a mighty goodworker. He eats a lot, but then all hired men eats a lot. An' he reads!Brought a big trunk with him, an' in it was a lot of books in French,Dutch or some other language that no white man can understand. Andfight! You know Big Dave Cole, that's been with me for years?"
I assured him that I should never forget "Big Dave" Cole. I have knownhim ever since he went to work for Bishop, and that was when I was aboy. From that day he has been the terror of the neighbourhood, and Ihave sometimes thought that even Bishop stood in fear of him.
"Wal," he said slowly and impressively, biting the end from a plug oftobacco, "this here Wallace licked the life plumb out of Big Dave nomore than yesterday, an' Big Dave is that disgusted he has packed up andquit me."
"What caused the trouble?" I asked.
"Big Dave called him an English dude, an' it seems that Wallace tookoffense because he's Scotch," explained Bishop, "at least that's whatthe other men who was there when it started said. I couldn't get a wordouter Wallace, who said he'd quit if I wanted him to, but I told himthat a man who could lick Big Dave and come out without a scratch hadthe makings of a rattlin' good hired man, an' I raised his wages twodollars a month an' gave him Big Dave's room, which is bigger than theone he had. If he could milk, an' run a seeder, or a thresher, or stackoats an' corn as well as he can fight, I would give him forty dollars amonth."
This incident was related to me several weeks ago, and I have made it apoint to study this chap when I have met him. I should say he is aboutmy age, twenty-five or so, and I must say that he is a good-lookingfellow. He is tall, dark of complexion, broad of shoulder and narrow ofloin, and certainly looks as if he was able to take care of himself. Ipresume that he is some college chap who cannot make his way in theprofession he has chosen, and who is trying to get a financial start byworking on a farm.
I am going to have a talk with him at the first opportunity, and if mysuspicion is verified I shall try to find some way to give him a quickerstart. I doubt if Bishop is paying him more than twenty dollars a month.
As I started to describe, LaHume, Miss Olive Lawrence and I were playinga threesome. It was along about noon when we came to the tenth tee,which is located so that a sliced ball may go into or over the countryroad which separates the Bishop farm from the golf course. Miss Lawrenceis not an accurate player, but she drives as long a ball as any womangolfer in Woodvale.
She hit the ball hard, but sliced it, and a strong westerly wind helpeddeflect it to the right. It sailed over the fence, and struck in aploughed field only a few feet from a man whom I recognised as Wallace.
He had evidently been looking in our direction, and he followed theflight of the ball. He walked up to it.
"Are you playing bounds?" he shouted, lifting his cap.
"Yes!" answered LaHume, "throw it back!"
Wallace carried a stout stick of some kind in his hand. He looked at theend of it critically, placed the ball on a clod of soil, glanced at usand called "Fore!" and then lofted that ball with as clean a shot as everI saw, dropping it almost at LaHume's feet. He bowed again, twirled thestick about his fingers, and then turned and went toward the farmhouse.
"Fore"]
"Well, what do you think of the cold nerve of that clodhopper?"exclaimed LaHume, staring at the retreating figure of Wallace. "Ipresume he has ruined that new ball."
"Not with that stroke," I said. "I wish I could make as good an approachwith any club in my bag as he did with that improvised cane."
I picked up the ball and found that there was not a blemish on it.
"Wasn't he a handsome young gentleman?" murmured Miss Lawrence, whoseeyes had been fixed on Wallace until he vanished behind a clump oftrees. "Who is he?"
"Gentleman?" laughed LaHume, teeing the ball. "He's a farm labourer; oldBishop's hired man. One of his duties is to deliver milk every morningat the club house."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Miss Lawrence. "I presume it is impossible for himto attend to such duties and remain a gentleman."
"Not impossible, but highly improbable," laughed young LaHume, unawarethat he was treading on thin ice.
"My father made his start in that way, and before he died there weremany who called themselves gentlemen who were glad to associate withhim," declared Miss Lawrence with a warmth uncommon to her. "What didyour father do?"
"Really now, I did not mean anything," stammered LaHume, the redflushing through the tan of his face. It suddenly dawned on me thatthere was a period in the life of my father when he worked as a hiredman in order to earn the money with which to marry my mother, and thatfrom this humble start he was able finally to acquire the ancestralSmith farm, then in the possession of a more wealthy branch of thefamily. I made common cause with Miss Lawrence, and I did it with bettergrace from the fact that I resent the airs assumed by LaHume.
"LaHume's father founded the roadhouse down yonder," I said, pointingtowards a resort which yet goes by the LaHume name, and one which doesnot enjoy a reputation any too savory. Of course this is not the faultof the elde
r LaHume, who has since made a fortune in the hotel business.I could see that the shot went home.
"I say, Smith, let's play golf and cut out this family historybusiness," protested LaHume, who was fighting angry. "It is your shot,Miss Lawrence."
"Don't you think he is handsome, Mr. Smith?" she asked.
"Who; Mr. LaHume?" I returned, not averse to rubbing it into thedescendant of the roadhouse keeper.
"Of course not," she replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I meanthat lovely hired man."
"He's a rustic Apollo," I said, "and it may interest our friend to knowthat he also combines the qualities of Hercules and Mars."
And while LaHume fumed and Miss Lawrence clapped her hands I told thestory of the downfall of "Big Dave" at the hands of the quiet andcleanly Wallace, making sure that the defeat of the village bully lostnothing in its telling.
All the way back to the club house--we did not play out the remainingholes--Miss Lawrence plied me with questions concerning Wallace. Ofcourse I know that her object was to punish LaHume, and she did it mosteffectively.
She pretended to believe that there is some great romance back ofWallace's present status. She pictured him as a Scotch nobleman, or theson of one, I have forgotten which, forced by most interestingcircumstances to remain for a while in foreign lands. She conjured fromher fancy the castle in which he was born, and over which he will sometime rule, and I helped her as best I could.
I can see that it will be a long time before LaHume will ask me to makeup a threesome with Miss Lawrence. I wonder what "the hired man" wouldthink if he knew that his lucky stroke with a hickory club had createdso great a furor? I have a suspicion that this was not a lucky day inLaHume's campaign for the Lawrence hand and fortune.