Canal Town

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

The big teamster squirmed. “Look, Doc. I got the teamin’ for Old Man Latham’s oats and rye. You know how it is. I dassen’t be seen comin’ here. You and me are good friends, Doc. I wouldn’t want to quit you. You can see how it is, can’t you?”

  “Did Genter Latham threaten you with loss of your teaming?”

  “No. He ain’t spoke a word. But everybody knows how it stands between him and you. It ain’t healthy to go against Genter Latham.”

  “I’ll treat you this once,” said Horace. “But not again unless you come like a man.”

  “Don’t say that, Doc,” pleaded the big fellow. “Livin’s hard in the freightin’ line since the goddam canal. I gotta think of myself.”

  It was an ugly foretaste of the Latham power. If, by the mere tacit influence of his hatred, the autocrat was able to blackmail Horace’s patients away from him, what would it be when that potent enmity was exercised in the open?

  A more insistent preoccupation now obsessed Horace’s mind. Wealthia Latham was evincing no signs of approaching maternity. Changed she certainly was, but she was changing no further. This was obvious beyond denial. The possibility of error forced itself upon him. If he had thus fatally misinterpreted the situation, how could he ever absolve himself from responsibility for Kinsey Hayne’s tragic death? He was ready to resolve that never again would he overstep the strictest limitations of medical privilege. Yet, in moments of calm reasoning, he could find no reason for changing his opinion. Aside from the inescapable physiological evidences, Wealthia’s earlier attitude had been tantamount to a confession. The grisly question was, would he be able to prove his case?

  Through the rest of the summer and fall, the Amlie practice slowly dwindled. No longer could Dinty save out from the household surplus more than enough to carry the interest on the loan. Finances of the pickle-jar remained at the same level; new winter finery for her adornment was a vanished dream. A favorite evening diversion of the couple had been to get out her home-drawn plans of the projected cobblestone house and become absorbed—sometimes embattled—over such alterations, usually in the form of enlargements, as two lively and ambitious imaginations could devise. Her draftsmanship, for which she had a natural bent, now remained in the top drawer of the Butler desk by tacit consent, segregated but unforgotten.

  In both minds one subject was uppermost; it was seldom mentioned. Wealthia Latham was back in full current of village life, but with a difference. She was now more given to good works, and less to adornment and coquetries. Nevertheless there was no lack of suitors, local and foreign. She was still the best match of the region; heiress of a rich man growing yearly richer, a powerful figure, gaining monthly in influence and authority. If her beauty radiated a less obvious allure, if it was less consciously seductive, it had lost little of its luster.

  To all suitors she was equally and gently obdurate.

  “It isn’t natural,” declared Dinty. “Wealthy isn’t like that.”

  “Natural enough to her condition,” returned Horace.

  “Oh, her condition!” said she with a peculiar intonation. There was a long pause. “Satch Fammie is back again,” she said.

  “I saw the gyppos’ pitch on the Jerusalem Road.”

  “She isn’t there. She’s staying with Quaila Crego at the Pinch. Why don’t you go to see her?”

  “What for?”

  “I think she knows something.”

  “About Wealthia?”

  “Yes.”

  “So do you, I suspect. More than you’re telling me.”

  Dinty was silent, looking away from him.

  “I’m not trying to force your confidence.”

  “There are things that I remember and put together since—well, since what you told me. I do think you ought to see Satch Fammie, Horace.”

  He assented. How much he could get out of the old crone was doubtful, he thought. He knew her to be friendly to him for services rendered once when she was mangled by a watchdog, and thereafter when she brought her rheumatic joints to him; he knew, also, the secretiveness of the Romany when dealing with the Gentile. Attack would be his best method. If he could frighten her, she might give up her secret, assuming that she had one.

  Quaila Crego was absent when he reached the Pinch, and the gypsy was puttering over a cooking fire with a skinned muskrat dangling from the crossbar. She dipped him a curtsey, then squatted down, her black eyes glittering out from the stained parchment of her face.

  “How are you, Satch Fammie?” he asked.

  “Better of my misery, kind gentleman.”

  “Have you been taking the boluses?”

  “They’re all gone, kind sir.”

  “I’ll send you more.”

  “Thank you gently. What can old Satch Fammie do for your service? Read the leaves and the stars for you?”

  “Tell me the truth,” he answered with sudden sharpness. “What did you do to the Rich Man’s chal?”

  The touch of Romany startled her. “No, no, kind gentleman, kind doctor. Nothing!”

  “Don’t lie to me, Satch Fammie. You performed an operation.” This was pure venture but worth trying.

  “No, no!”

  “You tried to.”

  “No, no. By my God!”

  “When did you last see her.”

  “I passed through in July. She came to me.”

  “You gave her a brew.”

  “Camomile tea,” she quavered. “Only camomile tea, kind gentleman.”

  “Not seven-sisters weed?”

  “No, kind doctor. By my God! I couldn’t risk.”

  “Too far gone?” he asked, holding her eyes with his gaze.

  She nodded mutely.

  “You have said nothing of this to anyone?”

  “May my tongue be drawn out and roasted on a fire.”

  “See that you don’t. It would be better for you to drown yourself in the canal. The boluses will be delivered tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, kind gentleman. Bless you, kind doctor.”

  So much was settled, then. Wealthia had been desperate enough over her condition to appeal to the reputed Wise Woman for rescue. Satch Fammie was, he believed, telling the truth in claiming to have resisted the girl’s importunities. Thus far his theory was borne out. But the mystery of non-progress in symptoms remained static.

  He braced his soul for the coming attack by Genter Latham. December was the expiration date of their formal and hostile treaty.

  The magnate, now assured of his unassailable position, did not wait. The first warning came to Horace late in November, from Carlisle Sneed. Dropping in at the smithy for the late afternoon confab, a practice which he had almost abandoned since his marriage, Horace was greeted by the village wit.

  “Here comes Old Pestilence.”

  “I’m out of the pestilence trade since they stripped me of my badge,” said the newcomer good-humoredly.

  “Never thee mind,” said the smith, handing him a freshly filled glass. “Thee will have the laugh of those sillyjohnnies yet.”

  “Him?” cried the jocund Sneed. “Why, he’s the pest, itself, I’ve seen it in print.”

  “What’s this?” demanded Decker Jessup. “What print? The paper isn’t out for this week. Clap your clam to.”

  “It’s not the paper. It’s a broadside. Tom Daw showed me the printer’s take. A rouncher!” He grinned at Horace.

  “I’ll go fetch one if I have to break that hunchback’s neck,” said Jed Parris.

  He crossed to the newspaper office and presently returned, a singlesheet fluttering in his hand. In ink still fresh, a headline stood out blackly:

  WARNING! A PEST IN OUR COMMUNITY

  “The town’ll be papered tomorrow,” said he. “He’s ordered one hundred and fifty struck off.”

  “Who?” cried a dozen voices.

  “Guess for yourselves. There’s only one would do this trick.”

  Horace read. It was a scurrilous screed of invective evenly divided against his professional capacity
and his personal character. No signature was attached. The subject of the attack rose, impassive and deliberate, and took up his beaver.

  “Where you goin’ Doc?” queried Carlisle Sneed uneasily.

  “On an errand.”

  Silas Bewar heaved up his bulk. “I’ll go with thee, friend.”

  “No,” said Horace.

  The group sat silent for minutes after he left. O. Daggett shook an ominous head. Carlisle Sneed took a deep inhalation of the Superior Blend and sneezed convulsively. Decker Jessup plucked the broadside from Jed Parris’s hand, twisted it into a spill, touched the end to the glowing ash of the forge, and lighted his pipe.

  “Looks likely for rain,” remarked the teamster, when the stillness had become uncomfortable.

  “Now, as to Andy Jackson and his stringing up that Britisher,” began O. Daggett in the contentious snarl appropriate to contemporary politics, “I say …”

  What he was about to say was interrupted by a dozen voices, and the assemblage was off in full gallop of tongues on the hottest topic of the day, glad to get away from Horace Amlie and his peril.

  Horace went straight to the stone mansion. Genter Latham was not at home; would Dr. Amlie come back later, asked the goggling house-hussey whom Wealthia had sent to answer the door. No, he would wait. He pushed past and took a chair. There he sat for two hours, supperless.

  In an upper window, Wealthia waited for her father’s step on the path. She ran to meet him.

  “Pa! Horace Amlie is here.”

  “Where?”

  “In the library. Since six o’clock.”

  “Go upstairs.”

  “Pa! You won’t do anything—terrible?”

  “Upstairs!”

  She obeyed, but not at once. She stopped to gather his musket and fowling-piece from their rack in the hall and take them with her, to hide them in her clothespress.

  The master of the house lighted a taper, walked into the dark library and set the flame to the two mantel-lamps. The caller rose. Genter Latham said, “What’s your business in this house?”

  Horace answered with an emphasis equally peremptory. “Your broadside.”

  “It will be on the street tomorrow.”

  “You don’t disavow it.”

  “Why should I?”

  “This is not December.”

  “You fool!” said Latham in black contempt.

  “Fool I may be. I keep my given word.”

  “I consider myself released,” retorted the older man negligently.

  “I have not released you.”

  Latham dismissed that with a curt gesture. “Do you wish to remain in Palmyra?”

  “I intend to remain in Palmyra.”

  Almost gently for him, Latham said, “It might be possible, on conditions.”

  “Unconditionally.”

  “I think not.” The words were accompanied by an ironic smile. “Sit down.”

  Horace remained standing, while his host drew open the hinged upper of the chest-desk, established himself, and selected a pen. He wrote slowly and laboriously, crossing out, recasting, pondering. On a second sheet of paper he set down a fair copy. This he handed to Horace.

  “Read it,” he ordered. “Aloud.”

  Ignoring the second part of the command, Horace ran his eye through it, noting with grim satisfaction a wavery quality of the script, testimony to the writer’s nervous tension. At what strain upon his self-command he was holding himself under control, the caller could pretty justly estimate. At any moment, upon any provocation it might break out in violence. Outmatched though he was in weight and power, in everything but courage and inner wrath, the visitor, while not there to provoke a fight, was in no mood to shirk one. His combative spirit was not ameliorated by what he read.

  I, Horace Amlie, M.D., by my hand herewith, do retract, withdraw, and confess as false my diagnosis of the physical condition of Miss Wealthia Latham. I further testify that any and all allegations by me reflecting upon her character, virtue and chastity are baseless and malicious lies, for which I humbly ask pardon. This statement I make of my own free will and conscience and without other compulsion.

  (Signed)

  Horace lowered the paper from the lamp by which he had read it and faced the writer. Latham rose and motioned him to the vacated chair.

  “Sign there,” he directed, his finger on the sheet.

  “If I don’t?”

  “You’ll be sorry to the last day of your life.”

  Horace took the seat, cleansed and dipped the pen, crossed out three words and substituted one for the elision. With the alteration, the clause now read:

  … any and all allegations by me reflecting upon her character, virtue and chastity are baseless but unintentional error.

  He handed it back to Latham. The magnate’s eyes glittered.

  “Squirming, huh?” said he. “Can’t face it like a man. I’ll give you that much leeway.” He flattened the paper on the desk again. “Sign.”

  “There are two conditions.”

  “What are they?”

  “First, it is to be dated January 15th.”

  Genter Latham’s laughter was harsh with contempt. “Still hoping,” he commented.

  “Second, that your daughter undergo an examination by a competent medical expert, not Dr. Murchison.”

  “No!” roared Latham.

  “You refuse?”

  “Yes, by God!”

  “For the reason that you’re afraid of what an honest diagnosis would reveal.”

  In that moment he thought that the attack was coming. He could see the eyes redden, the muscles quiver. Again the autocrat mastered himself. He went to the door.

  “Wealthia!”

  Her voice, faint and scared, answered from above, “Yes, Pa.”

  “Come down here.”

  “I can’t, Pa. I’ve gone to bed.”

  “Come down at once.”

  No word was spoken between the two men until she appeared. She paused in the doorway, one hand uplifted to the lintel for support. Her eyes met Horace’s in what he was almost ready to interpret as appeal, before they shifted away.

  “This man wants you to go through another medical examination.”

  “I wouldn’t let him touch me,” she said defiantly.

  “Not by me, Wealthia,” said Horace gently. “By any physician of good repute that you or your father may choose.”

  “But why, Pa?” she pleaded of her father. “Why should I? I’m well again.”

  “It isn’t a question of your present health,” put in the visitor. “You know what the matter is. Your father has put it in writing.”

  He held out the paper to her, but Latham intervened. The girl burst into sobs.

  “He’s insulting me again.”

  “There’s your answer, Amlie. Sign and get out.”

  Horace deliberately tore the paper into four pieces which he let fall on the desk. Genter Latham, purple now, rushed into the hallway. They heard his furious cry:

  “Wealthia! Wealthia! My weepons!”

  She ran to Horace. “Go! Oh, please, go! I’ve hidden them. Go before he finds them. He’ll kill you.”

  Prudence pointed out to Horace the reasonableness of the plea. Reluctant, but making no resistance, he let himself be half pushed out the side door. Until the gate closed behind him, he could hear the seeker raging through the house.

  Palmyra had two sensations in the morning. The scurrilous broadside was everywhere, having been distributed before dayfall by the Herald’s devil. Hardly less a subject of animated discussion was the news of Genter Latham’s openly enunciated threat: if Horace Amlie ever set foot in his house again, he would get a charge of lead through his gizzard.

  – 11 –

  To Palmyra the Latham philippic was a declaration of war and boycott. In fact, it had concluded with a demand upon “all good and lawful citizens” to abjure the attendance and shun the “companionship and activities of this miscreant.” The smithy deba
ted it at length, recalling dire instances of the weight of Genter Latham’s past disfavors. The general opinion was that Horace Amlie could not hope to stand out against the autocrat.

  “He’s a used-up man in this village,” declared Bezabeel Fornum.

  “I’ve got nothing against Doc,” said George W. Woodcock. “But I’ve got my trade to think of.”

  “A man oughta consider his family first,” said Jim Cronkhite.

  “The Lathams are my best customers,” stated T. Lay.

  “They’re everybody’s best customers, mostly,” added Billy Dorch.

  “The bank holds my note,” said Fornum.

  “It holds a lot of notes.”

  “And Genter Latham is the bank.”

  “What’s your view, Silas?” asked Woodcock.

  “I tend my forge,” answered the Quaker peacefully.

  “You fellas put me in mind of young mead-larks in spring,” remarked Sneed.

  “How’s that, Carly?”

  “Yellowbellies,” snickered the wit. The sally won no laughter.

  “There’s no yellow on my belly,” averred O. Daggett, glaring sourly around the circle. “I stand by my friends.”

  Tom Daw piped up. “What’s it costin’ you?”

  “You know too much,” grumbled the sign-painter, discountenanced.

  “Newspapers have to know everything,” boasted the hunchback. “The bank’s took an’ h’isted his interest from twelve percentum to eighteen,” he imparted to the gathering.

  “Without so much as by-your-leave,” confirmed the victim of this fiat finance.

  “They say the devil gathers news with his tail,” observed the humorist in not too subtle reference to Daw’s humble position as press-devil.

  The little fellow swelled pleasurably over the attention he was enjoying. “What about Mr. Latham’s bespoken boots, Decker?” he asked.

  “Canceled,” grunted the cobbler.

  “And with the leather already cut to measure, I hear.”

  “I ought to have the law of him.”

  “Who ever lawed against Genter Latham without getting the tar-end of the stick?” asked Jed Parris.

  “That’s what you must expect for being a friend to Doc Amlie,” Woodcock warned the cobbler. “It’ll cost you many a good dollar before all’s said and done.”