3stalwarts

by Unknown

  It became quite warm. By the time they entered the village of Whitesboro and turned out before the jail, Mrs. Gurget had taken off her shawl altogether. Molly herself felt warm, and even Mrs. Berry perked up and jerked her bonnet straight.

  “I don’t see why we come so early,” she said to Hector, “and I don’t see why we had to stop here. The fair’s up behind the hill, ain’t it?”

  “Yeanh,” said Hector, humbly. “But I ain’t driving this rig, Nelly.”

  “What’s all these wagons here for, and people got up so for?”

  “That’s right, Nelly. They do seem to be wearing Sunday clothes.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, it’s Mary Runkle,” said Hector, managing to tip a wink at Solomon with his off eye.

  “What about her?” demanded the little woman angrily. She scented a conspiracy.

  “Nelly talks so she ain’t had time to hear the news, I reckon,” explained the fat woman kindly. “You see, Nelly, it was whiles you was up to Westernville, Mary Runkle killed her husband.”

  Berry produced his ponderous watch from his waistcoat pocket.

  “That’s it, Nelly, and in five minutes they’re a-going to hang her. She had it coming, I guess. She used to bother her husband a lot, bossing him all the while, I’ve heard.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. Gurget.

  The wizened little woman suddenly drew herself up, slapped Hector’s face, jumped out of the wagon.

  “You’re mean, you’re all nasty-mean, all of you!” she cried, and her voice choked and she ran away round the corner of the jail.

  Berry stared after her with round eyes. He touched his cheek with the ends of his stubby fingers and drew in his breath.

  “Well, damn me,” he said. “Who’d have guessed it? It was your idee, Sol.”

  “Yeanh,” said Mrs. Gurget, hedging herself a trifle. “You got it up, Sol. You’d better go after her, Hector.”

  But Hector had already jumped to the ground and run after his wife.

  “Nell, Nell!” they heard him shout.

  “I declare, Sol,” said Mrs. Gurget. “What did you have such a notion for is beyond me. Right here in all these people. Why I can’t hardly think how to look.”

  Solomon was the most amazed of them all.

  “Why, Lucy, I didn’t have no idee. I didn’t say to do this.”

  He glanced at Dan for support, then pushed his hat over his eyes to scratch the back of his head. “I didn’t have no idee.”

  Mrs. Gurget laughed suddenly.

  “It got her sudden. And her nose was awful red to start with. I’ll bet she’s a sight. She’s a good body for such a measly woman.”

  “I think she’s nice,” said Molly.

  “Too nice,” said Solomon. “She makes it awkward, being that way.”

  He switched round and leaned to the left to get his watch out.

  “It ought to be going on now.”

  The space in front of the jail was crowded with wagons. There must have been thirty or more, mostly farmers, who could take the morning off. They stared at the expressionless front of the jail with sombre eyes, talking now and then in low voices so that a breathing murmur seemed to hang under the bare branches of the elms. Some stood among the wagons, and a couple of old men sat with their backs to the trunk of a tree and drank out of a glass bottle and looked at their watches between drinks. Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. had been the judge’s sentence; and Sheriff Jones would put it through as soon as he could.

  Tied to a hitching post, the doctor’s horse dozed in the shafts of his buggy, one hip slung for comfort. He looked like a fast trotter, but he had learned to take what rest he could when he could, no matter how fresh he was. A big farmer in a pepper-and-salt suit was driving a pair of colts in a surrey up and down the street. Every time they came opposite the old men sitting against the tree they shied and bolted, and it took the farmer two blocks to turn them and bring them back. He seemed to be afraid to take the time to unhitch them and leave them in a shed.

  The bell in the schoolhouse clanked once to mark the end of an hour, and a complete hush fell upon the crowd. One of the old men against the tree untied the tobacco-pouch strings under his chin which held on his straw hat, so that he could take it off in an instant if it should prove to be the pro-per thing to do. And through the stillness they heard the farmer swearing at his colts when they started to bolt for the third time. He looked up as he passed and saw everyone’s eyes on him and flushed deeply. Glancing back, Dan saw Mrs. Gurget obviously holding her breath, a dazed, awe-struck expression sucking dimples into her fat cheeks, and Molly looking white, her eyes dark. He took out his new handkerchief and wiped a cold damp from his neck.

  A bit of blue flashed over the heads of the people, and, lighting on a branch, a blue jay began to squawk profanely at them. Instantly a red squirrel answered him angrily. And the people watched them. All at once the noise ceased, the attention of both squirrel and jay being caught by the opening of the jail door. The doctor came out, dressed in black, carrying his bag in his hand. He paused a moment to talk to the sheriff, who had come out after him.

  “Good-bye, Sheriff,” they heard him say. “I’ve got to get along. Man at Oriskany caught his hand in a loom belt.”

  “Bad?”

  “Probably lose a finger.”

  “A thing like that’s apt to be serious,” said the sheriff.

  He watched the doctor get into his buggy, wheel the horse, and go rattling up the valley. His jaw was set grimly. All at once he became aware of the people watching.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted. “Get out! Do you think this’s a circus?”

  They grinned at him shamefacedly. One of them called, “Morning, Mr. Jones.”

  The sheriff raised his hand.

  “Get out,” he said again, and wheeled and went into the jail, banging the door after him.

  Solomon shook the reins.

  “We’ll hurry to get a place in Finkel’s shed,” he said to Dan.

  In the shed they found the Berrys waiting for them. Mrs. Berry looked very red about the nose and eyes, and Hector was wearing an embarrassed expression. For once he did not have a cigar in his mouth. Mrs. Berry gave Dan a conversational smile.

  “So it’s done, is it?”

  “I guess so,” Dan mumbled. A hearty man was lifting his daughter over the wheel of the buckboard next to theirs. He looked round.

  “It’s the first execution I ever got close to,” he observed, “but for downright push and horror, give me the wind colic. Out there all you did was set and watch your watch.”

  Mrs. Berry was straightening Mrs. Gurget’s shawl, while Molly was getting out the lunch basket.

  “Coming to buy?” asked the hearty man.

  “Yeanh,” said Solomon.

  “Well,” he said, “it ain’t much of a fair. No fancy stock, anyway. But we might poke around together. Jed Johnson might have some good teams. He generally has. What are you looking for?”

  “Me?” asked Solomon. “I ain’t looking for anything. It’s my friend here.” He pointed his thumb at Dan.

  “Pleased to know you, gents,” said the hearty man, shaking hands with Dan. “My name’s Brackett— just Bill Brackett— a plain, honest man.”

  He gave himself a light pat on the chest and nodded his head at his daughter, a little girl with two braided pigtails of yellow hair, blue ribbons in each, blue serious eyes, and a very freckled nose. “Daughter Nancy. Likes to set on the back of the buckboard and lead home pa’s horses. Can’t leave her home.”

  The child dug her toe into the ground and stared upward from under her lids, blushing furiously. Suddenly she caught the fat woman’s eye and smiled.

  “Why don’t we take her with us?” said Molly. “That will leave you men free.”

  Brackett took off his hat.

  “That’s downright kind of you. Since you offer, I accept. Maybe I can put you in the way of a good deal,” he said to Dan.

&nb
sp; The girl bashfully joined the three women, but when they came out of the shed she was holding Mrs. Gurget’s hand.

  “Me, I’m looking for a light horse,” said Brackett, fishing a stout stick from under the seat of his wagon. “What are you after?”

  “I want a pair,” said Dan. “About thirty-three hundred.”

  “Matched pair, eh? Well I’ll bet my friend Jed Johnson will have just about what you want. He always has three or four pairs of real handsome horses he brings up from the South. Suppose we go and see what he’s got.”

  “I don’t know as I’ll buy a team outright. I guess I might match a pair.”

  “That’s a good idea, young man. It’s good if you know enough to do it. Buying from Johnson, you’re sure of a good team, though.”

  They sallied out of the shed together, Brackett with his left hand on Dan’s arm, his right swinging the stick. He wore a light brown homespun coat and black trousers and a scarlet tie, and stuck his legs out handsomely as he walked.

  Solomon and Hector kept in the rear.

  “How’s Nell?” Solomon asked.

  Hector let out a long sigh. Then he turned on Solomon with a shamefaced grin.

  “Me and Nelly ain’t talked the way we just did since we been married. She allowed she’d been mean, but that she hadn’t meant anything by it; and then I said it wasn’t right the way I’d treated her; and she said she’d stop naggin’. Can you beat that, Sol?”

  “No!” said Sol. “Did she, though?”

  “Yes, sir! She admitted it. But it was worse than that. It was worse than seeing an execution.”

  “Yeanh?”

  “By Cripus, I’d got so wound up, I said I’d give up cigars.”

  Even to recall his promise petrified Hector’s round face.

  “That’s too bad,” said Solomon, judiciously. “You hadn’t ought to have done that.”

  “Well, I done it. We was so loving all to once, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. And when I said that, Nelly kissed me right in the shed with all them horses, and then made me say it over. She’s been pert as a squirrel ever since.”

  They found that they had lost sight of Dan and Brackett, but on looking round they sighted the fat woman before a gypsy’s tent, with the gypsy woman, her head covered with a red handkerchief, talking to her through the opening of the tent, one brown hand stretched out, palm up, gracefully. A little behind the fat woman stood Molly, with the little Brackett girl, who was carrying the lunch basket. Farther down the line of tents they saw Mrs. Berry, her small bonnet bobbing from right to .left as she tried to fool a pea-and-thimble artist.

  “She will try it,” said Hector sadly, “and she’s close-sighted too.”

  Shivers of superstitious delight were passing up and down the fat woman’s back. Now she drew herself up with a shuddering breath as a keen deduction of the gypsy woman went home, and then she leaned over chuckling outrageously over some revelation for the future. All the time the black eyes of the gypsy kept glancing up from under her brows at the broad red face.

  “Let’s sneak up to the back side of the tent,” Solomon whispered. “Maybe we’ll get a gossip on to Lucy.”

  But, before they could start, the gypsy woman dropped the fat woman’s hand and held out her own again, palm up. Mrs. Gurget giggled like a schoolgirl as she dropped a quarter into the hand.

  “I sure got my money’s worth,” she chortled. “See what she says about you, Molly.”

  The two men saw the girl leave the child and step up to the gypsy. Her fresh, bright coloring made a vivid contrast with the gypsy’s brown skin and black hair. The palmist let her bold eyes rove over Molly, trying to learn what she could from her general appearance. Then she took Molly’s hand and slanted it to the sun. For an instant the two heads bent over it; Molly bending easily, the short tails of her jacket flaring upwards; the gypsy leaning forward from her seat, her black eyes glittering. Once in a long while a palmist sees a hand which makes clear sense according to the laws of the science, and which can be read without invention. She glanced up at Molly’s face, said something in a low voice, then drew her shawled head back through the flap of the tent. To the amazement of the others, Molly followed her.

  There were a dozen or so of tents set up opposite the hitch-racks and shed; and most of the people seemed to be interested in the attractions they offered. The gypsy fortune tellers and palmists were popular, and the Egyptian phrenologist, K. Kopulos, who was just starting a vogue in the Mohawk country; and the glass blowers, making magic with their breath and fingers— they could always be found at any such gathering. In this instance they were a Swiss family, who had found the fortune they sought in their old profession. Little white glass bucks and bluebirds could be found in half the corner cupboards of the river counties. At the end of the line a quack had set up a booth from which he hawked, in a thin, monotonous voice, rheumatic belts, stone water for gall stones, smallpox antitoxin, and the inevitable panacea for man and beast, claiming even that it stopped the roup in poultry. His tall, bony figure in the black pipe hat and black coat, the velvet collar of which had long since turned a rusty green, caught the eye and held it. He had an interested, kindly face and knew a cure for every ailment. Across the way the reputable agent for Dr. Brandreth’s Pills, a jolly, healthy, stubby man, himself a product of the medicine he offered (according to his advertisement), writhed impotently as he watched the quack’s sales. Even the famous Symptom Diary, or Invalid’s Almanac he carried as a side line went poorly. He looked too healthy to be sympathetic.

  Behind, under a long shed, or tied to a hitching rail outside, stood the horses, their manes and tails stirring on the slight north wind, some fidgety at the noise and bustle, some trotting round the rings behind a boy as the dealer stood beside the expected buyer, cracking his long-lashed whip and pointing out what virtues the purchaser might miss. Like a refrain to the rise of human voices came the stamp of hoofs and the rattling of halter rings.

  The morning sun washed over the crowd, picking out here and there the bright red and green of gypsy dress, or the pearl grey of a gentleman’s hat or the gloss of his tile. The old grass was a dull green underfoot, and at the entrance to the grounds and in the ring, where horses’ hoofs had loosened the frost, the dark mud showed through.

  For a minute, with all the bustle round them, Hector and Solomon watched the flap of the gypsy’s tent. Then Solomon swore.

  “She’d ought to have more sense than to do that.”

  They joined the fat woman and the little Brackett girl, who was eating her way into a pink nest of spun sugar.

  “Well,” Mrs. Gurget admitted, “it is queer, Sol. But I don’t see as anything can rightly happen to her so long as we watch till she comes out.”

  “Guess I’ll go round back,” said Hector. “If there’s any monkey business, it’ll show there.”

  But a few minutes later Molly appeared in the door of the tent. Her face had lost some of its color, and her hair, escaping from under its bonnet as it always did, hung lifeless. Her shoulders slouched. For an instant she did not appear to see Mrs. Gurget and Solomon, but stood with dull eyes.

  The fat woman drew a sharp breath.

  “My gracious!” she said sharply. “Open your eyes, dearie.”

  Molly glanced at her and lazily pulled a wisp of hair from in front of her eyes. She smiled, but it was a lifeless smile.

  “Shucks!” snorted the fat woman. “What’s she been telling you?”

  Molly looked down at her hand, then wiped it down over her hip.

  “She said it was a true hand.”

  “You’d oughtn’t to go believing an ugly witch like her,” said the fat woman. “It’s just a game for making money.”

  “She said it was true,” repeated Molly. “She asked me first if I wanted to hear.”

  “What did she tell you?” asked Mrs. Gurget, drawing her out of earshot.

  Suddenly Molly laughed.

  “It don’t matter— it’s nonsense. Y
ou’d laugh to hear it. I ought to go back where I can do up my hair.”

  “All right,” said Mrs. Gurget, patting her arm. “We’ll go look for a place to eat, and leave the men find Dan. He’s off buying horses.”

  “No,” said Molly, suddenly. “Let’s all go look for Dan.”

  “Surely,” said the fat woman.

  They picked up Mrs. Berry and Hector.

  “What did she tell you, Molly?” Hector asked.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s all lies, that talk,” said the fat woman, but she frowned aside at Hector and put her finger to her lips. He stared at her, then winked and said solemnly, “Sure, all lies. They told me I was going to marry a pretty, red-haired gal.”

  “Well, didn’t you?” asked the fat woman.

  “It was too white to tell when I did. But the temper was there.”

  “You shut up,” said his wife, angrily.

  The little Brackett girl had finished her sugar. Her eyes were shining and the corners of her mouth and the end of her freckled nose were grubby and sticky.

  “Let’s get some more,” suggested the fat woman.

  The child gave her a glance of mute admiration.

  “Vi’let,” she suggested in a small voice… .

  Mr. Brackett had started to lead Dan down the line of horses before the shed. He walked slowly, swinging his stick with gusto.

  “Jed has his horses at the bottom end of the shed,” he explained. “We might as well head there first.”

  Dan said nothing, but kept running his eyes over the horses. Most of them were work teams, generally looking puffy as if they had been greased and heavily corned for a short while. He mistrusted all such horses.

  Now and then Mr. Brackett would nod to a dealer. The dealer would nod back at him as though he were an old acquaintance.

  “Got some good-lookers there,” Brackett would say, and the dealer would nod and put a cigar in his mouth or a chew, according to his disposition, and cross one foot over the other in preparation for making a trade. But Brackett would pass on.