Stories of a Western Town

by Thanet, Octave

  Bewildered and more touched than he cared to feel, himself, Lossing still made a feeble stand for discipline. "I don't see how Lieders can expect me to take him back again," he began.

  "He aint expecting you, Mr. Lossing, it's ME!"

  "But didn't Lieders tell you I told him I would never take him back?"

  "No, sir, no, Mr. Lossing, it was not that, it was you said it would be a cold day that you would take him back; and it was git so cold yesterday, so I think, 'Now it would be a cold day to-morrow and Mr. Lossing he can take Kurt back.' And it IS the most coldest day this year!"

  Lossing burst into a laugh, perhaps he was glad to have the Western sense of humor come to the rescue of his compassion. "Well, it was a cold day for you to come all this way for nothing," said he. "You go home and tell Lieders to report to-morrow."

  Kurt's manner of receiving the news was characteristic. He snorted in disgust: "Well, I did think he had more sand than to give in to a woman!" But after he heard the whole story he chuckled: "Yes, it was that way he said, and he must do like he said; but that was a funny way you done, Thekla. Say, mamma, yesterday, was you look out for the cat or to find how cold it been?"

  "Never you mind, papa," said Thekla, "you remember what you promised if I git you back?"

  Lieders's eyes grew dull; he flung his arms out, with a long sigh. "No, I don't forget, I will keep my promise, but—it is like the handcuffs, Thekla, it is like the handcuffs!" In a second, however, he added, in a changed tone, "But thou art a kind jailer, mamma, more like a comrade. And no, it was not fair to thee—I know that now, Thekla."

  THE FACE OF FAILURE

  AFTER the week's shower the low Iowa hills looked vividly green. At the base of the first range of hills the Blackhawk road winds from the city to the prairie. From its starting-point, just outside the city limits, the wayfarer may catch bird's-eye glimpses of the city, the vast river that the Iowans love, and the three bridges tying three towns to the island arsenal. But at one's elbow spreads Cavendish's melon farm. Cavendish's melon farm it still is, in current phrase, although Cavendish, whose memory is honored by lovers of the cantaloupe melon, long ago departed to raise melons for larger markets; and still a weather-beaten sign creaks from a post announcing to the world that "the celebrated Cavendish Melons are for Sale here!" To-day the melon-vines were softly shaded by rain-drops. A pleasant sight they made, spreading for acres in front of the green-houses where mushrooms and early vegetables strove to outwit the seasons, and before the brown cottage in which Cavendish had begun a successful career. The black roof-tree of the cottage sagged in the middle, and the weather-boarding was dingy with the streaky dinginess of old paint that has never had enough oil. The fences, too, were unpainted and rudely patched. Nevertheless a second glance told one that there were no gaps in them, that the farm machines kept their bright colors well under cover, and that the garden rows were beautifully straight and clean. An old white horse switched its sleek sides with its long tail and drooped its untrammelled neck in front of the gate. The wagon to which it was harnessed was new and had just been washed. Near the gate stood a girl and boy who seemed to be mutually studying each other's person. Decidedly the girl's slim, light figure in its dainty frock repaid one's eyes for their trouble; and her face, with its brilliant violet eyes, its full, soft chin, its curling auburn hair and delicate tints, was charming; but her brother's look was anything but approving. His lip curled and his small gray eyes grew smaller under his scowling brows.

  "Is THAT your best suit?" said the girl.

  "Yes, it is; and it's GOING to be for one while," said the boy.

  It was a suit of the cotton mixture that looks like wool when it is new, and cuts a figure on the counters of every dealer in cheap ready-made clothing. It had been Tim Powell's best attire for a year; perhaps he had not been careful enough of it, and that was why it no longer cared even to imitate wool; it was faded to the hue of a clay bank, it was threadbare, the trousers bagged at the knees, the jacket bagged at the elbows, the pockets bulged flabbily from sheer force of habit, although there was nothing in them.

  "I thought you were to have a new suit," said the girl. "Uncle told me himself he was going to buy you one yesterday when you went to town."

  "I wouldn't have asked him to buy me anything yesterday for more'n a suit of clothes."

  "Why?" The girl opened her eyes. "Didn't he do anything with the lawyer? Is that why you are both so glum this morning?"

  "No, he didn't. The lawyer says the woman that owns the mortgage has got to have the money. And it's due next week."

  The girl grew pale all over her pretty rosy cheeks; her eyes filled with tears as she gasped, "Oh, how hateful of her, when she promised——"

  "She never promised nothing, Eve; it ain't been hers for more than three months. Sloan, that used to have it, died, and left his property to be divided up between his nieces; and the mortgage is her share. See?"

  "I don't care, it's just as mean. Mr. Sloan promised."

  "No, he didn't; he jest said if Uncle was behind he wouldn't press him; and he did let Uncle get behind with the interest two times and never kicked. But he died; and now the woman, she wants her money!"

  "I think it is mean and cruel of her to turn us out! Uncle says mortgages are wicked anyhow, and I believe him!"

  "I guess he couldn't have bought this place if he didn't give a mortgage on it. And he'd have had enough to pay cash, too, if Richards hadn't begged him so to lend it to him."

  "When is Richards going to pay him?"

  "It come due three months ago; Richards ain't never paid up the interest even, and now he says he's got to have the mortgage extended for three years; anyhow for two."

  "But don't he KNOW we've got to pay our own mortgage? How can we help HIM? I wish Uncle would sell him out!"

  The boy gave her the superior smile of the masculine creature. "I suppose," he remarked with elaborate irony, "that he's like Uncle and you; he thinks mortgages are wicked."

  "And just as like as not Uncle won't want to go to the carnival," Eve went on, her eyes filling again.

  Tim gazed at her, scowling and sneering; but she was absorbed in dreams and hopes with which as yet his boyish mind had no point of contact.

  "All the girls in the A class were going to go to see the fireworks together, and George Dean and some of the boys were going to take us, and we were going to have tea at May Arlington's house, and I was to stay all night;"—this came in a half sob. "I think it is just too mean! I never have any good times!"

  "Oh, yes, you do, sis, lots! Uncle always gits you everything you want. And he feels terrible bad when I—when he knows he can't afford to git something you want——"

  "I know well enough who tells him we can't afford things!"

  "Well, do you want us to git things we can't afford? I ain't never advised him except the best I knew how. I told him Richards was a blow-hard, and I told him those Alliance grocery folks he bought such a lot of truck of would skin him, and they did; those canned things they sold him was all musty, and they said there wasn't any freight on 'em, and he had to pay freight and a fancy price besides; and I don't believe they had any more to do with the Alliance than our cow!"

  "Uncle always believes everything. He always is so sure things are going to turn out just splendid; and they don't—only just middling; and then he loses a lot of money."

  "But he is an awful good man," said the boy, musingly.

  "I don't believe in being so good you can't make money. I don't want always to be poor and despised, and have the other girls have prettier clothes than me!"

  "I guess you can be pretty good and yet make money, if you are sharp enough. Of course you got to be sharper to be good and make money than you got to be, to be mean and make money."

  "Well, I know one thing, that Uncle ain't EVER going to make money. He——" The last word shrivelled on her lips, which puckered into a confused smile at the warning frown of her brother. The man that they were discussing had co
me round to them past the henhouse. How much had he overheard?

  He didn't seem angry, anyhow. He called: "Well, Evy, ready?" and Eve was glad to run into the house for her hat without looking at him. It was a relief that she must sit on the back seat where she need not face Uncle Nelson. Tim sat in front; but Tim was so stupid he wouldn't mind.

  Nor did he; it was Nelson Forrest that stole furtive glances at the lad's profile, the knitted brows, the freckled cheeks, the undecided nose, and firm mouth.

  The boyish shoulders slouched forward at the same angle as that of the fifty-year-old shoulders beside him. Nelson, through long following of the plough, had lost the erect carriage painfully acquired in the army. He was a handsome man, whose fresh-colored skin gave him a perpetual appearance of having just washed his face. The features were long and delicate. The brown eyes had a liquid softness like the eyes of a woman. In general the countenance was alertly intelligent; he looked younger than his years; but this afternoon the lines about his mouth and in his brows warranted every gray hair of his pointed short beard. There was a reason. Nelson was having one of those searing flashes of insight that do come occasionally to the most blindly hopeful souls. Nelson had hoped all his life. He hoped for himself, he hoped for the whole human race. He served the abstraction that he called "PROgress" with unflinching and unquestioning loyalty. Every new scheme of increasing happiness by force found a helper, a fighter, and a giver in him; by turns he had been an Abolitionist, a Fourierist, a Socialist, a Greenbacker, a Farmers' Alliance man. Disappointment always was followed hard on its heels by a brand-new confidence. Progress ruled his farm as well as his politics; he bought the newest implements and subscribed trustfully to four agricultural papers; but being a born lover of the ground, a vein of saving doubt did assert itself sometimes in his work; and, on the whole, as a farmer he was successful. But his success never ventured outside his farm gates. At buying or selling, at a bargain in any form, the fourteen-year-old Tim was better than Nelson with his fifty years' experience of a wicked and bargaining world.

  Was that any part of the reason, he wondered to-day, why at the end of thirty years of unflinching toil and honesty, he found himself with a vast budget of experience in the ruinous loaning of money, with a mortgage on the farm of a friend, and a mortgage on his own farm likely to be foreclosed? Perhaps it might have been better to stay in Henry County. He had paid for his farm at last. He had known a good moment, too, that day he drove away from the lawyer's with the cancelled mortgage in his pocket and Tim hopping up and down on the seat for joy. But the next day Richards—just to give him the chance of a good thing—had brought out that Maine man who wanted to buy him out. He was anxious to put the money down for the new farm, to have no whip-lash of debt forever whistling about his ears as he ploughed, ready to sting did he stumble in the furrows; and Tim was more anxious than he; but—there was Richards! Richards was a neighbor who thought as he did about Henry George and Spiritualism, and belonged to the Farmers' Alliance, and had lent Nelson all the works of Henry George that he (Richards) could borrow. Richards was in deep trouble. He had lost his wife; he might lose his farm. He appealed to Nelson, for the sake of old friendship, to save him. And Nelson could not resist; so, two thousand of the thirty-four hundred dollars that the Maine man paid went to Richards, the latter swearing by all that is holy, to pay his friend off in full at the end of the year. There was money coming to him from his dead wife's estate, but it was tied up in the courts. Nelson would not listen to Tim's prophecies of evil. But he was a little dashed when Richards paid neither interest nor principal at the year's end, although he gave reasons of weight; and he experienced veritable consternation when the renewed mortgage ran its course and still Richards could not pay. The money from his wife's estate had been used to improve his farm (Nelson knew how rundown everything was), his new wife was sickly and "didn't seem to take hold," there had been a disastrous hail-storm—but why rehearse the calamities? they focussed on one sentence: it was impossible to pay.

  Then Nelson, who had been restfully counting on the money from Richards for his own debt, bestirred himself, only to find his patient creditor gone and a woman in his stead who must have her money. He wrote again—sorely against his will—begging Richards to raise the money somehow. Richards's answer was in his pocket, for he wore the best black broadcloth in which he had done honor to the lawyer, yesterday. Richards plainly was wounded; but he explained in detail to Nelson how he (Nelson) could borrow money of the banks on his farm and pay Miss Brown. There was no bank where Richards could borrow money; and he begged Nelson not to drive his wife and little children from their cherished home. Nelson choked over the pathos when he read the letter to Tim; but Tim only grunted a wish that HE had the handling of that feller. And the lawyer was as little moved as Tim. Miss Brown needed the money, he said. The banks were not disposed to lend just at present; money, it appeared, was "tight;" so, in the end, Nelson drove home with the face of Failure staring at him between his horses' ears.

  There was only one way. Should he make Richards suffer or suffer himself? Did a man have to grind other people or be ground himself? Meanwhile they had reached the town. The stir of a festival was in the air. On every side bunting streamed in the breeze or was draped across brick or wood. Arches spanned some of the streets, with inscriptions of welcome on them, and swarms of colored lanterns glittered against the sunlight almost as gayly as they would show when they should be lighted at night. Little children ran about waving flags. Grocery wagons and butchers' wagons trotted by with a flash of flags dangling from the horses' harness. The streets were filled with people in their holiday clothes. Everybody smiled. The shopkeepers answered questions and went out on the sidewalks to direct strangers. From one window hung a banner inviting visitors to enter and get a list of hotels and boarding-houses. The crowd was entirely good-humored and waited outside restaurants, bandying jokes with true Western philosophy. At times the wagons made a temporary blockade in the street, but no one grumbled. Bands of music paraded past them, the escort for visitors of especial consideration. In a window belonging, the sign above declared, to the Business Men's Association, stood a huge doll clad in blue satin, on which was painted a device of Neptune sailing down the Mississippi amid a storm of fireworks. The doll stood in a boat arched about with lantern-decked hoops, and while Nelson halted, unable to proceed, he could hear the voluble explanation of the proud citizen who was interpreting to strangers.

  This, Nelson thought, was success. Here were the successful men. The man who had failed looked at them. Eve roused him by a shrill cry, "There they are. There's May and the girls. Let me out quick, Uncle!"

  He stopped the horse and jumped out himself to help her. It was the first time since she came under his roof that she had been away from it all night. He cleared his throat for some advice on behavior. "Mind and be respectful to Mrs. Arlington. Say yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am——" He got no further, for Eve gave him a hasty kiss and the crowd brushed her away.

  "All she thinks of is wearing fine clothes and going with the fellers!" said her brother, disdainfully. "If I had to be born a girl, I wouldn't be born at all!"

  "Maybe if you despise girls so, you'll be born a girl the next time," said Nelson. "Some folks thinks that's how it happens with us."

  "Do YOU, Uncle?" asked Tim, running his mind forebodingly over the possible business results of such a belief. "S'posing he shouldn't be willing to sell the pigs to be killed, 'cause they might be some friends of his!" he reflected, with a rising tide of consternation. Nelson smiled rather sadly. He said, in another tone: "Tim, I've thought so many things, that now I've about given up thinking. All I can do is to live along the best way I know how and help the world move the best I'm able."

  "You bet I ain't going to help the world move," said the boy; "I'm going to look out for myself!"

  "Then my training of you has turned out pretty badly, if that's the way you feel."

  A little shiver passed over the lad's sullen fac
e; he flushed until he lost his freckles in the red veil and burst out passionately: "Well, I got eyes, ain't I? I ain't going to be bad, or drink, or steal, or do things to git put in the penitentiary; but I ain't going to let folks walk all over me like you do; no, sir!"

  Nelson did not answer; in his heart he thought that he had failed with the children, too; and he relapsed into that dismal study of the face of Failure.

  He had come to the city to show Tim the sights, and, therefore, though like a man in a dream, he drove conscientiously about the gay streets, pointing out whatever he thought might interest the boy, and generally discovering that Tim had the new information by heart already. All the while a question pounded itself, like the beat of the heart of an engine, through the noise and the talk: "Shall I give up Richards or be turned out myself?"