3stalwarts (101 page)

Dan glanced up from the trace he was greasing.

“I don’t see why.”

Solomon leaned backward to spit overside; then he poked the stem of his pipe in Dan’s direction.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know the why of in this world, but that ain’t saying they ain’t true.”

Dan grunted and went on with the greasing. The headstalls and collars hung from spikes he had driven loosely into the wall of the pit, and the traces hung down from the names.

“You going up to that fair?” Solomon asked, after a while.

“I guess so,” said Dan.

“Aiming to buy horses?”

“I want a good team. I’ll need two next summer.”

“Well, I guess I’d ought to go along and see you don’t get squeezed by one of these damn dealers. You’re still kind of new on to the canal, Dan, and they’re sharp-edged.”

“I know what I want,” Dan said, picking up the rubbing rag and watching the leather soften and come out black under his hand.

Solomon nodded.

“That’s the hell of it. Once they know what you want, you ain’t got a chance. They c’d set up a bar’l on four sticks with a brush broom for a tail and make you think it was Lexington himself. But when you got home with it you’d most likely find the contraption didn’t even have no bung in it.”

“I know a horse,” said Dan.

The little man cocked his head and peered at Dan out of his bright blue eyes. For a moment he sucked some poison out of the clay stem of his pipe and sent it overside. He picked at it critically with a splinter and tried to look into the bowl.

“We could hire a rig,” he said. “We could start early. They’re going to hang Mary Runkle tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t know as I’d want to see that.”

“No, but the crowd’ll get there early. Nothing to see. They’re doing it inside of the jail. Folks always come around if a woman’s going to be hung. She strangled her husband.”

“How’d they come to find it out?”

“A cigar peddler discovered it,” said Solomon. “She strangled him in bed one night and told her daughter to come and hold his feet as her pa was having a fit. Then she let on he’d died of pneumony. The cigar peddler’d sold him some cigars two days afore and he found the butt ends of four cigars in the ash pit of the stove. Made him suspicious. A sick man’s got no pleasure in smoking.”

It was a cold, clear day, but the sunlight in the sheltered pit of the boat was warm and pleasant.

“What come of Mr. Friendly?” Solomon asked.

“I paid him off,” Dan said. “I guess he got tired of driving. He was headed down for Albany. Aimed to spend the winter there.”

“He’s a queer bezabor,” said the little man.

Dan finished the harness, and then leaned back against the wall and lit his pipe. Solomon came down and sat beside him.

“Trade’s falling off,” said Solomon. “Some people already tying up for the winter. Line boats are going, though.”

They listened to the horn of one coming down. The team tramped by above on the dock and the rope crossed over their heads against the sky, while its shadow crept along the pit, climbed to the stable, and vanished. They heard the low swish of water against the boat, and the ripple shoved the Sarsey Sal against the wharf, where it rubbed with a high-pitched squeak.

About noon they heard Mrs. Gurget’s voice break out on deck over their heads.

“There they be, setting alongside of each other just like two toads.”

Her bebonneted red-haired head was thrust out over the pit; and suddenly beside it appeared Molly’s face, smiling, and a sharp, dried woman’s face under a bristling hat, and the pompous round face of a man.

“Look what we run into, Sol,” cried Mrs. Gurget. “Walking along as large as life.”

She patted the man so forcibly on the shoulders that his hat bobbled forward over his eyes, and he clutched at it frantically. Solomon grinned.

“Hector Berry! Gol! And Mrs. Berry along with him. Looking younger every minute!”

Hector waved his hand in a magnificent greeting, and Mrs. Berry worked her wrinkled lips into a smile.

Solomon scrambled up the cleats on the stern wall of the pit and reached down to take the harness as Dan handed it up. In a minute they were all in the cabin, the womenfolk on one side, the men on the other.

“Dan and me have decided to go up to that horse fair tomorrow,” Solomon announced.

“Where?” asked Hector, perking up.

“Whitesboro. Dan allows to buy a team.”

“Is that right? Well, I guess maybe it would be a good thing if I was to go, too. I was calculating to, anyhow. It takes more’n one man to buy a team of horses. Bad time to buy, too.”

“Yeanh?” said Dan.

“Yes, sir, they’re trying to get the lumber-camp trade, and matched teams will fetch high.”

“I’ll buy single,” said Dan. “I’ll do my own matching.”

“It’s a good idee if you’re any good at it,” said Berry, leaning his chair back against the wall, hooking his legs through the rungs and his thumbs through his galluses. “Yes, that’s right-match ‘em yourself. But it takes judgment. I’m allowed a good hand at it. I’d better come along with you.”

Dan dropped his eyes to the floor. He was nettled, for he wanted to do his trading by himself. But he could see no way out of it. He realized that he had already proved himself a fool by telling even Solomon he wanted to buy a team. Fortune Friendly had told him that. “A man’s best friend’ll see him cheated on a horse deal,” he had said one morning. “Everybody in the world likes to see a man pay money for a horse.” So Dan nodded.

“Well, well! My!” exclaimed Mrs. Gurget. “Listen to them boys talking, and not one thinking of asking the girls. Never mind, dearie, you and me and Nelly, here, we’ll get up a shindig of our own. I know a grocerman.”

“No, you won’t,” Solomon said quickly. “I got it all planned with Dan you’re coming along with us. We’ll hire a rig.”

“So long as I can wear my new dress somewhere, it don’t matter.” The fat woman rolled up her eyes and passed her hands down over the front of her, smoothing her skirts. “It’s real pretty, ain’t it, Molly? You ought to see how it’s going to hang— so. Right in style.”

She posed herself on light feet, as though she were examining herself in a mirror, and turned slowly round before them, pointing out the merits of the new dress. It did not seem to matter that the material lay wrapped up in brown paper on the table.

“What you wearing, Nelly?”

“I don’t know,” said the wizened little woman sharply. “I don’t bother over such light notions. Dressing pretty’s just nothing to an honest woman.”

She cast a supercilious glance at Molly, and Hector wiggled his hams uncomfortably on his chair.

“I don’t know as I’ll go, even,” she said.

“Yes, you will,” said Hector suddenly. “We’re going to start in good time, too.”

Solomon turned a questioning glance on him.

There was an unusual and determined gleam in Hector’s eye, as he snapped a cigar into his small round mouth and cocked it towards his eye.

“I want her to be outside the jail when they’re hanging that woman,” he said in a low voice that the women could not hear. “I just want Nelly to be there for a while to think it over. That woman always bossed her husband.”

The women would not have heard him, anyway. They were discussing what they would wear and what they would take to. eat. Mrs. Gurget promised her new dress and sandwiches, Molly a cake, and Mrs. Berry a pie.

“Well, you’re in luck, Dan,” Berry said. “You’re in luck all around. A good boat and a good cook. But don’t let her get her chin up high. I’d heard about you out in Manlius. Ran across Jotham Klore; he was out there. He said some hard things about you. I’d look out for him, if I was you. He says you took his cook away from him, but he says he’ll get her back. I never seen him act that way. He used to get riled easy, but he didn’t look riled then. Seemed kind of steady and sour inside. He says when he finds you he’ll give you the dangdest licking a man ever got.”

“Shucks,” said Solomon. “Molly cleared out on him of her own accord.”

“He don’t look at it that way. No man will,” Hector said sententiously. “It ain’t in nature.”

Dan glanced across at Molly, sitting under the window with the light coming over her shoulder, and found her eyes on his. Her gaze was searching, and he felt uncomfortable. Then Mrs. Gurget swept her off on a point of dress.

“There ain’t anything for you to worry about now,” said Berry. “Klore’s tied up out there for the fall and he’s got a contract working his team on the railroad this winter.”

“Yeanh.”

“He’s a regular bear for fighting,” Berry said. “I’ve seen him three times. That time he licked O’Mory of Little Falls was the worst fight I ever see. I had five dollars on O’Mory.”

“Cripus! When him and Dan hooks horns, I’ll put my money on Dan. He’s got the heft. It’s a sure thing.”

Berry raised his brows and made a silent whistle round his cigar.

Dan glanced up to see Molly looking at him again.

“I guess that’s right,” he said, suddenly. Her eyes brightened, and her head lifted with a sudden wildness, like the lift of a mare’s head. Dan felt the blood in his hands. Outside a horn was blowing for the weighlock— a flat, harsh, ringing note, stirring him.

Mrs. Gurget got to her feet. “Come along,” she said. “We’ve got to eat, Sol. And I’ve got to make me up that dress.”

When they had all gone, Molly set about cooking dinner. Dan sat smoking, with his eyes upon her. She moved easily from table to stove, aware of his eyes, not noticing them. When she spoke her voice was low and full. She told him about Mrs. Gurget’s shopping.

“My, she was funny, Dan. I declare I think she wrapped herself in twenty different colors for me to see how they matched her. She bought a yellow silk— it was pretty expensive, and she was awful fidgety coming back home. She was kind of pretty all flushed up.”

She put the food on the table.

“What time are we going to start?”

“Sol says we’d ought to get going about eight. He’s going to bring the rig around to the dock.”

“You’d ought to get you some new clothes, Dan.”

“Maybe I’d ought not wear ‘em tomorrow. Not if I’m going to buy a team.”

“It don’t make any difference. You ought to have a new suit. You can afford it, Dan. I’m going to get you some shirts this afternoon. How does it pay a woman to keep looking pretty if the man she’s going with don’t dress up to take her? You’re rich enough.”

“I don’t see any point in it.”

“Sometimes a man can be too close with money,” she said, giving him a steady look. “Then he finds it’s all he’s got.”

Dan was silent.

“The others’U be wearing Sunday clothes,” she said.

“I guess that’s right,” said Dan. “I don’t know much about buying clothes.”

“Then I’ll go along,” said Molly.

After they had finished their meal, Molly put on her hat again and the dark brown cape she wore on cold days, and they set out to a tailoring establishment, where, according to Molly, men’s clothes could be bought at a fair price.

“Ready-cut?” asked the tailor’s clerk.

“Yeanh,” said Dan.

Now that they were at the point of buying, Molly seemed ill at ease, and Dan found that he would have to do the talking. The clerk wiped imaginary water from his hands and looked Dan over with an appraising eye.

“We don’t run much of a stock of ready-cut,” he said dubiously. “What would you want, a tail coat?”

“Nothing fancy— just a suit.”

Through a door in the back they got a glimpse of an old man, wearing square spectacles, who was examining a piece of broadcloth with all the force and concentration of a preacher considering a text. His great brass-bolted shears were held open in his right hand, and now and then the points traced an imaginary pattern.

“What size, William?” he asked, without removing his attention from the cloth.

“Forty-four, pYaps,” said the clerk.

“Show the brown suit made up for Mr. Potter.”

“By jiminy, that might do.”

The clerk disappeared headfirst into a wardrobe and came out again holding a dark brown homespun coat and trousers. He held up the coat.

“It ought to just about do,” he said. “Try it on, mister.”

Dan slipped into it. The clerk led him to the mirror, where he examined himself nervously.

“It’s smoother’n honey. By jiminy, there’s what I call a fit. Ain’t it, mam?”

It did fit well. In his enthusiasm, the clerk began to praise the cloth.

“Hard as iron, wears like steel, and there’s no chance for its getting a shine on it. Just the thing for you, I’d say. Quiet and sober and looks rich. It’s a gentleman’s coat. And the cloth is very especial. Imported out of England. Yes, sir. It goes elegant into a pant. We made some of it into pants especial. Right there, mister,” holding up the trousers, “is an elegant pant. There isn’t a pant in the store— or in the city, for that matter— to come up to it. You don’t have to try ‘em on to see they’ll fit.”

It was just about what Dan wanted. He liked the color. So did Molly. It was becoming to him.

The clerk went ostentatiously to one side to look for more coats.

“What do you think of the cloth?” Dan asked. “It seems all right to me. It’s good and heavy.”

Molly fingered it.

“Yes, I think it’s good, Dan. It looks good on you, too.”

“Yes, it’s good cloth. Can’t be beat,” said the clerk, returning.

“How much?”

“Well, it’s good cloth, but it’s been made up. That would cut it down. Twenty-five is a cheap price. Your wife can see what good stuff it is, I’ll bet.”

Dan started slightly, but Molly, watching him closely, saw no change in his expression. After an instant of feeling the trousers, he said, “Got anything cheaper?”

She let out her breath slightly.

The clerk ran his hand down over his face.

“Well, I dunno. Maybe.”

Through the door the tailor said, “Twenty-one we let it go for, William. No less.”

The clerk stared over his shoulder and let out a low whistle.

“That is low,” he said, as if to himself. “Well, Mr. Perkins is the boss.”

“I don’t know,” said Dan, still fingering it. “What do you think, Molly?”