Part 3 (2/2)

”Well,” said the boy, ”my dad was in the post office just now, and the telephone bell rang, and he looked around to see where Julius was, and Julius he had gone outside to see what Mr. Fogarty, from up to the Corners, wanted. I don't know what he wanted. Pa didn't tell me. I don't know as pa knew, anyway, but I guess he wanted something, or else he wouldn't have motioned Julius to go out, unless he just wanted to talk to Julium. Mebby he just wanted to ask Julius if there was any mail for him. So pa answered the telephone.”

”Well, what did it say?” asked Miss Sally impatiently.

”You've got a pa, haven't you?” asked the boy.

”Yes,” said Miss Sally.

”Well, has he got false teeth?” asked the boy.

”Yes,” said Miss Sally more impatiently.

”Well, that's all right, then,” said the boy. ”Pa couldn't tell exactly whether it was false teeth or not, the telephone at the post office works so poor, and pa ain't no hand at it, anyhow. He said it sounded like false teeth. So you pa wants you to come right home to Kilo. Mebby he's dying.”

”Dying!” cried Miss Sally, as white as a sheet.

”Yes, mebby he is,” continued the boy. ”He ain't right sure, but he says you'd better come right home, so if he IS dying you'll be on hand. And, if he ain't, you can help him hunt for them. He says he went to bed last night, same as always, but he don't recall whether he took out his false set of teeth or left them in, and he ain't sure whether he swallowed them last night, or put them down somewheres and lost them. He says he's got a pain like he swallowed them, but he ain't sure but what it's some of the cooking he's been doing that give him that, and anyway he wants you to come right home.”

”Goodness sakes!” exclaimed Miss Sally, ”why don't he go see Doc Weaver?”

The boy shook his head.

”I don't know,” he said. ”I guess pa didn't think to ask him that. I'll have to ask him when I git back.”

The departure of Miss Sally made a break in the orderly progress of the picnic, for it not only terminated her part of the day's pleasures, but also cut short her visit in Clarence, and she had to say farewell to all the picnickers before she could go.

Eliph' Hewlitt offered to drive her to Clarence, but she refused him, and arranged to have one of the young boys, who had a faster horse, drive her to Kilo. The whole picnic leaned over the rail fence and watched until she was out of sight, and then went on with the lunch, which was just ready when her summons came.

It was a severe blow to Eliph' Hewlitt. He had hoped to have carried his courts.h.i.+p so far during the day that it would have been at least to the third paragraph of the first page of ”Courts.h.i.+p--How to Win the Affections,” and now Miss Sally had left, and he had not progressed at all. It reminded him of the quotation in the Alphabet of Quotations, in Jarby's Encyclopedia, ”The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth.”

Miss Sally's departure, however, and the strange circ.u.mstance of it, allowed him to ask questions about her and about Kilo that he could not otherwise have asked. He learned how far she would have to travel to reach Kilo, who her father was, and all that he wished to know. He decided that the only course for him to follow was to omit his canva.s.s of the interlying farms and of the town of Clarence for the present, and follow Miss Sally to Kilo.

When the picnic ended, Irontail had released the rein, and Eliph'

Hewlitt drove off, well pleased with his day's work. He had not only secured a wife--for he had no doubt that it only needed an application of the rules set forth in Jarby's Encyclopedia in order to ”Win the Affections” of Miss Sally, and ”Hold Them When Won,” but he took with him subscriptions for sixteen volumes of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, bound in cloth, five dollars, and two bound in morocco, at seven fifty.

CHAPTER IV. Kilo

The next evening Jim Wilkins, landlord of the Kilo House and proprietor of the Kilo Livery, Feed and Sale Stable, was sitting in front of his hotel, with his chair tipped back against the wall, trading bits of indolent gossip with Pap Briggs, when Eliph' Hewlitt drove his horse Irontail down Main Street, and pulled up before the hotel. Pap Briggs had not swallowed his store teeth; he had not even worn them to bed, and Miss Sally found them on top of the pump in the back yard, where Pap had doubtless put them when he went to pump himself a drink. He often lost them, as he wore them more for ornament than for use, and commonly removed them when he wished to talk, eat, or laugh. It was Sally who made him buy them, and he wore them more for her sake than for any other reason, and he was always uncomfortable with them, for they were a plain, unmistakable misfit, and felt, as he said, ”like I got my mouth full o' tenpenny nails.” When out of Sally's sight he avoided this feeling by carrying them in his hand, hidden in his red bandana handkerchief. About town he used to show them with a great deal of pride, and openly boasted of their cost and beauty. On Sunday he wore them all day.

Whenever Eliph' Hewlitt drove into a town he looked about with a seeing eye, for he had learned to judge the capacity of a place for Jarby's Encyclopedia by the appearance of the town, but as he drove into Kilo he was more than usually interested. If this was the home of Miss Sally Briggs, it followed that when he had completed his courts.h.i.+p, and had won her affections and held them, it would be his home, also, and he was curious to see whether it was a town he would like or not like. He liked it. It was a real American town, and it looked like a good business town, because there could be no possible reason for people building a town on that particular situation unless it was for business.

The town was built on a flat s.p.a.ce, and the country was flat on all sides of it. It was on no river, brook, or creek. It was as unbeautiful in location as it was in architecture. It was just a homely, common, busy little Iowa village, and even so late in the evening it was as hot as Sahara; but Eliph' Hewlitt knew it at once for a good town, for the street was knee deep in dust, which meant much trade, and the four buildings at the corners of Main and Cross Streets were of brick, which meant profitable business. There were a couple of other brick buildings on Main Street, and one or two with ”tin” fronts, and of the other business places only one or two were so ramshackle that they looked as if their firmer neighbors were holding them up, letting the weaker structures lean against them as a strong man might support an invalid.

Eliph' Hewlitt liked the town; it was just his idea of what a town should be, not much as to style, but business-like. There were two full blocks of Main Street devoted to business, and nearly half a block of Cross Street was given over to the same purpose, and the dwellings were well scattered over the surrounding level tract. Three or four of the dwellings ”out Main Street” had conspicuous lawns that had felt the blades of a lawn mower, but most of the yards were merely gra.s.s, with flower beds filled with the more hardy kinds of flowers, such as would grow tall and show over the top of the surrounding gra.s.s. The plank walks, which on Main and Cross Streets were made of boards laid crossways, tapered down into narrow walks with the boards--two of them--laid lengthways very soon after the stores were pa.s.sed, and a little farther out became dirt paths along the fences, and beyond that pedestrians were supposed to walk on the road. But most of the houses were painted, either freshly, or at least not anciently.

The corner of Main and Cross Streets, the business center of Kilo, was like the business centers of other small country towns. A long hitching rail extended at the side of the street before the buildings on each corner, and the dirt beneath was worn away by the sc.r.a.ping of the feet of the many horses that had been tied to the rails. Just below the corner, on Cross Street, were other holes worn by tossing horseshoes at pegs, which, if America was composed of small towns only, would be our national game.

It was a good little town, and Eliph' Hewlitt was pleased.

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