Part 4 (1/2)
He saw the long white three-story hotel close by with its green blinds, extensive veranda, and blue-railed bal.u.s.trade, the row of stores and law-offices, forming three sides of a square of which the car-shed, depot, and railway made the fourth. In the open s.p.a.ce stood some canvas-covered mountain-wagons containing produce for s.h.i.+pment to the larger markets, and the usual male loungers in straw hats, baggy trousers, easy shoes, and s.h.i.+rts without coats.
A burly negro porter hastened down the steps of the hotel and approached swinging his slouch hat in his hand, his eyes on the traveler's bag.
”All right, boss--Purcell House, fus'-cla.s.s hotel, whar all de drummers put up. Good sample-rooms an' fine country cookin'.”
Mostyn held on to his bag, which the swarthy hands were grasping. ”No, I'm not going to stop,” he explained. ”I'm going out to Drake's farm.”
”Oh, _is_ you? Well, suh, Mr. John Webb is in de freight depot. I done hear 'im say he fetched de buggy ter tek somebody out.”
At this juncture the florid and flushed face of Webb was seen as he emerged from the doorway of the depot. He was bent under a weighty bag of flour, and smiled and waved his hat by way of salutation as he advanced to a buggy at a public hitching-rack and deposited his burden in the receptacle behind the single seat. This done, he came forward, brus.h.i.+ng the sleeve of his alpaca coat and grinning jovially.
”How are you?” He extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered with flour. ”I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you look all right to me-that is, as well as _any_ of you city fellers ever do.
The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. I reckon thar is so much smoke over your town that the sun don't strike it good and straight.”
”Oh, I'm all right,” Mostyn said, good-naturedly, ”just a little run down from overwork, that's all.”
”Run down?” Webb seemed quite concerned with getting at the exact meaning of the statement, and as he took Mostyn's bag and put it in with the flour he eyed the banker attentively. _”Run down?”_ he repeated, with his characteristic emphasis. ”I don't see how a man as big an' hearty as you look an' weighin' as much could git sick or even _tired_ without havin' any more work to do than you have. I've always meant to ask you or Mr. Saunders what you fellers do, _anyway._ I reckon banks are the same in big towns as in little ones. They haven't got a regular bank here in Ridgeville, but I've been to the one in Darley. I went in with Tom when he wanted to draw the cash on a cotton check. Talk about hard work--I'll swear I couldn't see it. Me 'n' Tom had been up fully three hours knockin' about the streets tryin' to kill the best part o' the day before that shebang opened up for business, an' _then_ somebody said they shet up at three o'clock an' went home to take a nap or whiz about in their automobiles. The whole thing's bothered me a sight, for I _do_ like to understand things. How _could_ a checker-playin' business like that tire anybody?”
”It's head-work,” Mostyn obligingly explained, as he followed John into the buggy and sat beside him. _”Head-work,”_ Webb echoed, the cloud still on his brow. He clucked to his horse and gently shook the reins.
”To save me I don't see how head-work--if there is such a thing--could tire out a man's legs and arms and body.”
”There is a good deal of worry attached to it,” Mostyn felt impelled to say. ”Nowadays they are saying that worry will kill a man quicker than any sort of physical ailment. You see, good sound sleep is necessary, and when a man is greatly bothered he simply can't sleep.”
”Oh, I see, I see,” Webb's blue eyes flashed. ”Thar may be something in that, but it does seem like a man would have more gumption 'an to worry hisse'f to death about something that won't be of use to 'im after he dies. That's common sense, ain't it?”
Mostyn was compelled to admit the truth of the remark. They had driven out of the village square and were now in the open country.
”Thar is one more thing about town folks an' country folks that I've always wanted to know,” John began again after a silence of several minutes, ”and that is why town folks contend that country folks is green. As I look at it it is an even swap. Now, you are a town man, an'
I'm a country feller. I could take you to the edge o' that cotton-field whar it joins on to the woods on that slope thar, an' point out a spot whar you couldn't make cotton grow more'n six inches high though it will reach four feet everywhar else in the field. Now, I'd be an impolite fool to lie down thar betwixt the rows an' split my sides laughin' at you for not knowin' what I jest got on to by years an'
years o' farm life. The truth is that cotton won't take any sort o'
root within twenty feet of a white-oak tree.”
”I didn't know that,” Mostyn said.
”I knowed you didn't, an' that's why I fetched it up,” Webb went on, blandly, ”an' me nor no other farmer would poke fun at you about it, but it is different in town. Jest let a spindle-legged counter-jumper at a store with his hair parted in the middle git a joke on a country feller, an' the whole town will take a hand in it. Oh, I know, for they've sh.o.r.e had _me_ on the run.”
”I'm surprised at that,” Mostyn answered, smiling. ”You seem too shrewd to be taken in by any one.”
”Humph, I say!” Webb laughed reminiscently. ”I supplied all the fun Darley had one hot summer day when all hands was lyin' round the stores and law-offices tryin' to git cool by fannin' and sprinklin' the sidewalks. Did you ever hear tell of the Tom Collins gag?”
”I think not,” the banker answered.
”Well, I have--you bet I have,” John said, dryly, ”an” it is one thing that makes me afraid sometimes that a country feller railly hain't actually overloaded with brains. Take my advice; if anybody ever tells you that a feller by the name o' Tom Collins is lookin' for you an'
anxious to see you about something important, just skin your eye at 'im, tell 'im right out that you don't give a dang about Tom Collins.
La me, what a fool--what a fool I was! A feller workin' at the cotton-compress told me that a man by the name o' Tom Collins wanted to see me right off, an' that he was up at the wholesale grocery. Fool that I was, I hitched my hosses an' struck out lickity-split for the grocery. I axed one of the storekeepers standin' in front if Tom Collins was anywhars about, and, as I remember now, he slid his hand over his mouth an' sorter turned his face to one side and yelled back in the store:
”'Say, boys, is Tom Collins back thar?' An' right then, Mr. Mostyn, if I had had the sense of a three-year-old baby I'd have smelt a mouse, for fully six clerks, drummers, and all the firm hurried to whar I was at an' stood lookin' at me, their eyes dancin'. 'He _was_ here, but he's just left,' a clerk said. 'He went to the hotel to git his grip.
He was awfully put out. He's been all over town lookin' for you.' Well, as I made a break for the hotel, wonderin' if somebody had died an'