Part 26 (1/2)
He pa.s.sed two drunken men. Here in town at the end of Suez's wedding so many had toasted it so often, it was as if Susie's own eyes were blood-shot and her steps uncertain. ”It's my wedding, too,” he soliloquized. ”This Widewood business and I are married this day; it alone, to me alone, till it's finished. Garnet shall see whether--humph!--Jake, my horse and buggy!” And soon he was rattling back down the stony slopes toward his mother.
”Hope of Suez!” he grimly laughed. ”We'll be its despair if we don't get something done. And I've got to do it alone. Why shouldn't I? Yes, it's true, times have changed; and yet if this was ever rightly a private matter in my father's hands, I can't see why it has or why it should become a public matter in mine!”
He said this to himself the more emphatically because he felt, somehow, very uncertain about it. He wished his problem was as simple as a railroad question. A railroad can ask for public aid; but fancy him asking public aid to open and settle up his private lands! He could almost hear Susie's horse-laugh in reply. Why should she not laugh? He recalled with what sweet unboastful tone his father had always condemned every scheme and symptom of riding on public shoulders into private fortune. In the dear _old_ Dixie there had been virtually no public, and every gentleman was by choice his own and only public aid, no matter what--”Look out!”
He hauled up his horse. A man pressed close to the side of the halted buggy, to avoid a huge telegraph pole that came by quivering between two timber wheels. He offered John a freckled, yellow hand, and a smile of maudlin fondness.
”Mr. Mahch, I admiah to salute you ag'in, seh. _Hasn't_ we had a glo'ious day? It's the mos' obtainable day Susie eveh see, seh!”
”Well, 'pon my soul!” said John, ignoring the proffered hand. ”If I'd seen who it was, I'd 'a' driven straight over you.” Both laughed.
”Cornelius, did you see my mother waiting for me down by the tracks?”
”I did, seh. Thah she a-set'n' on a pile o' ceda'-tree poles, lookin'
like the las' o' pea-time--p-he-he-he!
”Majo' Gyarnit? O ya.s.s, seh, he thah, too. Tha.s.s how come I lingud thah, seh, ya.s.s, seh, in espiration o' Johanna. Mr. Mahch, I loves that creatu' yit, seh!--I means Johanna.”
”Oh!--not Major Garnet,” laughed John, gathering the reins.
Cornelius sputtered with delight, and kept between the wheels. ”Mr.
Mahch,”--he straightened, solemnly, and held himself sober--”I was jess about to tell you what I jess evise Majo' Gyarnit espressin' to yo'
maw--jess accidental as I was earwhilin' aroun' Johanna, you know.”
”What was it? What did he say?”
”O, it wan't much, what he say. He say, 'Sis' Mahch, you e'zac'ly right.
Don't you on no accounts paht with so much's a' acre o' them lan's lessn----”
”Lord!--the lands--take care for the wheel.”
But Mr. Leggett leaned heavily on the buggy. ”Mr. Mahch, I evince an'
repose you in confidence to wit: that long as you do like Gyarnit say----”
John gave a stare of menace. ”Major Garnet, if you please.”
”Ya.s.s, seh, o' co'se; Majo' Gyarnit. I say, long as you do like he say, Widewood stay jess like it is, an' which it suit him like grapes suit a c.o.o.n!” The informant's booziness had returned. One foot kept slipping from a spoke of the fore-wheel. With pretence of perplexity he examined the wheel. ”Mr. Mahch, this wheel sick; she mighty sick; got to see blacksmiff befo' she can eveh see Widewood.”
John looked. The word was true. He swore. The mulatto snickered, sagged against it and c.o.c.ked his face importantly.
”Mr. Mahch, if you an' me was on'y in cahoots! En we _kin_ be, seh, we kin--why, hafe o' yo' lan's 'u'd be public lan's in no time, an' the res' 'u'd belong to a stawk comp'ny, an' me'n' you 'u'd be a-cuttin' off kewponds an' a-drivin' fas' hawses an' a-drinkin' champagne suppuz, an'
champagne faw ow real frien's an' real pain faw ow sham frien's, an'
plenty o' both kine--thah goes Majo' Gyarnit's kerrige to him.” It pa.s.sed.
”But, why, Cornelius, should it suit Major Garnet for my lands to lie idle?”