Part 5 (1/2)
”Come one side a little, I wish to speak with you privately, confidentially.”
Big Medicine went rather sulkily along. When they had gone some distance from the house Mr. Golding lifted his spectacles from his nose, and turning his calm, smiling eyes full upon those of Big Medicine, said, with a shrug of his finely cut shoulders:
”I outbid you a little, my friend, but I'm blessed if I haven't got myself into a ridiculous sc.r.a.pe on account of it.”
”How so?” growled Big Medicine.
”Why, when I come to count my funds I'm short a half dollar.”
”You're what?”
”I lack just a half dollar of having enough money to pay for the house, and I thought I'd rather ask you to loan me the money than anybody else here.”
Big Medicine stood for a time in silence, whittling away, as if for dear life, on the curly knot. Dreamy gusts of perfumed heat swept by from adjacent clover and wheat fields, where the blooms hung thick; little whirlwinds played in the dust at their feet as little whirlwinds always do in summer; and far away, faint, and made tenderly musical by distance, were heard the notes of a country dinner-horn. Big Medicine's ample chest swelled, and swelled, and then he burst at the mouth with a mighty ba.s.s laugh, that went battling and echoing round the place. Mr.
Golding laughed too, in his own quiet, gentlemanly way. They looked at each other and laughed, then looked off toward the swamps and laughed.
Big Medicine put his hands in his pockets almost up to the elbows, and leaned back and laughed out of one corner of his mouth while holding his pipe in the other.
”I say, mister,” said he at length, ”a'n't you railly got but six hundred and twenty-five an' a half?”
”Just that much to a cent, and no more,” replied Mr. Golding, with a comical smile and bow.
Big Medicine took his pipe from his mouth, gave the walnut knot he had dropped a little kick and guffawed louder and longer than before. To have been off at a little distance watching them would have convinced any one that Mr. Golding was telling some rare anecdote, and that Big Medicine was convulsed with mirth, listening.
”Well I'm derned if 'taint quare,” cried the latter, wringing himself into all sorts of grotesque att.i.tudes in the ecstasy of his amus.e.m.e.nt.
”You outbid me half a dollar and then didn't have the half a dollar neither! Wha, wha, wha-ee!” and his cachinnations sounded like rolling of moderate thunder.
At the end of this he took out a greasy wallet and paid Mr. Golding the required amount in silver coin. His chagrin had vanished before the stranger's quiet way of making friends.
A week pa.s.sed over Jimtown. A week of as rare June weather as ever lingered about the cool places of the woods, or glimmered over the sweet clover fields all red with a blush of bloom, where the field larks twittered and the buntings chirped, and where the laden bees rose heavily to seek their wild homes in the hollows of the forests. By this time it was generally known in Jimtown that Mr. Golding would soon receive a stock of goods with which to open a ”store” in the old corner brick; but Big Medicine knew more than any of his neighbors, for he and Golding had formed a partners.h.i.+p to do business under the ”name and style” of Cook & Golding.
This Abner Golding had lately been a wealthy retail man in Cincinnati, and had lost everything by the sudden suspension of a bank wherein the bulk of his fortune was on deposit. His creditors had made a run on him and he had been able to save just the merest remnant of his goods, and a few hundred dollars in money. Thus he came to Jimtown to begin life and business anew.
To Big Medicine the week had been a long one; why, it would not be easy to tell. No doubt there had come a turning point in his life. In those days, and in that particular region, to be a 'store keeper' was no small honor. But Big Medicine acted strangely. He wandered about, with his hands in his pockets, whistling plaintive tunes, and often he was seen standing out before the old corner brick, gazing up at one of the vacant windows where pieces of broken lattice were swaying in the wind. At such times he muttered softly to himself:
”Ther's wher I fust seed the gal.”
Four big road wagons (loaded with boxes), three of them containing the merchandise and one the scanty household furniture of Mr. Golding and his daughter Carrie, came rumbling into Jimtown. Big Medicine was on hand, a perfect Hercules at unloading and unpacking. Mr. Golding was sadly pleasant; Carrie was roguishly observant, but womanly and quiet.
The tallow-faced youth and two or three others stood by watching the proceedings. The former occasionally made a remark at which the others never failed to laugh.
”Ef ye'll notice, now,” said he, ”it's a fac 'at whenever Big Medicine goes to make a big surge to lift a box, he fust takes a peep at the gal, an' that 'ere seems to kinder make 'im 'wax strong an' multiply,' as the preacher says, an' then over goes the box!”
”Has a awful effect on his narves,” some one replied.
”I'm a thinkin',” added tallow-face, ”'at ef Big Medicine happens to look at the gal about the time he goes to make a trade, it'll have sich a power on 'im 'at he'll sell a yard o' caliker for nigh onto forty dollars!”
”Er a blanket overcoat for 'bout twelve an' a half cents!” put in another.
”I'm kinder weakly,” resumed tallow-face with a comical leer at Big Medicine; ”wonder if 't wouldn't be kinder strengthnin' on me ef I'd kinder sidle up towards the gal myself?”