Anderson Crow, Detective
by George Barr McCutcheon · English · Gutenberg #28229 · 443,989 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Anderson Crow, Detective
Author: George Barr McCutcheon
Release date: March 1, 2009 [eBook #28229]
Language: English
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Credits: Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANDERSON CROW, DETECTIVE ***
Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
ANDERSON CROW
DETECTIVE
BY GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
Author of "Brewster's Millions," "Truxton King," "Sherry," etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
_JOHN T. McCUTCHEON_
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1919, 1920
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
[Illustration: _Three seconds later the two youngsters had the ear of
Anderson Crow_]
CONTENTS
A NIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED
"YOU ARE INVITED TO BE PRESENT"
THE PERFECT END OF A DAY
THE BEST MAN WINS
VICIOUS LUCIUS
THE VEILED LADY AND THE SHADOW
THE ASTONISHING ACTS OF ANNA
NO QUESTIONS ANSWERED
SHADES OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN!
JAKE MILLER HANGS HIMSELF
ILLUSTRATIONS
Three seconds later the two youngsters had the ear of Anderson Crow
"Wha--what was that you said?" gasped her husband, flopping back in the
seat
Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless,
abandoned flivver
Words failed Mr. Crow
The Rev. Mr. Maltby, pastor of the Congregational Church, happened to be
passing the town hall
Several heartbroken gentlemen threatened to shoot themselves
"The celebrated Anderson Crow?" asked the man with the glasses
The Marshal started off in the direction of the "shanty"
"I--I surrender! I give in!" he yelled
Something terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow wouldn't be
summoned in any such imperative manner as this
In the centre of this group was the new candidate for town marshal
Harry Squires stepped to the front of the platform
When they appeared on the street together
He altered his course, and as she passed him, the flat of the spade
landed with impelling force
Eight or ten people were congregated in front of the Fry house
The veiled lady made her daily excursions in the big high-powered car
Yanking open the screen-door, he plunged headlong into the softly
lighted veranda
He was surrounded by conquerors
Over him stood two men with pistols levelled at the white, terrified
face
"Hold on, Mort!" called out Mr. Crow. "Don't monkey with that trunk"
His wife was now standing guard over it on the porch of the Grand View
Hotel
These smiling, complacent women formed the Death Watch that was to
witness the swift, inevitable finish of the Sunlight Bar
At the trial he was shamelessly complimentary about Mrs. Nixon's pie
"I am going to reveal to you the true facts in the case of our late
lamented friend, Jake Miller"
ANDERSON CROW, DETECTIVE
A NIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED
Two events of great importance took place in Tinkletown on the night of
May 6, 1918. The first, occurring at half-past ten o'clock, was of
sufficient consequence to rouse the entire population out of
bed--thereby creating a situation, almost unique, which allowed every
one in town to participate in all the thrills of the second. When the
history of Tinkletown is written,--and it is said to be well under way
at the hands of that estimable authoress, Miss Sue Becker, some fifty
years a resident of the town and the great-granddaughter of one of its
founders,--when this history is written, the night of May 6, 1918, will
assert itself with something of the same insistence that causes the
world to refresh its memory occasionally by looking into the
encyclopedia to determine the exact date of the Fall of the Bastile. The
fire-bell atop the town hall heralded the first event, and two small
boys gave notice of the second.
Smock's grain-elevator, on the outskirts of the town, was in flames, and
with a high wind blowing from the west, the Congregational and Baptist
churches, the high school, Pratt's photograph gallery and the two
motion-picture houses were threatened with destruction. As Anderson
Crow, now deputy marshal of the town, declared the instant he arrived at
the scene of the conflagration, nothing but the most heroic and
indefatigable efforts on the part of the volunteer fire-department could
save the town--only he put it in this way: "We'll have another Chicago
fire here, sure as you're born, unless it rains or the wind changes
mighty all-fired sudden; so we got to fight hard, boys."
Mr. Crow, also deputy superintendent of the fire-department, was late in
getting to the engine-house back of the town hall--so late that the
hand-engine and hose-reel, manned by volunteers who had waited as long
as advisable, were belabouring the fire with water some time before he
reached the engine-house. This irritated Mr. Crow considerably. He was
out of breath when he got to the elevator, or some one would have heard
from him. Another cause of annoyance was the fact that his rubber coat
and helmet went with the hose-reel and were by this time adorning the
person of an energetic fire-fighter who had no official right to them.
After a diligent search Mr. Crow located his regalia and commanded the
wearer, one Patrick Murphy, to hand 'em over at once. What Patrick
Murphy, a recent arrival at Tinkletown, said in response to this demand
was lost in the roar of the flames; so Anderson put his hand to his ear
and shouted:
"What say?"
Patrick repeated his remark with great vigour, and Mr. Crow, apparently
catching no more than the final word in the sentence, moved hastily
away, but not before agreeing with Mr. Murphy that it _was_ as hot as
the place he mentioned.
Ed Higgins, the feed-store man, was in charge of the fire-fighters, who
were industriously throwing a single stream of water from the
fire-cistern into the vast and towering conflagration. It was like
tossing a pint of water into the Atlantic Ocean.
"Got her under control?" roared Anderson, bristling up to Ed.
"Sure!" shouted Ed. "She's workin' beautiful. Just look at that stream.
You--"
"I mean the fire," bellowed Anderson.
"Oh, I thought you meant the engine. I don't think we'll get the fire
under contral till the derned warehouse is burned down. Gee whiz, Chief,
where you been? We waited as long as we could for you, and then--"
"Don't blame me," was Anderson's answer. "I'd ha' been the first man at
the engine-house if I hadn't waited nigh onto half an hour trying to get
the chief of the fire-department out of bed and dressed. I argued--"
"What's the matter with you? Ain't you chief of the fire-department? Are
you crazy or what?"
"Ain't you got any brains, Ed Higgins? My wife's been chief ever since
she was elected marshal last month, an' you know it. That's what we get
fer lettin' the women vote an' have a hand in the affairs of the nation.
She just wouldn't get up--so I had to come off without her. Where's my
trumpet? We got to get this fire under control, or the whole town will
go. Gosh, if it'd only rain! Looked a little like rain this evenin'--an'
this wind may be bringin' up a storm or--"
"Here's your trumpet, Mr. Crow," screeched a small boy, bursting through
the crowd.
Half of the inhabitants of Tinkletown stood outside of the rim of heat
and watched the fire, while the other half, in all stages of deshabille,
remained in their front yards training the garden hose on the roofs and
sides of their houses and yelling to every speeding passer-by to
telephone to the commissioner of water-works to turn on more pressure.
Among his other offices, Mr. Crow was commissioner of water-works,
having held over in that office because the board of selectmen forgot to
appoint any one else in his place after the last election. And while a
great many citizens carried the complaint of the garden-hose handlers to
the commissioner, it is doubtful if he heard them above the combined
sound of his own voice and the roar of the flames.
Possessed of his trumpet, the redoubtable Mr. Crow took his stand beside
the old hand-pumping "fire-engine" and gave orders right and left in a
valiant but thoroughly cracked voice.
"Now, we'll git her out," panted Alf Reesling, the town drunkard,
speaking to Father Maloney, the Catholic priest, who was taking a turn
with him at the pumping apparatus. "Ed.'s all right, but it takes
Anderson to handle a fire as she ought to be handled."
Father Maloney, perspiring copiously and breathing with great
difficulty, grunted without conviction.
"Leetle more elbow-grease there, men!" shouted Anderson, directing his
command to the futile pumpers. "We got to get water up to that
second-story winder. More steam, boys--more steam!"
"Aw, what's the use?" growled Bill Jackson, letting go of the pump to
wipe his dripping forehead. "We couldn't put her out with Niagary Falls
in flood-time."
"Bring your hose over here, men--lively, now!" called out the leader.
"Every second counts. Lively! Git out o' the way, Purt Throcker! Consarn
you fool boys! Can't you keep back where you belong? Right over here,
men! That's the ticket! Now, shoot her into that winder. Hey! One of you
boys bust in that winder glass with a rock. All of you! See if you c'n
hit her!"
A fusillade of stones left the hands of a score of small boys and
clattered against the walls of the doomed warehouse, some of them coming
as near as ten feet to the objective, two of them being so wide of the
mark that simultaneous ejaculations of surprise and pain issued from the
lips of Miss Spratt and Professor Smith, both of the high school.
The heat was intense, blistering. Reluctantly the crowd, awed and
fascinated by the greatest blaze it had ever seen,--not even excepting
the burning of Eliphalet Loop's straw-ricks in 1897,--edged farther and
farther away, pursued by the relentless heat-waves. The fire-fighters
withdrew in good order, obeying the instinct of self-preservation
somewhat in advance of the command of their superior, who, indeed, had
anticipated such a man[oe]uvre by taking a position from which he could
_lead_ the retreat. By the time the fire was at its height, "lighting
the way clear to heaven," according to Miss Sue Becker, who had to
borrow Marshal Crow's pencil and a piece of paper from Mort Fryback so
that she could jot down the beautiful thought before it perished in the
"turmoil of frightfulness!"
"More elbow-grease, men!" roared Anderson, "She'll get ahead of us if we
let up for a second! Pump! Pump!"
And pump they did, notwithstanding the fact that the stream of water
from the nozzle in the hands of Ed Higgins and Petey Cicotte was now
falling short of the building by some twenty or thirty feet.
"Serves old man Smock right!" declared Anderson in wrath, addressing the
town clerk and two selectmen who by virtue of office retained
advantageous positions in the front rank of spectators "If he'd done as
I told him an' paid fer havin' water-mains extended as fer out as his
warehouse, we could have saved it fer him. It looks to me now as if
she's bound to go. Where's Harry?"
Harry Squires, the reporter for The _Banner_, notebook in hand, came up
at that instant.
"Looks pretty serious, doesn't it, Chief?" he remarked.
"The fire-company deserves all the credit, Harry," said Anderson
magnanimously. "I want you to put it in the paper, just that way, as
comin' from me. If it hadn't been for the loyal, heroic efforts of the
finest fire-department Tinkletown has ever had, the--Hey! Pull that hose
back here, you derned fools! Do you want to get it scorched an' ruined
so's it won't be fit fer anything agin? Fetch that engine over here
across the road too! Do you hear me?" Turning again to the reporter, he
resumed: "Yes sir, if it hadn't been fer them boys, there wouldn't have
been a blessed thing saved, Harry."
Harry Squires squinted narrowly. "I can't say that anything _has_ been
saved, Chief. Just mention something, please."
Anderson looked at him in amazement. "Why, ain't you got any eyes?
Hain't they saved the engine and every foot of hose the town owns?"
"They could have saved that much by staying at home in bed," said Mr.
Squires dryly. "I've just seen Mr. Smock. He says there were fifty
thousand bushels of wheat in the bins, waiting for cars to take it down
to New York. Every bushel of it was going abroad for the Allies. Does
that put any sort of an idea into your nut, Anderson?"
"What?"
"Into your bean, I should say. Or, in other words, hair-pasture."
"He means head, Mr. Crow," explained Miss Sue Becker.
"Well, why don't he say head--that's what I'd like to know."
"Do you deduce anything from the fact that the grain was to go to the
Allies, Anderson?" inquired Harry.
The harassed marshal scratched his head, but said: "Absolutely!"
"Well, what do you deduce, Mr. Hawkshaw?"
"I deduce, you derned jay, that old man Smock won't be able to deliver
it. Move back, will you? You're right in my way, an'--"
"I suppose you know that the Germans are still fighting the Allies,
don't you? Fighting 'em here as well as over in France? Now does _that_
help you any?"
Mr. Crow's jaw fell--but only for a second. He tightened it up almost
immediately and with commendable dignity.
"My sakes alive, Harry Squires, you don't suppose I'm tellin' my real
suspicions to any newspaper reporter, do you? How do I know you ain't a
spy? Still, dog-gone you, if it will set your mind at rest, I'll say
this much: I have positive proof that Smock's warehouse was set on fire
by agents of the German gover'ment. That's one of the reasons I was a
little late in gettin' to the fire. Now, don't try to pump me any more,
'cause I can't tell you anything that would jeopardize the interests of
justice. Hey! Where in thunder are you fellers goin' with that hose an'
engine?"
The firemen were on a dead run.
"We're goin' a couple of hundred yards down the road, so's we won't be
killed when that front wall caves in," shouted Ed Higgins, without
pausing. "Better come along, Anderson. She's beginning to bulge
something awful."
Anderson Crow arose to the occasion.
"Lively now!" he barked through the trumpet. "Get that hose and engine
back to a safe place! Can't you see the wall's about ready to fall?
Everybody fall back! Women and children first! Women first, remember!"
Down the road fled the crowd, looking over its collective shoulders, so
to speak--followed by the venerable fire apparatus and the still more
venerable commander-in-chief.
Harry Squires, in his two-column account of the fire in the _Banner_,
dilated upon the fact that the women failed to retain the advantage so
gallantly extended by the men. For the matter of about ten or fifteen
yards they _were_ first; after which, being handicapped by petticoats,
they fell ingloriously behind. Some of the older ones--maliciously, he
feared--impeded the progress of their protectors by neglecting to get
out of the way in time, with the result that at least two men were
severely bruised by falling over them--the case of Uncle Dad Simms being
a particularly sad one. He collided head-on with the portly Mrs. Loop,
and failing to budge her, suffered the temporary loss of a full set of
teeth and nearly twenty minutes of consciousness. Mr. Squires went on to
say that the only thing that saved Mr. Simms from being run over and
killed by the fire-engine was the fact that the latter was about a block
and a half ahead of him when the accident occurred.
Sparks soared high and far on the smoke-laden wind, scurrying townward
across the barren quarry-lands. The vast canopy was red with the glow of
flying embers and fire-lit clouds. Below, in the dusty road, swarmed the
long procession of citizens. Grim, stark hemlocks gleamed in the weird,
uncanny light that turned the green of their foliage and the black of
their trunks into the colour of the rose on the side facing the fire,
but left them dark and forbidding on the other. The telegraph-poles
beyond the burning warehouse lining the railroad spur that ventured down
from the main line some miles away and terminated at Smock's, loomed up
like lofty gibbets in the ghastly light. Three quarters of a mile from
the scene of the conflagration lay the homes of the people who lived on
the rim of Tinkletown, and there also were the two churches and the
motion-picture houses.
"We got to save them picture-houses," panted Anderson, and then in hasty
apology,--"and the churches, too."
"You got to save my studio first," bawled Elmer K. Pratt, the
photographer, trying to keep pace with him in the congested line.
"Halt!" commanded the chief, not because tactics called for such an
action but because he was beginning to feel that he couldn't keep up
with the engine.
The cavalcade eased down to a walk and finally came to a halt. Every eye
was riveted on the burning structure which now stood out alone in all
its grandeur beyond the quarries and gravel-pits. Every one waited in
breathless suspense for the collapse of the towering walls.
A shrill, boyish voice broke out above the subdued, awe-struck chatter
of the crowd.
"Where's Mr. Crow? Mr. Crow! Where are you?"
"Sh!" hissed Alf Reesling, glowering upon the excited boy, who had just
come up at full speed from the direction of the town. "Don't you make so
much noise! The walls are going to cave in, an'--"
"Where's Mr. Crow?" panted the boy, a lad of twelve. His eyes appeared
starting from his head. A second boy joined him, and he was trembling so
violently that he could not speak at all. All he could do was to point
at the lank figure of the old town marshal, some distance back in the
crowd.
Three seconds later the two youngsters had the ear of Anderson Crow, and
between them they poured it full of news of the most extraordinary
character. The crowd, forgetting the imminent crash of the warehouse
wall, pressed eagerly forward.
"Wait a second--wait a second!" roared Anderson. "One at a time now.
Don't both of you talk at oncet. You, Bud--you tell it. You keep still,
Roswell Hatch. Take your time, Bud!"
"Lemme tell it, Mr. Crow," begged Roswell. "I knowed it first. It ain't
fair for Bud to--"
"But I got here first," protested Bud, and there might have been
something more sanguinary than mere words if Marshal Crow had not
interfered.
"None o' that, now! What's the matter, Bud?"
"Somethin' turrible has happened, Mr. Crow--somethin' awfully turrible,"
wheezed the boy.
"If you derned little scalawags have run all the way from town to tell
me that Smock's warehouse is on fire, you'd--"
"Oh, gee, that ain't nothin'!" gulped Bud. "Wait till you hear what I
know."
"I can't wait all night. I got to save Mr. Pratt's studio, an'--"
"Well, you know them two tramps you put in the lock-up yesterday
afternoon?" cried Bud.
"Desperit characters, both of 'em. I figgered they was up to some
devilment an--"
"Well, they ain't in any more; they're out. Ros an' me seen the whole
business. We wuz--"
"Geminy crickets! What's this? A jail-break? Out of the way, everybody!
Two desperit villains are loose in town, an--"
"Hold on, Mr. Crow," cried the other lad, seizing his opportunity.
"There's more'n two. Three or four more fellers from the outside come up
an' busted in the door an' _let_ 'em out. Then they all run down the
street to where the new bank is. Me an' Bud seen some of 'em climb into
one of the winders of the bank, an' nen we struck out to find you, Mr.
Crow. We thought maybe you'd like to know what--"
The rest of Roswell's narrative was lost in the hullabaloo of command
and action. The fickle populace turned its back on the burning warehouse
and swept down the lane in quest of new excitement. The tottering wall
came down with a crash, but its fall was unwitnessed except by those
infirm old ladies and gentlemen who had lagged so far behind in the
first rush for safety that they were still in ignorance of the latest
calamity. It was a pity, wrote Miss Sue Becker in her diary, that the
gods crowded so much into a single night when there were "three hundred
and sixty-four more perfectly good nights available."
The story of the two boys proved not only to be true, but also woefully
lacking in exaggeration. The jail-delivery and the looting of the First
National Bank of Tinkletown turned out to be but two in a long and
fairly complete list of disasters.
Investigation revealed an astonishing thoroughness and impartiality on
the part of the bandits. The safe in Brubaker's drugstore was missing,
with something like nineteen dollars in cash; Lamson's store had been
entered, and the cash-register rifled; Fryback's hardware-store,
Higgins' feed-store and Rush Applegate's tailor-shop were visited, and,
as Harry Squires said in the _Banner_, "contents noted." Two brand-new
"shoes" and a couple of inner tubes were missing from Gillespie's
Universal Garage, and Ed Higgins' dog was slain in cold blood by the
"remorseless ravagers."
* * * * *
Nobody went to sleep that night. Everybody joined in the search for the
robbers. Citizens hurried home after the first alarm and did their part
by looking under every bed in their houses, after which the more
venturesome visited garrets, cellars and woodsheds.
Anderson Crow, after organizing a large posse and commandeering several
automobiles, suddenly remembered that he had left his silver watch and a
wallet containing eleven dollars under his pillow. He drove home as
rapidly as possible in John Blosser's 1903 Pope-Toledo and was
considerably aggravated to find his wife sound asleep. He awoke her with
some rudeness.
"Wake up, Eva! Consarn it, don't you know the town's full of highwaymen?
It'd be just like you to sleep here like a log and let 'em come in an'
nip my watch an' purse right out o' your own bed. I wouldn't 'a' been a
bit surprised to find 'em gone--an' you chloryformed and gagged. I--"
"Burglars, did you say?" cried his wife, sitting up in bed and staring
at him in alarm.
"Dozens of 'em," he declared, pocketing his watch and wallet. "Get up
and help me search the house. Where's my revolver?"
"Oh, Lordy, Anderson! Your--your revolver? You're not going to shoot it
off, are you?"
"I certainly am--if the derned thing's loaded. Where's it at?"
She sank back with a sigh of relief. "Thank heavens, I just remembered
that Milt Cupples borrowed it last winter to--"
"Borrowed my revolver?" roared Anderson. "Why--"
"To loan to a friend of his'n who was going down to New York on
business."
"An' he never brought it back?"
"He never did."
Anderson's opinion of Milt Cupples was smothered in a violent chorus of
automobile horns. Mrs. Crow promptly covered her head with the
bed-clothes and let out a muffled shriek.
"It's only the posse," he shouted, pulling the covers from her face.
"Don't be scairt, Evy. Where's your courage? Remember who you are.
Rememb--"
"I'm only a poor, weak woman--"
"I know that," he agreed, "but that ain't all. You are marshal o'
Tinkletown, an' if you're goin' to cover up your head every time a horn
toots, you'll--"
"Oh, go on away and leave me alone, Anderson," she cried. "I don't want
to be marshal. I never did. I resign now--do you hear me? I resign this
instant. I was a fool to let the women elect me--and the women were
worse fools for voting for me. That's what comes of letting women vote.
We had a good, well-trained marshal--because that's what you are,
Anderson. And--"
The door flew open. Alf Reesling burst into the room, followed by both
of Anderson Crow's daughters.
"Come on, Anderson!" shouted Alf, gasping with excitement. "Good even',
Mrs. Crow. Howdy do? Hurry up, Ander--"
"We tried to keep him out, Ma," broke in Caroline Crow, glaring at Alf.
"We told him you were in bed, but he--"
"Well, gosh a'mighty," cried Alf in exasperation, "we can't wait all
night. We got track o' them fellers, but if we got to set around out
here till mornin' just because your ma's in bed, I--I--well, that's all
I got to say." He turned to Anderson for support, and catching the look
in his eye, bawled: "No, I ain't been drinkin', Anderson Crow! I'm as
sober as a--"
"Get out of my bedroom this minute, Alf Reesling," cried Mrs. Crow.
"I'll tell your wife how you're behavin' if you--"
"Go ahead an' tell her," snorted Alf, goaded beyond endurance. "She
ain't had a good laugh since the time Anderson had his pocket picked up
at Boggs City, fair-week. Go ahead an'--"
"Come on, Alf--lively now," broke in Mr. Crow hastily. "We got to be on
the jump. Gosh, listen to them dogs! Never heard so much barkin' in all
my life."
Out of the house rushed the two men. Anderson immediately began issuing
orders.
"Ed Higgins, you take a squad o' men and go back to the fire. We got our
hands full tonight. Now, all you fellers as has got pistols an' shotguns
go home an' get 'em at oncet. Come back here as quick as you can
an'--what say, Harry?"
He turned to the reporter.
"I said the first thing to do is to shoot about thirty or forty of these
infernal dogs."
"We can't afford to waste ca'tridges, Harry Squires," said Anderson
severely. "We got to tackle a desperate gang 'fore we're through."
"Where is your daughter Caroline, Mr. Crow?" inquired the reporter
irrelevantly.
"She's in the house tryin' to quiet her ma. A drunk man bust into her
room a little while ago an'--"
"Well, tell her to get on the job at once. She's chief telephone
operator down at the exchange, and she ought to be there now sending out
warnings to every town within twenty miles of--"
"Carrie! Car-ree!" shouted Anderson, racing up the path. "How many times
have I got to tell you to 'tend to that telephonin'? Go down to the
office this minute an' call up Boggs City an'--"
"I'm not the _night_ operator," snapped Caroline, appearing in the
window. "What's the matter with Jane Swiggers and Lucy Cummings? They're
supposed to be on duty all night."
"Don't sass back! Do as I tell you. Telephone every town in the county
to be on the lookout fer an automobile with two tires and a couple of
inner tubes--"
"Two _new_ tires, Caroline," amended Harry Squires.
"And carrying a tin safe with George W. Brubaker's name on it in red
letters. Say that a complete description of the robbers will follow. Is
your ma still in bed?"
"Yes, she is."
"Well, you tell her I'll be home soon as I capture them desperadoes." He
was moving toward the front gate. Caroline's paraphrase pursued him and
left a sting:
"What is home without a father!"
Followed now a lengthy and at times acrimonious argument as to the
further operations of the marshal's posse.
"We're losing valuable time," protested Harry Squires at the end of a
half-hour's fertile discussion. _Fertile_ is here employed instead of
_futile_, for never was there a more extensive crop of ideas raised by
human agency.
"We can't do anything till we find out which way the derned rascals
went, can we?" said Mr. Crow bitingly. "We got to find somebody that
seen 'em start off in that automobile. We--"
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Harry. "We've got to split up into parties
and follow every road out of Tinkletown."
"How in thunder do you expect me to lead five or six different posses?"
demanded Anderson.
"Yes, an' what in thunder would we do if we caught up with 'em
unexpected-like if we didn't have Anderson with us?" said Alf Reesling,
loyal to the core. "In the first place, we wouldn't have any legal right
to capture 'em, and in the second place we couldn't do it anyhow."
By this time there were a dozen shotguns on the scene, to say nothing of
a most impressive collection of antiquated revolvers, "Flobert" rifles,
Civil War muskets and baseball bats.
"I move we move," was the laconic but excellent speech of Mr. Henry
Plumb. He already had his forefinger on the trigger of his
"single-barrel."
"Second the motion," cried out Ed Higgins loudly.
"I thought I told you to go an' 'tend to that fire, Ed Higgins," said
Anderson, in some surprise.
An extremely noisy dog-fight put an end to the discussion for the time
being, and it was too late to renew it after Situate Jones' mongrel Pete
had finished with Otto Schultz's dachshund Bismarck. So vociferous was
the chorus put up by the other dogs that no one noticed the approach of
an automobile, coming down the Boggs City pike. The car passed at full
speed. Three dogs failed to get out of the way in time, and as a result,
the list of casualties was increased to four, including Ed Higgins'
previously mentioned black and tan.
The speeding car, a big one loaded with men, was a hundred yards away
and going like the wind before the startled group regained its senses.
"There they go!" yelled Harry Squires.
"Exceedin' the speed limit, dog-gone 'em!" roared Anderson. "They ought
to be locked up fer ten days an' fined--"
"Come on, men!" shouted Harry. "After 'em! That's the gang! They've been
headed off at Boggs City--or something like that."
"Did anybody ketch the number of that car?" shouted Anderson. "I c'n
trace 'em by their license number if--"
The rest of the speech was lost in the rush to enter the waiting
automobiles, and the shouting that ensued. Then followed a period of
frantic cranking, after which came the hasty backing and turning of
cars, the tooting of horns and the panic of gears.
Loaded to the "gunnels," the half-dozen machines finally got under way,
and off they went into the night, chortling with an excitement all their
own.
A lone figure remained standing in front of Anderson Crow's gate--a
tall, lank figure without coat or hat, one suspender supporting a pair
of blue trousers, the other hanging limp and useless. He wore a red
undershirt and carried in his left hand the trumpet of a fire-fighting
chieftain.
"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" issued from his lips as the last of the cars
rattled away. Then he started off bravely on foot in the wake of the
noisy cavalcade. "Now, all of 'em are breakin' the speed laws; an' it's
goin' to cost 'em somethin', consarn 'em, when I yank 'em up 'fore
Justice Robb tomorrow, sure as my name's Anderson Crow."
Presently he heard a car approaching from behind. It was very dark in
the outskirts of the town, and the lonely highway that reached down into
the valley was a thing of the imagination rather than of the vision.
Profiting by the catastrophes that attended the passing of the big
touring-car Anderson hastily leaped to the side of the road. A couple of
small headlights veered around a curve in the road and came down the
slight grade, followed naturally and somewhat haltingly by an automobile
whose timorous brakes were half set. There was a single occupant.
Anderson levelled his trumpet at the driver and shouted:
"Halt!"
"Oh-h!" came in a shrill, agitated voice from the car, but the machine
gave no sign of halting.
"Hey! Halt, I say!"
"I--I don't know how!" moaned the voice. "How do you stop it?"
"Good gracious sakes alive! Is--is it _you_, Eva?"
"Oh, Anderson! Thank goodness! I thought you was a highwayman. Oh,
dear--oh, dear! Ain't there any way to stop this thing?"
"Shut off the power, an' it'll stop when you start up the grade."
Anderson was trotting along behind, tugging at one of the mud-guards.
"How do you shut it off?"
"The same way you turned it on."
"Goodness, what a fool way to do things!"
The little car came to a stop on the rise of the grade, and Anderson
side-stepped just in time to avoid being bumped into as it started back
again, released.
"It's Deacon Rank's car," explained Mrs. Crow in response to a series of
bewildered, rapid-fire questions from her husband. "He offered to sell
it to me for fifty dollars, and I've been learnin' how to run it for two
whole days--out in Peters' Mill lane."
"How does it happen I never knowed anything about this, Eva?" demanded
he, regaining in some measure his tone of authority.
"I wanted to surprise you."
"Well, by gosh, you have!"
"Deacon Rank's been giving me lessons every afternoon. I know how to
start it and steer it, goin' slow-like--but of course I've got a lot to
learn."
"Well, you just turn that car around an' skedaddle for home, Eva Crow,"
was his command. "What business have you got runnin' around the country
like this in the dead o' night, all alone--"
"Ain't I the Marshal of Tinkletown?" she broke in crossly. "What right
have all you men to be going off without me in this--"
"The only official thing you've done, madam, since you got to be
marshal, was to resign while you was in bed not more'n an hour ago. I
accepted your resignation, so now you go home as quick as that blamed
old rattletrap will take you."
"Besides, I saw the ornery fools go off an' leave you behind, Anderson,
and that made me mad. I run over to Deacon Rank's and got the car. Now,
you hop right in, and I'll take you wherever you want to go. Get in, I
say. I hereby officially withdraw my resignation. I'm still marshal of
this town, and if you don't do as I tell you, I'll discharge you as
deputy."
So Anderson got up beside her and pulled desperately at his
chin-whiskers, no doubt to assist the words that were struggling to
escape from his compressed lips.
After considerable back-firing, the decrepit machine began to climb the
grade. Presently Mr. Crow found his voice.
"Didn't I tell you to turn around, Eva?"
"Don't talk to me when I'm driving," said she, gripping the wheel
tightly with the fingers of death.
"You turn the car around immediately, woman. I'm your husband, an' I
order you to do as I tell ye!"
"I'll turn it around when I get good and ready," said she in a strained
voice. "Can't you see there ain't room enough to turn around in this
road?"
"Well, it don't get any wider."
"Besides, I don't know how to turn it around," she confessed.
"Why, you just back her, same as anybody else does, an' then reverse
her, an'--"
"You old goose, how can I back her when she keeps on going for'ard?"
Anderson was silent for a moment.
"Well, if I may be so bold as to ask, madam, where are you going?" he
asked, with deep sarcasm in his voice.
"You leave it to me, Anderson Crow. I know what I am doing."
They went on for about a quarter of a mile before she spoke again.
"There's only one way to turn around, and I'm taking it. How far is it
to Fisher's lane?"
"You can't turn her around in Fisher's lane, Eva. It's all a good-sized
dog c'n do to turn around in that road."
"I asked you how far is it?"
"'Bout a mile an' a half."
"I ain't going to turn around in Fisher's lane, Anderson. I'm going to
foller it straight to the Britton toll-road, and then I'm going to turn
into that and head for Tinkletown. That's how I'm going to turn this
plagued car around."
"Well, of all the--why, geminently, Eva, it's--it's nigh onto nine mile.
You shorely can't be such a fool as to--"
"I'm going to turn this car around if it takes twenty miles," she said
firmly.
There was another long, intense silence.
"I wonder if the boys have got that fire out yet?" mumbled Anderson.
"Course, there ain't no use worryin' about them robbers. They got away.
If I'd been along with that posse, we'd 'a' had 'em sure by this time,
but--oh, well, there ain't no use cryin' over spilt milk."
In due time they came to Fisher's lane. Mrs. Crow made a very sharp but
triumphant turn, and the second leg of the course was before them. Half
an hour later the valiant machine sneaked out of the narrow byway into
the Britton pike and pointed its nose homeward.
"Let her out a little, Eva," said Anderson, taking a long breath. "It's
four mile to town, an'--"
"Oh, goodness!" squeaked the driver, giving the wheel a perilous twist.
"Look! There comes a car behind us. Help! They'll run into us!
They'll--"
"Pull off to the side of the road--no, this side! Gosh! Hurry up, Eva.
They're comin' like greased lightnin'! Look out! Not too fer over!
There's a ditch alongside--"
The remainder of the sentence was lost in the wild shriek of a siren,
shriek after shriek succeeding each other as a big car, with
far-reaching acetylene lamps, roared down upon them. Like a mighty
whirlwind it swept by them, careening perilously on the sloping edge of
the road. Suddenly the grinding of brakes assailed the ears of the
thanksgiving Crows, and to their astonishment the big machine came to a
standstill a hundred yards or more down the road. Mrs. Crow promptly
"put on" the accelerator, and but for a vehement warning from her
husband would have gone full tilt into the rear end of the mighty
stranger. She managed to stop the little car when its faithful nose was
not more than two yards from the little red light ahead.
"Hey, Ford!" called out a man who had arisen in the tonneau of the big
car and was looking back at them.
"Hey, yourself!" responded Anderson.
"Is this the road to Albany?"
"No, it ain't."
"We've lost our way. Where does this road take us?"
"Into the city of Tinkletown."
Three or four voices in the car were guilty of saying things in the
presence of a lady.
"Well, where in hell are we?" demanded the spokesman.
"You ain't in hell yet, but you will be pretty soon if you keep up that
reckless driving, lemme tell you that."
"Where do we get the Albany road?" called out another voice from the
car.
"The quickest way is to go into Tinkletown an' take the first turn to
the left after--"
"But we don't want to go to Tinkletown, you damned old hayseed. We--"
"Shut up, Joe!" cried one of the men. "He's excited, Mister. His wife's
sick, and we're trying to get him home before she--before she croaks."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," cried Mrs. Crow before Anderson could speak. She
also kicked him violently on the ankle-bone. "The quickest way to get to
the Albany road," she went on, "is by cuttin' through back of Cole's
sawmill an' crossin' the river at Goose's Ferry. That's about seven
miles from here. Take the first lane to your left, half a mile further
on."
"Much obliged, ma'am."
"You're entirely welcome," said she, this time poking her elbow into
Anderson's ribs. He grunted.
"Is the road pretty good all the way?"
"It's a good dirt road."
"We're in a great hurry, ma'am. Is it safe to hit it up a little on the
dirt-road? His wife specially wanted to see him before she died."
"Perfectly safe, as long as you keep _in_ it."
"Nightie!" called the spokesman, and the big car leaped forward as if
suddenly unchained.
"Well, of all the--" began Anderson wrathfully.
"Get out and crank this car, Anderson," she broke in excitedly.
"You know as well as I do that that dirt road ends at Heffner's farm. It
don't go nowheres near the river. What ails you, Eva Crow? That poor
feller's wife--"
"Crank, I tell you!"
He got out and cranked the car, grumbling all the while. As he got back
in the seat beside her, he exploded:
"An' what's more, there's that soldiers' camp at Green Ridge. They won't
be allowed to go through it without a pass. There must be a thousand men
there. They're marchin' to some'eres in America, the feller told me this
mornin' when he come in at Jackson's to get some smokin' terbaccer. Camp
at Green Ridge fer two days, he says, an' then--Hey! Don't drive so
blamed reckless, Eva! Can't you get her under control? Put on your
brakes, woman! She'll--"
"Hush up, Anderson. You let me alone."
The little old car was sailing along at a speed that caused every joint
to rattle with joy unconfined. To Anderson's amazement, and to a certain
extent consternation, Mrs. Crow swung into the dirt-road over which the
big car was now whizzing a mile or so ahead.
"Here! Where you going?" barked Anderson, arising from the seat.
"There's going to be hell to pay before you know it, Anderson Crow,"
said she, her voice high and squeaky.
"Wha-what was that you said?" gasped her husband, flopping back in the
seat. He couldn't believe his ears.
[Illustration: _"Wha--what was that you said?" gasped her husband,
flopping back in the seat_]
"I learned that from my predecessor in office," she replied somewhat
guiltily. "I've heard you say it a million times."
"But I ain't no woman. I--"
"Set still! Do you want to fall out and break your neck?"
And Anderson sat still, dazed and helpless in the direful presence of a
woman who, to his utter horror, had gone violently insane. He began
silently but urgently to pray that the gasoline would give out, when he
would find himself in a position to reason with her, gently or forcibly
as the situation demanded. He broke into a profuse and chilly
perspiration. His wife crazy! His wife of forty years! His old comrade!
He was aroused from these horrifying, sickening reflections by a hoarse
but imperative word coming from nowhere out of the darkness of the road
ahead.
"Halt!"
Mrs. Crow put on the brakes.
"Who goes there?"
"Friends!" faltered Mrs. Crow.
"The marshal of Tinkletown," added Anderson, vastly relieved by her
singularly intelligent answer.
"Advance and give the countersign!"
"All right. What is it?" inquired Mrs. Crow.
A couple of non-commissioned officers joined the sentry at this moment.
They were but half dressed.
"What the devil's the meaning of all this?" exclaimed one of them,
planting himself beside the car and flashing a light in Mrs. Crow's
face. "Don't you hayseeds know any better than to bust into a military
camp--"
His companion interrupted him. "Keep your shirt on, Bill. Didn't I hear
the man say he was the marshal of Tinkletown?"
"No, sir, you didn't! I said _we_ are the marshal of Tinkletown. I--"
"All right, all right. Do you happen to be chasin' a gang of
joy-riders?"
"We do--we are!" cried Mrs. Crow.
"They zipped through this camp like a rifle-shot about ten minutes ago.
They've raised a lovely row. Officer of the day bawlin' everybody out,
and--Here, hold on!"
"We've just got to catch them men," pleaded Mrs. Crow.
"One of 'em's got a sick wife," added Anderson, "an' we've got to tell
him he's on the wrong road."
"Well, you just sit right where you are," spoke the top sergeant.
"They'll be back this way in a few minutes. This road ends about a mile
above here, and they'll have to come back. The sentries say they went
through here so fast they couldn't see anything but wind."
"Are you going to stop them?" cried Mrs. Crow eagerly.
"We sure are," said the other non-com. "See that bunch of men forming
over there? Well, they've got real guns and real bullets, and they're
mad, Mrs. Marshal. You can't blame 'em."
Off at one side of the road a little distance away a company of soldiers
was lining up. The sharp command of an officer rang out.
"Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Crow.
"Look here, Eva," said Anderson nervously. "I guess you'd better pull
off to one side of the road, just in case them soldiers don't stop 'em.
We're right smack in their way, an' gosh only knows where we'd land if
they smashed into us. It'd take a week to find us, we'd be so scattered
about."
"Don't be uneasy," said the top sergeant. "They'll stop, all right, all
right."
"Let me whisper something to you, Mr. Officer," said Mrs. Crow. "It's
very important."
He obligingly held up an ear, and she leaned down and spoke rapidly,
earnestly into it.
"You don't say so!" he cried out. "Excuse _me_!" And off he dashed,
calling out to his companion to follow.
A minute later the most extraordinary activity affected the group of
soldiers over the way. Commands were now issued in lowered tones, and
men marched rapidly away, dividing into squads.
"What did you say to that feller?" demanded Anderson.
"I told him who those men are, Anderson Crow."
"You couldn't. They're perfect strangers. If they wasn't, how'd they
happen to miss the road?"
"They are the very men I'm looking for," said she. "They're the
robbers,--and the men who set fire to Smock's warehouse, I'll bet
you--and everything else!"
"Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!"
An officer rushed up.
"Turn that flivver around in the middle of the road and jump out quick.
That will stop them. Let 'em smash it up if necessary. It isn't worth
more than ten dollars."
While a half-dozen men were dragging the car into position as a
barricade, Mrs. Crow exclaimed to her husband:
"That old skinflint! He said it was cheap at fifty dollars. Thank
goodness, I--"
But Anderson was hustling her out of the car. In the distance the
headlights of the bandits' car burst into view as it swung around a bend
in the road.
Soldiers everywhere! They seemed to have sprung out of the ground. On
came the big car, thundering into the trap. Bugle-calls sounded; a
couple of guns blazed into the air as the car flew past the outposts,
lights flared suddenly in the path of bewildered occupants, and loud
imperative commands rang out on the air.
Into the gantlet of guns the big car rushed. The man at the wheel bent
low and took the reckless chance of getting through.
Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless abandoned
flivver. He jerked frantically at the brakes.
[Illustration: _Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the
dauntless, abandoned flivver_]
"Halt!" shouted Anderson Crow from the top of the roadside bank.
"Surrender in the name of the Law!"
He spoke just in time.
Crash! They halted!
Deacon Rank's little car died a glorious, spectacular death. (Harry
Squires, in his account, placed it all alone in the list of
"unidentified dead.")
Three minutes after the collision, brawny soldiers were bending over the
stretched-out figures of five unconscious men.
Mr. and Mrs. Crow stood on the edge of the group, awe-struck and silent.
"They're coming around, all right," said some one at Anderson's elbow.
"He was slowing down when they struck. But there's no hope for the poor
old flivver."
Anderson found his voice--a quavering, uncertain voice--and exclaimed:
"Stand aside, men! I am the marshal of Tinkletown, an' them scoundrels
are my prisoners."
His progress was barred by a couple of soldiers. An officer approached.
"Easy, Mr. Marshal--easy, now. This is our affair, you know. I guess
you'd better come with me to the colonel. Don't be alarmed. They shan't
escape."
"They're mighty desperit characters--" began Anderson.
"Step this way, please," said the other shortly.
* * * * *
It was four o'clock in the morning when Mr. and Mrs. Crow were deposited
at their front door by the colonel's automobile. The robbers, under
heavy guard, remained in the camp, pending action on the part of the
civic authorities. They were very much alive and kicking when Anderson
left them, after a pompous harangue on the futility of crime in that
neck of the woods.
"Yes, sir, Colonel," he said, turning to the camp commander, "a crook
ain't got any more chance than a snowball in--you know--when he tries to
pull the wool over my eyes. I've been ketchin' thieves and bandits an'
the Lord knows what-all for forty years er more, an' so forth. I want to
thank you, sir, an' your brave soldier boys--an' the United States
Government also--fer the assistance you have given me tonight. I doubt
very much whether I could 'a' took 'em single-handed--handicapped as I
was by havin' a woman along. An' when you git over to France with these
brave troops of yours, I c'n tell you one thing: the Kaiser'll know it,
you bet! Never mind about the old car. It's seen its best days. An' it
ain't mine, anyhow. I'll be out here bright and early tomorrow morning
with my posse, an' we'll take them fellers off'm your hands. If you'll
excuse me now, I guess I'll be movin' along to'ards home. I've still got
a fire to put out, an' a lot of other things to do besides. I've got to
let the bank know I have recovered their money an' left it in good
hands, an' I've got to send a posse out to see if they c'n locate George
Brubaker's safe along the road anywheres. An' what's more, I've got to
repair the jail, and officially notify Deacon Rank he's had an accident
to his car."
Mrs. Crow had little to say until she was snugly in bed. Her husband was
getting into his official garments.
"I think you're foolish to go out again, Anderson," she said. "It's not
daylight yet. There won't be anybody around, this time of day, to listen
to how you captured those robbers,--and--"
"Don't you believe it," said he. "I bet you fifty cents you are the only
person in Tinkletown that's in bed at this minute. They're all _afraid_
to go to bed, Eva, an' you can't blame 'em. Nobody knows I've got them
desperadoes bound hand and foot and guarded by a whole regiment of U. S.
troops, specially deputized for the occasion."
"YOU ARE INVITED TO BE PRESENT"
Anderson Crow sat on the porch of the post-office, ruminating over the
epidemic that had assailed Tinkletown with singular virulence, and, in a
sense, enthusiasm. Not that there was anything sinister or loathsome
about the plague. Far from it, he reflected, because it had broken out
so soon after his bitter comments on the prolonged absence of the
slightest symptom, or indication that a case was even remotely probable.
And here he was, holding in his hand four fresh and unmistakable signs
that the contagion was spreading. In short, he had just received and
opened four envelopes addressed to Mr. and Mrs. A. Crow, and each
contained an invitation to a wedding.
Alf Reesling, commonly known as the town drunkard, sat on the top step,
whittling.
"No law against gittin' married, is there, constable?" he inquired.
"I don't know much about this new eugenric law," mused Mr. Crow,
gingerly pulling at his whiskers. "So fer as I know, it ain't been
violated up here."
"What's the harm, anyway? You was sayin' yourself only the other day
that it's a crime the way the young fellers in this town _never_ git
married. Just set around the parlour stoves all winter holdin' hands,
and on the front steps all summer----"
"Like as not the gosh-derned cowards heard what I said and got up spunk
enough to tackle matrimony," interrupted the venerable town marshal.
"June seems to be a good month fer weddin's everywhere else in the world
except right here in Tinkletown. The last one we had was in December,
and that was two years ago. Annie Bliss and Joe Hodges. Now we're goin'
to have 'em so thick and fast there won't be an unmarried man in the
place, first thing you know. Up to date, me and Mrs. Crow have had
seventeen printed invitations, and I don't know how many by word o'
mouth. Fellers that never even done any courtin', so fer as I know, are
gittin' married to girls that ain't had a beau since the Methodist
revival in nineteen-ten. They all got religion then, male and female,
and there's nothin' like religion to make people think they ought to
have somebody to share their repentance with."
"George Hoover's been goin' with Bessie Slayback ever sence McKinley
beat Bryan in 'ninety-six. Swore he'd never git married till we had
another democratic president. We've had one fer more'n four years and
now he says he never dreamed there'd be another one, so he didn't think
it was worth while to save up enough to git married on. You don't happen
to have a bid there fer his weddin', have you, Anderson? That would be
too much to expect, I guess."
"How old do you make out Bessie is, Alf?" asked Mr. Crow, shuffling the
envelopes until he found the one he wanted. He removed the card, printed
neatly by the _Tinkletown Banner_ Press, and squinted at it through his
spectacles.
"Forty-nine," said Alf, promptly. "Twenty-sixth of last January."
"Well, poor old George'll have to do his settin' in Sofer's store after
the third o' June," said the other, chuckling. "She has threw him over,
as my daughter would say."
"What's that?"
"Yep. Bessie's goin' to be married next Sunday to Charlie Smith."
"Fer the Lord's sake!" gasped Alf. "How c'n that be? Charlie's got a
wife an' three grown children."
"'Tain't old Charlie. It's young Charlie," said Anderson, looking hard
at the invitation. "'Charles Elias Smith, Junior,' it says."
Alf was speechless. He merely stared while the town marshal made mental
calculations.
"She's twenty-six years older'n he is, Alf."
"There must be some mistake," muttered Alf.
"Not if you're sure she's forty-nine," said Anderson. "Subtract
twenty-three from forty-nine and you have twenty-six, with nothin' to
carry. Besides, old Charlie's middle name is Bill."
"Well, I'll be dog-goned," said Alf, in a weak voice.
"And here's another'n'," said Anderson, passing a card to his companion.
Alf read: "'The son and daughter of Mrs. Ellen Euphemia Ricketts request
the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their mother to Mr.
Pietro Emanuel Cocotte, on June 1, 1917, at twelve o'clock noon at the
family residence, No. 17 Lincoln Street, Tinkletown, New York.' Well,
I'll be--" Alf interrupted himself to repeat one of the names. "Who is
this Pietro Emanuel Cocotte? I never heard of--"
"Petey Sickety," said Anderson.
"The sprinklin'-cart driver?"
"The same," said the marshal, his lips tightening. He had once tried to
arrest the young man for "disturbing the peace," and had been obliged to
call upon the crowd for help.
"Why, good gosh, he don't earn more'n ten dollars a week and he sends
half of that back to Sweden," said Alf.
"Europe," corrected Anderson, patiently. He had put up with a good deal
of ignorance on the part of Alf during a long and watchful
acquaintanceship.
"Anyhow," said the town drunkard, arising in some haste, "I guess I'll
be gittin' home. Maybe I ain't too late." He was moving off with
considerable celerity.
"Too late for what?" called out Anderson.
"That measley, good-fer-nothin' Gates boy dropped in to see my girl
Queenie last night. First time he's ever done it, but, by criminy, the
way they're speedin' things up around here lately there's no tellin'
what c'n happen in twenty-four hours."
"Hold on a minute, Alf. I'll walk along with you. Now, see here,
Alf,"--Mr. Crow laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the other's shoulder
as they ambled down the main street of the village--"no matter what
happens, you mustn't let it git the best of you. Keep straight, old
feller. Don't touch a drop o'--"
Mr. Reesling stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk. "Dog-gone it,
Anderson--leggo of my arm. Do you want everybody to think you're takin'
me to jail, or home to my poor wife, or somethin' like that? It'll be
all over town in fifteen minutes if you--"
"'Tain't my fault if you've got a reputation, Alf," retorted the town
marshal sorrowfully.
"Well, it ain't my fault either," declared Alf. "Look at me. I ain't had
a drink in twenty-three years, and what good does it do me? Every time a
stranger comes to town people point at me an' say, 'There goes the town
drunkard.' Oh, I've heerd 'em. I ain't deef. An' besides, ain't they
always preachin' at me an' about me at the Methodist an' Congregational
churches? Ain't they always tellin' the young boys that they got to be
careful er they'll be like Alf Reesling? An' what's it all come from?
Comes from the three times I got drunk back in the fall of
'ninety-three when my cousin was here from Albany fer a visit. I _had_
to entertain him, didn't I? An' there wasn't any other way to do it in
this jerk-water town, was there? An' ever since then the windbags in
this town have been prayin' fer me an' pityin' my poor wife. That's what
a feller gits fer livin' in a--"
"Now, now!" admonished Anderson soothingly. "Don't git excited, Alf. You
deserve a lot o' credit. Ain't many men, I tell you, could break off
sudden like that, an'--"
"Oh, you go to grass!" exclaimed Alf hotly.
Anderson inspected him closely. "Lemme smell your breath, Alf Reesling,"
he commanded.
"What's the use?" growled Alf. "Wouldn't last fer twenty-three years,
would it?"
"Well, you talk mighty queer," said the marshal, unconvinced. He
couldn't imagine such a thing as a strictly sober man telling him to go
to grass. He was the most important man in Tinkletown.
Further discussion was prevented by the approach of Mr. Crow's daughter,
Susie, accompanied by a tall, pink-faced young man in a resplendent
checked suit and a dazzling red necktie. They came from Brubaker's
popular drugstore and ice-cream "parlour," two doors below.
"Hello, Pop," said Susie gaily, as the couple sauntered past their
half-halting seniors.
"H'are you, Mr. Crow?" was the young man's greeting, uttered with the
convulsive earnestness of sudden embarrassment. "Fine day, ain't it?"
Mr. Crow said that it was, and then both he and Alf stopped short in
their tracks and gazed intently at the backs of the young people. Even
as they stared, a fiery redness enveloped the ears of Susie's companion.
A few steps farther on he turned his head and looked back. Something
that may be described as sheepish defiance marked that swift,
involuntary glance.
Mr. Reesling broke the silence. There was a worried, sympathetic note in
his voice.
"Got on his Sunday clothes, Anderson, and this is only Wednesday. Beats
the Dutch, don't it?"
"I wonder--" began Mr. Crow, and then closed his lips so tightly and so
abruptly that his sparse chin whiskers stuck out almost horizontally.
He started off briskly in the wake of the young people. Alf, forgetting
his own apprehensions in the face of this visible manifestation,
shuffled along a few paces behind.
Miss Crow and her companion turned the corner below and were lost to
view.
"By gosh," said Alf, suddenly increasing his speed until he came abreast
of the other; "you better hurry, Anderson. Justice Robb's in his office.
I seen his feet in the winder a little while ago."
"They surely can't be thinkin' of--" Mr. Crow did not complete the
sentence.
"Why not?" demanded Alf. "Everybody else is. And it would be just like
that Schultz boy to do it without an invitation. Ever since this war's
been goin' on them Schultzes have been blowin' about always bein'
prepared fer anything. German efficiency's what they're always throwin'
up to people. I bet he's been over to the county seat an' got a license
to--"
Anderson interrupted him with a snort. He put his hand on his right hip
pocket, where something bulged ominously, and quickened his pace.
"I been watchin' these Schultzes fer nearly a year," said he, "an' the
whole caboodle of 'em are spies."
They turned the corner. Susie and her companion were on the point of
disappearing in a doorway fifty yards down Sickle Street.
Anderson slowed up. He removed his broad felt hat with the gold cord
around it, and mopped his forehead.
"That's the tin-type gallery," he said, a little out of breath.
"Worse an' more of it," said Alf. "That's the surest sign I know of. It
never fails. Mollie an' me had our'n taken the day before we was married
an'--an'--why, it's almost the same as a certificat', Anderson."
"Now, you move on, Alf," commanded the marshal. "How many times I got to
tell you not to loiter aroun' the streets? Move on, I say."
"Aw, now, Anderson--"
"I'll have to run you in, Alf. The ord'nance is very p'ticular, an' that
notice stuck up on the telephone pole over there means you more'n
anybody else. No loiterin'."
"If you need any evidence ag'in that Schultz boy, just call on me," said
Alf generously. "I seen him commit an atrocity last week."
"What was it?"
"He give that little Griggs girl a lift in his butcher wagon," said Alf
darkly.
Anderson scowled. "The sooner we run these cussed Germans out o' town
the better off we'll be."
Alf ambled off, casting many glances over his shoulder, and the marshal
crossed the street and entered Hawkins's Undertaking and Embalming
establishment, from a window of which he had a fair view of the
"studio."
Presently Susie and young Schultz emerged, giggling and snickering over
the pink objects they held in their hands. They sauntered slowly,
shoulder to shoulder, in the direction of Main Street.
Mr. Hawkins was in the middle of one of his funniest stories when
Anderson got up and walked out hurriedly. The undertaker had a
reputation as a wit. He was the life of the community. He radiated
optimism, even when most depressingly employed. And here he was telling
Anderson Crow a brand-new story he had heard at a funeral over in
Kirkville, when up jumps his listener and "lights out" without so much
as a word. Mr. Hawkins went to the door and looked out, expecting to see
a fight or a runaway horse or a German airplane. All he saw was the
marshal not two doors away, peering intently into a show-window, while
from across the street two young people regarded him with visible
amusement. For a long time thereafter the undertaker sat in his office
and stared moodily at the row of caskets lining the opposite wall. Could
it be possible that he was losing his grip?
Miss Crow and Mr. Otto Schultz resumed their stroll after a few moments,
and the marshal, following their movements in the reflecting
show-window, waited until they were safely around the corner. Then he
retraced his steps quickly, passed the undertaker's place, and turned
into the alley beyond. Three minutes later, he entered Main Street a
block above Sickle Street, and was leaning carelessly against the Indian
tobacco sign in front of Jackson's cigar store, when his daughter and
her companion bore down upon his left flank.
Mr. Alf Reesling was a few paces behind them.
As they came within earshot, young Schultz was saying in a suspiciously
earnest manner:
"You better come in and have anodder sody, Susie."
Just then their gaze fell upon Mr. Crow.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Susie, startled.
"By cheminy!" fell from Otto's wide-open mouth. He blinked a couple of
times. "Is--is that you?" he inquired, incredulously.
"You mean _me_?" asked Anderson, with considerable asperity.
"Sure," said Otto, halting.
"Can't you see it's me?" demanded Mr. Crow.
"But you ain'd here," said the perplexed young man, getting pinker all
the time. "You're aroundt in Sickle Street."
"Alf!" called out Anderson. "Look here a minute. Is this me?" He spoke
with biting sarcasm.
Mr. Reesling regarded him with some anxiety.
"You better go home, Anderson," he said. "This sun is a derned sight
hotter'n you think."
"Didn't we see you a minute ago around in Sickle Street, Pop?" inquired
Susie. "Looking in that hair-dresser's window?"
"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't," replied Mr. Crow, shrewdly. Then,
with thinly veiled significance: "I'm purty busy lookin' into a good
many things nowadays." He favoured Otto with a penetrating glance. "Ever
sence the U. S. A. declared war on Germany, Mr. Otto Schultz."
"How aboudt that sody, Miss Susie?" said Otto, in a pained sort of
voice.
"You'd better be saving your money, Otto," she advised, with such
firmness that her father looked at her sharply.
"Oh, spiffles!" said Otto, getting still redder.
Mr. Crow was all ears. Alf Reesling burned his fingers on a match he
held too long in the hot, still air some six or eight inches from the
bowl of his pipe.
"Well, getting married is no joke," said Susie, shaking her pretty head
solemnly.
Otto took a deep breath. "You bet you it ain'd," he said, with feeling.
That seemed to give him courage. He took off his straw hat, and, as he
ran his finger around the moist "sweat-band," he blurted out: "I don't
mind if you tell your fadder, Susie. Go and tell him."
"Tell him yourself," said Susie.
"As I was saying a few minutes ago," said Otto ingenuously, "the only
obchection I had to your tellin' your fadder was that I didn't want
everybody in town to know it before I could get home and tell my mother
yet."
"Don't go away, Alf," said Mr. Crow, darkly. "I'll need you as a
witness. I hereby subpoena you as a witness to what's goin' to happen in
less'n no time. Now, Mr. Otto Schultz, spit it out."
Otto disgorged these cyclonic words:
"I'm going to get married, Mr. Crow, that's all."
Mr. Crow was equally explicit and quite as brief.
"Only over my dead body," he shouted, and then turned upon Susie. "You
go home, Susan Crow! Skedaddle! Get a move on, I say. I'll nip this
blamed German plot right in the beginning. Do you hear me, Susan--"
Susan stared at him. "Hear you?" she cried. "They can hear you up in
the graveyard. What on earth's got into you, Pop? What--"
"You'll see what's got into me, purty derned quick," said Anderson, and
pointed his long, trembling forefinger at the amazed Mr. Schultz, who
had dropped his hat and was stooping over to retrieve it without taking
his eyes from the menacing face of the speaker.
It had rolled in the direction of Mr. Alf Reesling. That gentleman
obligingly stopped it with his foot. After removing his foot, he
undertook to return the hat without stooping at all, the result being
that it sped past Otto and landed in the middle of the street some
twenty feet away.
"So you think you c'n git married without my consent, do you?" demanded
Anderson, witheringly. "You think you c'n sneak around behind my back
an'--"
"I ain'd sneakin' aroundt behind anybody's back," broke in Otto,
straightening up. "I don't know what you are talking aboud, Mr.
Crow,--and needer do you," he added gratuitously. "What for do I haf to
get your consent to get married for? I get myself's consent and my
girl's consent and my fadder's consent--Say!" His voice rose. "Don't you
think I am of age yet?"
"If you talk loud like that, I'll run you in fer disturbin' the peace,
young feller," warned Anderson, observing that a few of Tinkletown's
citizens were slowly but surely surrendering squatter's rights to
chairs and soap-boxes on the shady side of the block. "Just you keep a
civil tongue in--"
"You ain'd answered my question yet," insisted Otto, with increased
vigour.
"Here's your hat, Otto," said Alf Reesling in a conciliatory voice. He
was brushing the article with the sleeve of his coat. "A horse must'a'
stepped on it or somethin'. I never see--"
"Ain'd I of age, Mr. Crow?" bellowed Otto. "Didn't I vote for you at the
last--"
"That ain't the question," interrupted Anderson sharply. "The question
is, is the girl of age?" He favoured his sixteen-year-old daughter with
a fiery glance.
Otto Schultz's broad, flat face became strangely pinched. There was
something positively apoplectic in the hue that spread over it.
"Oh, Pop!" shrieked Susie, a peal of laughter bursting from her lips.
Instantly, however, her two hands were pressed to her mouth, stifling
the outburst.
Otto gave her a hurt, surprised--and unmistakably horrified--look. Then
a silly grin struggled into existence.
"Maybe she don'd tell the truth aboud her age yet, Mr. Crow," he said
huskily. "Women always lie aboud their ages. Maybe she lie aboud hers."
Anderson flared. "Don't you dare say my daughter lies about her age--or
anything else," he roared.
"Whose daughter?" gasped Otto.
"Mine!"
"But she ain'd your daughter."
"_What!_ Well, of all the--"
Words failed Mr. Crow. He looked helplessly, appealingly at Alf
Reesling, as if for support.
[Illustration: _Words failed Mr. Crow_]
Mr. Reesling rose to the occasion.
"Do you mean to insinuate, Otto Schultz, that--" he began as he started
to remove his coat.
By this time Susie felt it was safe to trust herself to speech. She
removed her hands from her mouth and cried out:
"He isn't talking about me, Pop," she gasped. "It's Gertie Bumbelburg."
"Sure," said Otto hastily.
Mr. Crow still being speechless, Alf suspended his belligerent
preparations, and cocking one eye calculatingly, settled the matter of
Miss Bumbelburg's age with exasperating accuracy.
"Gertie's a little past forty-two," he announced. "Born in March, 1875,
just back o' where Sid Martin's feed-store used to be."
The marshal had recovered his composure.
"That's sufficient," he said, accepting Alf s testimony with a profound
air of dignity. "There ain't no law against anybody marryin' a woman old
enough to be his mother."
"Everybody in town give Gertie up long ago," added Alf, amiably. "Only
goes to show that while there's life there's hope. I'd 'a' swore she
was on the shelf fer good. How'd you happen to pick her, Otto?"
"She's all right," growled Otto uncomfortably. Then he added, with
considerable acerbity: "I'm goin' to tell her you said she was
forty-two, Alf Reesling."
"Well, ain't she?" demanded Alf, bristling.
"No, she ain'd," replied Otto. "She's twendy-nine."
"Come, come," put in Anderson sternly. "None o' this now! Move on, Alf!
No scrappin' on the public thoroughfares o' Tinkletown. You're gettin'
more and more rambunctious every day, Alf."
"He ought to be ashamed of himself, speakin' by a lady when he knows
he's in such a condition," said Otto, turning from the unfortunate Alf
to Miss Crow. "Ain'd that so, Susie?"
"Don't answer, Susie," said Mr. Crow, quickly. "This is no time to side
in with Germany."
"I'm as good an American as you are already," cried Otto, goaded beyond
endurance.
Mr. Crow smiled tolerantly. "Git out! Let's hear you say 'vinegar'."
"Winegar," said Otto triumphantly. "I can say it as good as you can
yet."
Anderson nudged Mr. Reesling, and chuckled.
"That's the way to spot 'em," he said significantly.
"There's a better way than that," said Alf.
"How's that?"
Alf whispered in the marshal's ear.
Anderson shook his head. "But where are you goin' to get the weenywurst,
Alf?"
"Come on, Otto," said Susie, impatiently. "I have an engagement."
They moved off rapidly, passing the ice-cream parlour without
hesitating.
"D'you hear that?" said Alf, after a moment. "She said she was engaged."
That night Anderson Crow, town marshal, superintendent of streets, chief
of the fire department, post-commander of the G. A. R., truant officer,
dog-catcher, member of the American Horse-thief Detective Association,
member of the Universal Detective Bureau, chairman of Tinkletown
Battlefield Society, etc., lay awake until nearly nine o'clock, seeking
a solution to the astonishing problem that confronted Tinkletown and its
environs.
* * * * *
Late reports, received by telephone just before retiring, ran the number
of prospective marriages up to twenty-eight. His daughters, Susie and
Caroline--the latter the eldest of a family of six and secretly
approaching the age of thirty-two--confided to him that they had had
eleven and three proposals respectively. A singular feature of the craze
was the unanimity of impulse affecting men between the ages of twenty
and thirty, and the utter absence of concentration on the part of the
applicants. It was of record that some of them proposed to as many as
five or six young women before being finally accepted. Rashness appeared
to be the watchword. The matrimonial stampede swept caution and
consequences into a general heap, and delivered a community of the
backwardness that threatened to become a menace to posterity.
As Anderson Crow lay in his bed, he tried to enumerate on his fingers
the young men who remained unpledged. Starting with his thumb he got as
far as the third finger of his left hand and then, being sleepy and the
effort a trying one, he lost track of those already counted and had to
begin all over again, with the maddening result that he could go no
further than the second finger. One of the eligibles had slipped his
mind completely. The whole situation was harrowing.
"Fer instance," he ruminated aloud, oblivious of the fact that his wife
was sound asleep, "what is a feller like Newt Blossom goin' to keep a
wife on, I'd like to know. He c'n hardly keep himself in chewin'
tobaccer as it is, an' as fer the other necessities of life he wouldn't
have any of 'em if his mother wasn't such a dern' fool about him. The
idee of him tryin' to get our Susie to marry him--an' Carrie too, fer
that matter--w'y, I git in a cold sweat every time I think of it."
He shook his wife vigorously.
"Say, Ma," he said, yawning, "I just thought o' somethin' I want you to
remember in the mornin'. Wake up."
"All right," she mumbled, sleepily. "What is it?"
But Mr. Crow was now fast asleep himself.
* * * * *
Early the next morning he entered the kitchen, where he found Caroline
helping her mother with the breakfast.
Mrs. Crow paused in the act of paring slices from a side of bacon. She
eyed her husband inimically.
"See here, Anderson, you just got to put a stop to all this
foolishness."
"Don't bother me. Can't you see I'm thinkin'?" said he.
"Well, it's time you did somethin' more than think. That Smathers boy
was here about ten minutes ago, red as a beet, askin' fer Susie. Carrie
told him she wasn't up yet, and what do you think the little
whipper-snapper said?"
Anderson blinked, and shook his head.
"He said, 'Well, I guess you'll do, Caroline. Would you mind steppin'
outside fer a couple of minutes? I got somethin' I want to say to you in
private.'"
Caroline sat down and laughed unrestrainedly.
"Well, by geminy crickets!" gasped Anderson, aghast. Then he added
anxiously: "You--you didn't go an' do anything foolish, did you,
Carrie?"
"Not unless you'd call throwing a pail of cold water on him foolish,"
said Carrie, wiping her eyes.
"Somethin's got to be done, Anderson," said his wife, compressing her
lips.
Susie came in at that juncture. She was the apple of Anderson's eye--the
prettiest girl in town. Mr. Crow hurried to the kitchen door.
"Go back upstairs," he ordered, casting a swift, uneasy glance around
the back yard.
"What's the matter, Pop?"
Mr. Crow did not respond. His keen, roving eye had descried a motionless
figure at the mouth of the alley.
Caroline explained.
"Can you beat it?" cried Susie, inelegantly, but with a very proper
scorn. "I told him yesterday he ought to be ashamed of himself, trying
to coax Fanny Burns away from Ed Foster."
"Ed Foster?" exclaimed Mr. Crow sharply, turning from the doorway. "Why,
he's not goin' to be married till after the war, an' that's a long ways
off. Ed's around in his uniform an' says the National Guard's likely to
be called 'most any day now. He--"
"That's one of the arguments Joe Smathers put up to Fanny," said his
youngest daughter. "He said maybe the war would last five years, and he
thought she was a fool to wait that long. What's more, he said, if Ed
ever does get to France he's likely to be killed--or fatally
wounded--and then where would she be?"
Anderson suddenly lifted his right leg and slapped it with great force.
"By the great Jehoshaphat!" he shouted. "I've got it! I've solved the
whole derned mystery. Come to me like a flash. Of all the low-down,
cowardly--"
Mrs. Crow interrupted him. "Do you mean to say, Anderson Crow, that you
never suspected what's got into all these gay Lotharios?"
He was instantly on his guard. "What are you talkin' about, Ma?" he
demanded querulously. "You surely can't mean to insinuate that I--"
"What is this mystery you've just been solvin'?" she asked relentlessly.
He met this with a calm intolerance.
"Nothin' much. Just simply got to the bottom of a German plot to stuff
the young men of America so full of weddin' cake they won't be able to
git into the trenches, that's all."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Crow, who, as a dutiful wife, never failed
to be impressed by her husband's belated discoveries.
"Eggin' our boys into gittin' married, so's they can't be drafted," went
on Anderson, expanding with his new-found idea. "It's a general
pro-German plot--world-wide, as the sayin' is. Now, I'll tell you
somethin' else. Shut the door, Susie. Like as not some spy's listenin'
outside this very minute. They know I'm onto 'em." He lowered his
voice. "You'd be surprised if I was to tell you that the whole derned
plot originated right here in Tinkletown, wouldn't you? Well, that's
exactly what I'm goin' to tell you. Started right here and spread from
one end of the land to the other. Sort of headquarters here. I don't
know as there is any more prominent or influential Germans in the whole
United States than Adolph Schultz, the butcher on Main Street, and
Heiney Wimpelmeyer, the tanyard man, and Ben Olson, the contractor,
and--"
"Ben Olson is a Swede," interrupted Carrie.
"He _claims_ to be a Swede," said her father severely. "Don't try to
tell me anything, Carrie. I guess I know what I'm talkin' about." He
paused to mentally repair the break in his chain of thought.
"Um--ah--what _wuz_ I talkin' about?"
"About the Swedes," said Carrie, snickering.
"Breakfast's ready, Pa," said Mrs. Crow. "Call the boys, Susie."
"How are you going to stop it, Pop?" inquired Susie, after they were all
seated.
"Never you mind," said he. "I've got the thing all worked out. I'll stop
it, all right."
"You can't keep people from gittin' married, Anderson, if they're set on
doin' it," said his wife.
"You bet if I was old enough I wouldn't be gittin' married," said
fourteen-year-old Hiram, in a somewhat ambiguous burst of patriotism.
Immediately after breakfast Mr. Crow set out for the town hall. He was
deep in thought. His whiskers were elevated to an almost unprecedented
level, so tightly was his jaw set. He had made up his mind to preserve
the honour of Tinkletown. Meeting Alf Reesling in front of the post
office, he unburdened himself in a flood of indignation that left the
town drunkard soberer than he had been in years, despite his vaunted
abstemiousness.
"But you can't slap all the Germans in jail, Anderson," protested Alf.
"In the first place, it ain't legal, and in the second place--in the
second place--" He paused and scratched his head, evidently to some
purpose, for suddenly his face cleared. "In the second place, the jail
ain't big enough."
"That ain't my fault," said the marshal grimly. "We've got to nip this
thing in the bud if we have to--"
"What proof have you got that the Germans are back of all this? Got to
have proof, you know."
"Gosh a'mighty, Alf, ain't you got any sense at all? What are all these
fellers gittin' married for if there ain't somethin' behind it? They
ain't--"
"They're gittin' married because every blamed one of 'em is a slacker,"
said Alf forcibly.
"A what?"
"Slacker. They don't want to fight, that's what it means."
Anderson pondered. He tugged at his whiskers.
"They don't want to fight _who_?" he demanded abruptly.
"W'y--w'y--nobody," said Alf.
"They don't want to fight the _Germans_," said Mr. Crow triumphantly.
"That ought to settle the matter, Alf. What better proof do you want
than that? That shows the Germans are back of the whole infernal plot.
They are corruptin' our young men. Eggin' 'em into gittin' married
so's--"
"Well," said Alf, "there's only one way to put a stop to that. You got
to appeal to the women and girls of this here town. You simply got to
talk to 'em like a Dutch uncle, Anderson. These boys of our'n have just
got to remain single fer the duration of the war."
"That puts an idee in my head," said Anderson. "S'posin' I put up an
official notice from Washin'ton that all marriages contracted before the
draft are fer the duration of the war only. How's that?"
"Thunderation! No! That's just what the boys would like better'n
anything."
"But it ain't what the _girls_ would like, it is?"
Mr. Reesling was silent for a long time, letting the idea crystallize,
so to speak.
"Supposin' they hear about it in Washin'ton," said he doubtfully, but
still dazzled by the thought.
"President Wilson don't know this town's on the map," said Anderson, a
most surprising admission for him. "An' even if he does hear about it,
he'll back me up, you c'n bet your boots on that--even if I am a
Republican. Come on, Alf; let's step around to the _Banner_ printin'
office."
Shortly before noon a hastily printed poster, still damp and smelling of
ink, appeared on the bulletin-board in front of the town hall. A few
minutes later a similar decoration marred the facade of the Fairbanks
scales in front of Higgins's Feed Store, and still another loomed up on
the telephone pole in front of the post office.
With the help of the editor, who was above all things an enterprising
citizen and a patriot, the "official notice" was drafted, doctored and
approved in the dingy composing-room of the _Tinkletown Banner_. The
lone compositor, with a bucket of paste, sallied forth and, under the
critical eye of the town marshal, "stuck up" the poster in places where
no one could help seeing it.
The notice read:
OFFICIAL!!!
War Proclamation No. 7!!!
The Undersigned by Virtue of the Authority
vested in him by his fellowmen hereby
gives
DUE NOTICE
to the citizens of Tinkletown that the
President of These United States
and
Congress in solemn conclave
have uttered the following decree, to become
effective immediately upon publication
thereof:
All marriages entered into by Male Citizens of the United
States of America between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one
on and after this date, the 21st of May, 1917, shall be in
force for the duration of the War only. This measure is taken
at this time for the purpose of making things as easy as
possible for our young heroes, who, in the grave hour of battle,
must not be worried with thoughts of the future.
Men so marrying shall have precedence over all others in the
SELECTIVE DRAFT
for the National Army Immediately to
be Called.
Such men shall be the first called to the
Colours.
TEMPORARY WIDOWS
of any and all such Soldiers shall not be
entitled to
PENSIONS
in the Event of the Death of said Provisional Husbands,
and shall revert upon notice thereof, to the State of
Single-blessedness from which they were
LURED!!!
By order of
ANDERSON CROW,
Marshal.
As the first of these desolating posters was put in place, the Rev. Mr.
Maltby, pastor of the Congregational Church, happened to be passing the
town hall. He halted and, in astonishment, read the notice.
[Illustration: _The Rev. Mr. Maltby, pastor of the Congregational
Church, happened to be passing the town hall_]
"My dear man," said he to Mr. Crow, "this cannot be true."
"Does seem a little high-handed, don't it?" said Anderson guiltily.
"Can it be possible that the President has issued such a
revolutionary--"
"Listen a minute, Mr. Maltby," said the marshal, taking him by the arm
and furtively glancing over his own shoulder. "It ain't true--not a
derned word of it. Now, wait a minute. Don't fly off the--Mornin',
Father Maloney, mornin' to you."
The sunny-faced Catholic priest had joined them. He adjusted his
spectacles and peered at the notice.
"Well, well, bless my soul!" he exclaimed, staring blankly at the
Congregationalist. "What's all this I see?"
"Come inside," said Anderson hastily. "Alf, if you happen to see Mr.
Downs, the Methodist preacher, and Justice Robb, bring 'em here right
away, will you?"
"Shall I go ahead and paste any more of these, Anderson?" inquired the
compositor, shifting his quid.
"Certainly," said the marshal.
Later on the marshal left the town hall, followed by several smiling
gentlemen of the cloth, Justice Robb, and the editor of the _Banner_.
"Bless your heart, Marshal Crow," said Father Maloney, "we're with ye to
a man. It's a glorious lie ye're telling, and ye've got the church solid
behind ye."
"Naturally _we_ shall not be obliged to falsify," said the Rev. Mr.
Maltby, still a bit shaken. "We can simply say that the matter is news
to us. Eh, brothers?"
"Sure," said Father Maloney. "We can do that much for the good of the
country. Indeed, if I'm closely pressed I may go as far as to say that I
caught a glimpse of the official despatch from Washington. This is no
time to deny the President, gentlemen, no matter who issues his
proclamation." He added the last with a whimsical smile and a wink that
rather shocked his Methodist brother. "Especially when the whole matter
is vouched for by our respected town marshal, who, to my certain
knowledge, possesses the veracity of a George Washington. Have you ever
been caught chopping down a cherry tree, Mr. Marshal?"
"No, _sir_," said Anderson promptly.
Father Maloney beamed. "There ye are!" he exclaimed heartily. "I told ye
so. The epitome of veracity. There isn't another man of his age in
America who would have answered no to that question, with no one in a
position to contradict him."
The editor had his notebook. "Gentlemen, would you object to being
interviewed on this important message from Washington? Giving your views
on the situation and anything else--"
"You may say for me, Harry, that I warmly indorse the President of the
United States in any act which he may deem wise and expedient," said
Rev. Mr. Maltby, rising nobly to the occasion. Father Maloney and Rev.
Mr. Downs promptly acquiesced.
"And also that I am prepared to issue marriage certificates for the
duration of the war to all females so desirin' 'em," said Justice of the
Peace Robb. "It ain't cuttin' me out of any fees," he went on,
addressing the marshal. "Fer as I c'n make out, they all want to git
married fer nothin'."
"I will be very careful how I word your remarks, gentlemen," said Editor
Squires, putting up his notebook. "Now, I'll start out and interview a
few of the prospective brides. It ought to make good reading."
Long before nightfall the sleepy village of Tinkletown was in a state of
agitation unsurpassed by anything within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant.... Along about supper time one could have heard animated
arguments rising above the clear stillness of the air, penetrating even
to the heaven which was called upon to witness the unswerving fidelity
of two opposing sexes. There was a distinct difference, however, in the
duration of this professed fidelity. Masculine voices pleaded for the
immediate justification of undying constancy, while those of a feminine
quality preferred a prolongation of the exquisite agony of suspense. In
short, the brides-elect were obdurate. They insisted on waiting, even to
the end of time, for the realization of their fondest, dearest hopes.
Several heartbroken gentlemen, preferring anything to procrastination,
threatened to shoot themselves.
[Illustration: _Several heartbroken gentlemen threatened to shoot
themselves_]
"What's the sense of doing that?" argued one middle-aged widow of a
practical turn of mind. "You can save funeral expenses by letting the
Germans do it for you."
The next day the merchants of Tinkletown--notably the Five and Ten Cent
Store and Fisher's Queensware Store--did a thriving business. From one
end of the town to the other came people returning presents that
fortunately had not been delivered, and others asking to have their
accounts credited with presents already received.
Of the twenty-odd weddings announced for the week ending June 3, 1917,
only one took place.
Mr. Otto Schultz was married on Saturday to Miss Bumbelburg. He was the
only candidate in town who was worth suing for breach of promise. Miss
Bumbelburg, having waited many years for her chance, was not to be
frightened by a Presidential proclamation. The duration of the war meant
nothing to her. She had unlimited faith in the Kaiser. When the war was
over he would come over to the United States and revoke all the silly
old laws. And she was so positive about it that, after a rather heated
interview in the home of Mr. Schultz, senior, that gentleman admitted it
would be cheaper for her to come and live with them after the wedding
than to present her with the thousand dollars she demanded in case Otto
preferred war to peace.
Mr. Crow, on the 5th of June, strode proudly, efficiently, up and down
Main Street, always stopping at the registration booth to slap former
fiances on the back and encourage them with such remarks as this:
"That's right, son. If you've _got_ to fight, fight for your country."
To Mr. Alf Reesling he confided:
"I tell you what, Alf, when this here Kaiser comes up ag'inst me he
strikes a snag. He couldn't 'a' started his plot in a worse place than
here in Tinkletown. Gosh, with all you hear about German efficiency,
you'd 'a' thought he'd 'a' knowed better, wouldn't you?"
THE PERFECT END OF A DAY
ANDERSON CROW GETS ONE ON THE KAISER
A long, low-lying bank of almost inky-black clouds hung over a blood-red
horizon. The sun of a warm, drowsy September day was going to bed beyond
the scallop of hills.
Suddenly the red in the sky, as if fanned by an angry wind, blazed into
a rigid flame; catching the base of the coal-black cloud it turned its
edges into fire; and as the flame burnt itself out, the rich yellow of
gold came to glorify the triumphant cloud. The nether edge seemed to dip
into a lake, the shores of which were molten gold and upon whose surface
craft of ever-changing colours lay moored for the coming night.
Anderson Crow, Marshal of Tinkletown, leaned upon his front-yard fence
and listened to the rhapsodic comments of Miss Sue Becker on the passing
panorama. Miss Becker, who had contributed several poems to the columns
of the Tinkletown _Banner_, and more than once had exhibited encouraging
letters from the editors of _McClure's_, _Scribner's_, _Harper's_, and
other magazines, was always worth listening to, for, as every one knows,
she was the first, and, so far as revealed, the only literary genius
ever created within the precincts of Tinkletown.
"You'll have to write a piece about it, Sue," said Anderson, shifting
his spare frame slightly.
"No mortal pen, Mr. Crow, could do justice to the grandeur, the
overpowering splendour of that vista," said she.
Anderson took another look at the sunset,--a more or less stealthy one,
it must be confessed, out of the corner of his eye. Sunsets were not
much in his line.
"It's a great vister," he acknowledged. "I don't know as I can think of
a word that will rhyme with it, though."
"There is such a thing as blank verse, Mr. Crow," said Miss Becker,
smiling in a most superior way.
Mr. Crow was thinking. "Blister wouldn't be bad," he announced.
"Something about the vister causin' a blister. I don't know as you are
aware of the fact, Sue, but I wrote consider'ble poetry when I was a
young feller. Mrs. Crow's got 'em all tied up in a pink ribbon. It's a
mighty funny thing that she won't even show 'em to anybody."
"Oh, but they are sacred," said Miss Becker feelingly, as she looked
over the rims of her spectacles at a spot in the sky some forty-five
degrees above the steeple of the Congregational Church down the street.
"I don't know as I meant 'em to be sacred at the time," said he; "but
there wasn't anything in 'em that was unfittin' for a young lady to
read."
"You don't understand. What could be more sacred than the outpourings
of love? What more--"
"'Course it was a good many years ago," Mr. Crow was quick to explain.
"Love's young dream," chided Miss Becker coyly.
Mr. Crow twisted his sparse grey beard with unusual tenderness. "Beats
all, don't it, Sue, what a poet'll do when he's tryin' to raise a
moustache?"
"I am sure I don't know," said Miss Becker stiffly.
"Speakin' about sunsets," said he hastily, after a quick glance at her
shaded upper lip, "how's your pa? I heard he had a sinkin' spell
yestiday."
"He's better." A moment later, with fine scorn: "His sun hasn't set yet,
Mr. Crow."
"Beats all how he hangs on, don't it? Eighty-seven last birthday, an'
spry as a man o' fifty up to--" He broke off to devote his attention to
a couple of strangers farther down the tree-lined street: two men who
approached slowly on the plank sidewalk, pausing every now and then to
peer inquiringly at the front doors of houses along the way.
Miss Sue Becker, whose back was toward the strangers, allowed her poetic
mind to resume its interest in the sunset.
"Golden cloudlets float upon a coral--What did you say, Mr. Crow?"
"Ever see 'em before, Sue?"
"Hundreds of times. They remind me of the daintiest, fleeciest puffs
of--"
"I'm talkin' about those men comin' up the street," said the old town
marshal sharply.
Miss Becker abandoned the transient sunset for something more durable.
Forty-odd summers had passed over her head.
For one professedly indifferent to the opposite sex, Miss Becker went
far toward dislocating her neck when Anderson Crow mentioned the
approach of a couple of strange men.
"I've never seen either of them before, Mr. Crow," she said, a little
jump in her voice.
"That settles it," said Anderson, putting on his spectacles.
"Settles what?"
"Proves they ain't been in Tinkletown more'n twenty minutes," he
replied, much too promptly to suit Miss Becker, who favoured him with a
look he wouldn't have forgotten in a long time if he had had eyes in the
back of his head. "They must be lookin' for some one," he went on,
squinting narrowly. "Good-bye, Sue. See you tomorrer, I suppose."
"I'm not going yet, Mr. Crow," she said, moving a little closer to the
fence. "You don't suppose I'm going to let those men pursue me all the
way home, do you?"
"They don't look like kidnappers," he said. "Besides, it ain't dark
enough yet."
"Just what do you mean by that, Anderson Crow?" she snapped.
"What do I mean by what?" he inquired in some surprise.
"By what you just said."
"I mean you're perfectly safe as long as it's daylight," he retorted.
"What else could I mean?"
The two strangers were quite near by this time--near enough, in fact, to
cause Miss Becker to lower her voice as she said:
"They're awfully nice looking gentlemen, ain't they?"
Evidently Mr. Crow's explanation had satisfied her, for she was smiling
with considerable vivacity as she made the remark. Up to that instant
she had neglected her back hair. Now she gracefully, lingeringly
fingered it to see if it was properly in place. In doing so, she managed
to drop her parasol.
To her chagrin, Marshal Crow took that occasion to behave in a most
incredible manner. It is quite probable that he forgot himself. In any
case, he picked up the parasol and returned it to her, snatching it, in
fact, almost from beneath the foot of the nearest stranger.
"Oh, thank you--thank you kindly, Mr. Crow," she giggled, and proceeded
to let it slip out of her fingers again. "Oh, how stupid! How perfectly
clumsy--"
"Did I hear you addressed as Mr. Crow?" inquired the foremost of the two
strangers, halting abruptly. He was a tall, florid man of forty or
thereabouts, with a deep and not unpleasant voice. His companion was
also tall but very gaunt and sallow. He wore huge round spectacles,
hooked over his ears. Both were well dressed, one in grey flannel, the
other in blue serge.
"You did," said the town marshal, straightening up. "You dropped your
umbrell' ag'in, Sue," he added. "Yes, sir, my name's Crow."
Miss Becker waited a few seconds and then picked up the parasol.
"The celebrated Anderson Crow?" asked the man with the glasses, opening
his eyes a little wider.
[Illustration: _"The celebrated Anderson Crow?" asked the man with the
glasses_]
Mr. Crow suddenly remembered that he was in his shirt-sleeves. His faded
blue sack-coat--"undress," he called it--hung limp and neglected on the
gate-post.
"More or less," he admitted, wishing to goodness he had on his best pair
of "galluses" instead of the ones he was wearing.
"Marshal of Tinkletown, I believe?" said the florid stranger, raising
his eyebrows slightly.
"Excuse me," said Anderson, conscious of a certain disparaging note in
the speaker's voice, which he quite naturally laid to the "galluses."
Without turning his back toward them he retrieved his coat from the
gate-post, remembering in time that those "plaguey" suspenders had
played him false that day and Alf Reesling had volunteered to "tie a
knot in 'em," somewhere in the back. "I could fine myself five dollars
fer goin' without my uniform," said he, as he slipped an arm into one
sleeve. "It's one of my hide-boundest rules," and his other arm went
in--not without a slight twinge, for he had been experiencing a touch of
rheumatism in that shoulder. "Yes, sir, I'm the Marshal o' Tinkletown,"
he added, indicating the bright nickel star that gleamed resplendent
among an assortment of glittering and impressive dangling emblems.
The man with the spectacles peered intently at the collection on Mr.
Crow's breast.
"You appear to be almost everything else as well, Mr. Crow," said he,
respectfully.
"Well, I guess I'll have to be going," put in Miss Becker at this
juncture. "Give my love to the girls, Mr. Crow."
She moved off up the board-walk, her back as stiff as a ramrod. Any one
with half an eye could see that she was resolved not to drop the parasol
again. No savage warrior on battle bent ever gripped his club with
greater determination.
"So long," was all that Marshal Crow could spare the time to say. "Yes
sir," he went on, making a fine show of stifling a yawn, "yes, sir, I've
had a few triflin' honours in my day. You gentlemen lookin' fer any one
in partic'lar?"
"Not now," said the florid one. "We've found him."
The spectacled man had his nose quite close to Mr. Crow's badges. He
read them off, in the voice and manner of one tremendously impressed.
"Grand Army of the Republic. Sons of the American Revolution. Sons of
Veterans. Tinkletown Battlefield Association. New York Imperial
Detective Association. Bramble County Horse-Thief Detective Association.
Chief of Fire Department. And what, may I ask, is the little round
button at the top?"
The marshal was astonished. "Don't you know what that is?"
"It doesn't appear to have any lettering--"
"It don't have to have any. That's an American Red Cross button."
"So it is,--so it is," cried the other hastily. "How stupid of me."
"And this one on the other lapel is a Liberty Loan button,--one hundred
dollars is what it represents, if anybody should ast you."
"I recognized it at once, sir. I have one of my own." He raised his hand
to his own lapel. "Why, hang it all, I forgot to remove it from my other
coat this morning."
"Well," said Anderson drily, "there 'pears to be some advantage in
havin' only one coat."
"Mr. Marshal," cut in the larger man brusquely, "we came to see you in
regard to a matter of great importance--and, I may add, privacy. Having
heard of your reputation for cleverness and infallibility--"
"As everybody in the land has heard," put in the other.
"--we desire your co-operation in an undertaking of considerable
magnitude. Quite frankly, I do not see how we can succeed without your
valuable assistance. You--"
"Hold on! If you're tryin' to get me to subscribe to a set of books,
so's my name at the head of the list will drag other suckers into--"
"Not at all, sir--not at all. We are not book-agents, Mr. Marshal."
"Well, what are ye?"
"Metallurgists," said the florid one.
"I see, I see," said Anderson, who didn't see at all. "You started off
just like a book-agent, er a lightnin'-rod salesman."
"My name is Bacon,--George Washington Bacon,--and my friend bears an
even nobler monicker, if that be possible. He is Abraham Lincoln
Bonaparte--a direct descendant of both of those illustrious gentlemen."
"You don't say! I didn't know Lincoln was any connection of
Bonaparte's."
"It isn't generally known," the descendant informed him, with becoming
modesty.
"Well, I'm seventy-three years old an' I never heard--"
"Seventy-three!" gasped Mr. Bonaparte, incredulously. "I don't believe
it. You can't be more than fifty, Mr. Crow."
"Do you suppose I fought in the Union Army before I was born?" demanded
Mr. Crow. "Where'd I get this G. A. R. badge, lemme ast you? An' you
don't think the citizens of this here town would elect a ten-year-old
boy to the responsible position of town marshal, do you? Why, gosh snap
it, I been Marshal o' Tinkletown fer forty years--skippin' two years
back in the nineties when I retired in favour of Ed Higgins, owin' to a
misunderstandin' concernin' my health--an'--"
"It is incredible, sir. You are the youngest-looking man for your years
I've ever seen. But we are digressing. Proceed, Mr. Bacon. Pardon the
interruption."
Marshal Crow had drawn himself up to his full height,--a good six
feet,--and, expanding under the influence of a just pride, his chest
came perilously near to dislodging a couple of brass buttons. His keen
little grey eyes snapped brightly in their deep sockets; his sparse chin
whiskers, responding to the occasion, bristled noticeably. Employing his
thumb and forefinger, he first gave his beard a short caress, after
which he drew it safely out of line and expectorated thinly between his
teeth with such astounding accuracy that both of the strangers stared.
His objective was a narrow slit in the tree-box across the sidewalk.
"I couldn't do that in a thousand years," said Mr. Bacon, deeply
impressed.
"You could do it in half that time if you lived in Tinkletown," was
Anderson's cryptic return. "You ought to see Ed Higgins. He's our
champeen. His specialty is knot-holes. Ed c'n hit--"
"Are you interested in metallurgy, Mr. Crow?" broke in Mr. Bacon, a
little rudely.
Anderson pondered a few seconds, squinting at the tree-tops. The two
strangers waited his reply with evident concern.
"Sometimes I am, an' sometimes I ain't," said he at last, very
seriously. He even went so far as to shake his head slowly, as if to
emphasize the fact that he had made a life-long study of the subject and
had not been able to arrive at a definite conclusion.
"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Bonaparte. "That proves, Mr. Crow, that you are a
man of very great discernment, very great discernment indeed."
Mr. Crow brightened perceptibly. "I have to know a little of everything
in my line of work, Mr. Lincoln."
Mr. Bonaparte made no attempt to correct him. As a matter of fact, for a
moment or two he was in some doubt himself; it was only after indulging
in a hasty bit of mental jugglery that he decided his friend couldn't
possibly have introduced him as Bonaparte Abraham Lincoln, or Abraham
Bonaparte Lincoln. He wished, however, that he had paid a little closer
attention when Mr. George Washington Bacon arranged his names for him.
"We should like to have a few minutes' private conversation with you,
Mr. Marshal," said Bacon, lowering his voice.
"Fire away, gents."
"I--ahem!--I said private, Mr. Crow."
"Well, if it's anything you don't want the birds to hear, I guess we'd
better go up to the house. If you don't mind that woodpecker up yander
an' them two sparrers out there in the road, I guess this is about as
private a place as you'll find in Tinkletown."
"Haven't you--an office, Mr. Crow?" demanded Mr. Bacon.
"Yes, but it ain't private. Whenever I've got anything private to 'tend
to--er even _think_ about--I allus go out in the middle of the street.
Shoot ahead; nobody'll hear you."
"It will take some little time," explained Mr. Bonaparte, anxiously.
"Have you had your dinner?"
Anderson looked at him keenly. "What's that got to do with it?"
"Mr. Bonaparte means supper," explained Mr. Bacon. "He is a bit excited,
Mr. Crow."
"He _must_ be," agreed Anderson, glancing at his watch. "Half-past six.
Go ahead. We won't be interrupted now till it's time to go to bed."
The two strangers in Tinkletown drew still closer--so close, indeed,
that the town marshal, having had his pocket picked once or twice at the
County Fair, fell back a little from the fence.
"You must be careful to show no sign of surprise, Mr. Crow," said Bacon.
"What I am about to say to you may startle you, but you--"
Anderson reassured him with a gesture.
"Perceed," he said.
Whereupon the spokesman, Mr. Bacon, did a tale unfold that caused the
town marshal to lie awake nearly all night and to pop out of bed the
next morning fully an hour earlier than usual. For the time being,
however, he succeeded so admirably in simulating indifference that the
men themselves were not only surprised but a trifle disturbed. He wasn't
conducting himself at all as they had expected. At the conclusion of
this serious fifteen minutes' recital,--rendered into paragraphs by
Anderson's frequent interruptions,--the eager Mr. Bonaparte exclaimed:
"Well, Mr. Crow, doesn't it completely bowl you over?"
"What's that? Bowl me over? I should say not! Why, I knowed fer I can't
tell you how long that there's gold up yander in my piece of timberland
on Crow's Mountain. Knowed it ever since I was a boy."
His hearers blinked rapidly for a few seconds.
"Really?" murmured Mr. Bacon.
"Do you mean to say there actually _is_ gold--" began Mr. Bonaparte, but
he got no farther. Whether accidentally or otherwise, Mr. Bacon's foot
came sharply into contact with the speaker's shin, and the question
terminated in a pained look of surprise, directed with some intensity
and a great deal of fortitude at nothing in particular.
"Well, you _are_ a wonder, Mr. Crow," said Mr. Bacon hastily. "I am
immensely relieved that you _do_ know of its existence. It simplifies
matters tremendously. It has been there all the time and you've never
known just how to go about getting it out of the ground--isn't that the
case, Mr. Crow?"
"Exactly," said Mr. Crow.
Mr. Bacon shot a significant look at Mr. Bonaparte, and that worthy put
his hand suddenly to his mouth.
"Well, that's what we're here for, Mr. Crow--to get that gold out of the
earth. If our estimates are correct--or, I should say, if our
investigations establish the fact that it is a real vein and not merely
a little pocket, there ought to be a million dollars in that piece of
land of yours. Now, let me see. Just how much land do you own up there,
Mr. Crow?"
"I own derned near all of it," said the marshal promptly. "'Bout
seventy-five acres, I should say."
"Nothing but timberland, I assume--judging from what we have been able
to observe."
"All timber. Never been cleared, 'cept purty well down the slope."
"And it is about five miles as the crow flies from Tinkletown, eh?"
"I ginerally say as the wild goose flies," said Mr. Crow, somewhat
curtly.
"Well, you have heard the proposition I bring from my employers in New
York City. Think it over tonight, Mr. Crow. Then, we will meet tomorrow
morning at your office to complete our plans. I shall be prepared to
hand you a draft for two hundred dollars to bind the bargain. What time
do you reach your office?"
"Ginerally some'eres between six and a quarter-past."
"My God!" muttered Mr. Bonaparte.
"We will be there at six-fifteen," said Mr. Bacon firmly. "Good evening,
Mr. Crow."
Far in the night, Mrs. Crow peevishly mumbled to her bedfellow: "What
ails you, Anderson Crow? Go to sleep!"
"Never mind, never mind. I can't tell you, so don't pester me. All I ast
of you is to wake me at five if I happen to oversleep."
"Well, of all the--do you suppose I'm goin' to lay awake here all night
waitin' for five o'clock to----"
"How in thunder do you expect me to go to sleep, Eva, if you keep
jabberin' away to me all night long like this? Ding it all to gosh, here
it is after one o'clock an' you still talkin'. Don't do it, I say.
Don't ast another question till five o'clock, an' then all you got to do
it to ast me if I'm awake."
"Umph!" said Mrs. Crow.
* * * * *
Messrs. Bacon and Bonaparte were an hour and forty minutes late.
It was nearly eight o'clock when the two gentlemen came hurrying around
the corner into Sickle street, piloted by Alf Reesling, the town
drunkard.
A long, important-looking cigar propitiated Mr. Crow, and after Mr.
Reesling and other citizens had been given to understand that the
strangers were figuring on buying all the timber on Crow's Mountain, the
three principals set forth in Anderson's buckboard.
In due time they arrived at the top of the "Mountain." Now Crow's
Mountain was no mountain at all. It was a thickly wooded hill that had
achieved eminence by happening to be a scant fifty feet higher than the
knolls surrounding it. From the low-lying pastures and grain-fields to
the top of the outstanding pine that reared its blasted storm-stripped
tip far above its fellows, the elevation was not more than three hundred
feet. Nevertheless, it was the loftiest hill in all that region and
capped Anderson Crow's agricultural possessions.
Just before the Boggs City National Bank at the county seat closed that
afternoon Mr. Crow appeared at the receiving-teller's window. He
deposited two hundred dollars in currency. Mr. Bacon had decided that a
draft on New York might excite undue curiosity.
"If people were to get wise to what we are really after up here on this
mountain, Mr. Crow," said he, "it would play hob with everything. If it
gets out that we are after gold--why, the price of land would be so high
we couldn't--"
"Lot of these hayseeds been wantin' to sell fer years, the derned
rubes," broke in Anderson, pityingly.
"Well, you get me, don't you? Keep our eyes open and our mouths closed,
and we will be millionaires inside of a year--or two, at the outside."
"Mum's the word, as the feller said," agreed Mr. Crow.
"And of course you see the advisability of having our articles of
incorporation filed secretly in New Jersey. This contract we have signed
will be ratified by our employers in New York, and the regular articles
drawn up at once. Wait till you see the names of the men who are behind
this enterprise. The first meeting of the board of directors will bring
together a dozen of the greatest--"
"Where will the meetin' be held?" broke in Anderson, somewhat anxiously.
"New York City, of course. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see
you elected President of the Corporation, Mr. Crow."
"Oh, gosh-a-mighty! I--I can't accept the honour, Mr. Bacon. It's too
much of a responsibility. Besides, I don't see how I'm goin' to be able
to get away from Tinkletown this fall to attend the meetin'. The County
Fair opens next week at Boggs City, an' the second week in October
there's to be a Baptist revival--"
"You can send in your proxy, Mr. Crow," explained Mr. Bacon. "It will be
all the same to us, you know."
"Well, I guess I better," said Anderson thoughtfully.
A fortnight went by. Crow's Mountain had become the scene of sharp but
stealthy activity. Anderson went about the streets of Tinkletown as if
in a daze. Acting upon the stern, almost offensive, advice of his new
partners, he did not go near the "Mountain" after the first couple of
days. They made it very plain to him that _everything_ depended on his
shrewdness in staying away from the "Mountain" altogether.
The Tinkletown _Banner_, in reporting the vast transaction, incorporated
an interview with Mr. G. W. Bacon, who announced that the syndicate he
represented had in mind a project to erect a huge summer hotel on top of
the "most beautiful mountain east of the Rockies," in the event that
satisfactory terms could be arranged with Mr. Crow. As a matter of fact,
explained Mr. Bacon, he had been instructed to make certain preliminary
investigations in regard to construction, and so forth--such as
ascertaining how far down they would have to go to bed-rock, and all
that sort of thing.
Practically all of the syndicate's preparatory work on Crow's Mountain
was done under cover of night. Motor-trucks that were said to have been
driven all the way from Pittsburgh--on account of the dreadful
congestion on the railroads--delivered machinery, tools, drills, rods,
bolts, rivets and thin jangling strips of structural steel.
Marshal Crow, assuming an importance he did not feel, strutted about
Tinkletown.
* * * * *
His abstraction had a good deal to do with the accident to old Mrs.
Twiggers. He was dreamily cogitating at the time she was run down by
Schultz's butcher-wagon, and as the catastrophe took place almost under
his nose, more than one citizen called him names he wouldn't forget. The
old lady had her spectacles smashed and lost a dozen eggs in the
confusion. Moreover, Ed Higgins's hen-roost was robbed; and three tramps
spent as much as half a day on Main Street before Anderson took any
notice of them. Ordinarily, he was death on tramps. Crime, as Mr. Harry
Squires put it in a caustic editorial in the _Banner_, was rampant in
Tinkletown. It was getting so rampant, he complained, that it wasn't
safe to cross the street--especially while eggs were retailing at
forty-two cents a dozen.
It remained for Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, to bring order out of
chaos. Not that he seized the opportunity to go on a spree while
Anderson was moon-gazing,--not at all. Alf loathed intoxicating liquors.
He did not drink himself, and he had a horror of any one who did. He had
been drunk just three times in his life, but as he had managed to crowd
the three exhibitions into the space of one week--some twenty years
before--Tinkletown elected him forthwith for life to the office of town
sot.
Now, Alf had a grievance. He finally got the ear of Marshal Crow and let
loose in a way that startled the old man out of his daze.
"Here you been watchin' me, an' trailin' me, an' lecturin' me for twenty
years, dern ye,--an' pleadin' with me to keep sober fer the sake of
Tinkletown's fair name, an' you let this feller Bonyparte git full an'
keep people awake half the night. He's been drunk more times in the last
three weeks than I ever was in all my life. He--"
"What's that? Did you say drunk?" demanded Anderson, blinking. "Who told
you he was drunk?"
"_He_ did," said Alf. "He don't make any bones about it. He tells
everybody when he is drunk. He's proud of it."
"An' I suppose everybody believes him," said Anderson scathingly. "The
people of this here town will believe _any_ thing if--"
"Las' night that pardner of his'n an' two other fellers from up the hill
had to take him up to his room an' lock him in. He was tryin' to sing
the Star Spangled Banner in _Dutch_. Gosh, it was awful! He orter be
arrested, same as anybody else, Anderson Crow. You got me under
suspicion every minute o' the time--night _and_ day--"
"That'll do, that'll do, now Alf. No more back talk out o' you,"
exclaimed Anderson menacingly. "You might as well _be_ drunk as to _act_
drunk. Don't you know any better'n--"
"Are you goin' to arrest this Bonyparte feller?"
Anderson eyed him sternly for a moment. "I got half a notion to run you
in, Alf Reesling, fer interferin' with an officer."
"How'm I interferin'?"
"You're preventin' me from arrestin' a violater of the law, dern you.
Can't you see I'm on my way over to Justice Robb's to swear out a
warrant against Abraham Lincoln Bonaparte for bein' intoxicated? What do
you mean by stoppin' me an'--"
"I'll go along, Andy," broke in Alf, suddenly affable. "I'll swear to it
if you--"
"'Tain't necessary," announced Anderson loftily. "I c'n attend to my own
business, if you can't. Nobody c'n sing the Star Spangled Banner in
Dutch without havin' a charge of intoxication filed ag'in him, lemme
tell you that. Git out o' my way, Alf."
Mr. Crow's pride had been touched. The shaft of criticism had gone home.
He would arrest Mr. Abraham Lincoln Bonaparte, no matter what came of
it. He did not like Mr. Bonaparte anyway. It was Mr. Bonaparte who had
ordered him off Crow's Mountain--his own mountain, mind you--and told
him not to come puttering around there any more.
On second thoughts, he accepted the nominal town sot's offer to make
affidavit against a real offender, but declined his company and
assistance in effecting the arrest. Down in the old Marshal's heart
lurked the fear that his new partners would put up such strenuous
objections to the arrest that he would have to give way to them. It was
this misgiving that caused him to make the trip to Crow's Mountain
instead of confronting his man that evening at the hotel or in the
street, in the presence of an audience.
Arriving at the cross-roads half a mile from the foot of Crow's
Mountain, he encountered two men tinkering with the engine of a big
automobile. They stopped him and inquired if there was a garage nearby.
While he was directing them to Pete Olsen's in town, he espied two more
men reposing in the shade of a tree farther up the lane.
As he drove on, leaving them behind, he found himself possessed of the
notion that the two men were strangely nervous and impatient. He
decided, after he had gone a half mile farther that they had, as a
matter-of-fact, acted in a very suspicious manner,--just as automobile
thieves might be expected to act in the presence of an officer of the
law. He made up his mind that if they were still there when he returned
with his prisoner, he would yank 'em up for investigation.
He went through the motions of hitching old Hip and Jim to a sapling
near the top of the "Mountain." They went to sleep almost instantly.
In the little clearing off to the left, a couple of hundred yards away,
Marshal Crow observed several men at work constructing a "shanty."
Closer at hand, almost lost to view among the pines, rose the thin,
open-work steel tower from which the "drill" was to be operated.
Standing out among the tree-tops were the long cross-bars of steel, and
from them ran the "guy" wires to the ground below. Mr. Crow had never
seen a "drill" before, but he had been told by Mr. Bacon that this was
the newest thing on the market.
The Marshal started off in the direction of the "shanty" and suddenly a
most astonishing thing happened. Mr. Crow disappeared from view as if by
magic!
[Illustration: _The Marshal started off in the direction of the
"shanty"_]
In order to give the drill as wide a berth as possible, he had deployed
widely to the left of the path, making his way somewhat tortuously
through a rough lot of underbrush. Without the slightest warning, the
earth gave way beneath him and down he shot, clawing frantically at the
edges of a well-camouflaged hole in the ground, taking with him a vast
amount of twigs, branches and a net-work of sapling poles.
Not only did he drop a good twelve feet, but he landed squarely upon
the stooping person of Mr. Bacon, who emitted a startling sound that
began as a yell and ended as a grunt. He then crumpled up and spread
himself out flat, with Mr. Crow draped awkwardly across his prostrate
form. For the time being, Mr. Bacon was as still as the grave. He was
out.
Anderson scrambled to his feet, pawing the air with his hands, his eyes
tightly shut. He was yelling for help.
Now, it was this yelling for help that deceived the astonished Mr.
Bonaparte. He jumped at once to the conclusion that the Marshal was
calling for assistance from the _outside_.
So he threw up his hands!
"I--surrender! I give in!" he yelled. "Keep them off! Don't let them get
at me!"
[Illustration: _"I--I surrender! I give in!" he yelled_]
Anderson opened his eyes and stared.
He found himself in a small, squat room lighted by a lantern which stood
upon a crudely made table in the corner beyond Bonaparte. There was a
board floor well littered with soil and shavings. In another corner
stood a singular looking contraption, not unlike a dynamo.
Marshal Crow bethought himself of his mission. Although the breath had
been jarred out of his body, he managed to say,--explosively:
"I--I got a warrant for your arrest. Come along now! Don't resist. Don't
make a fuss. Come along peaceably. I--"
"I'll come, Mr. Crow. I was dragged into this thing against my will.
_Gott in Himmel! Gott!--_"
"Never mind what you got," exclaimed Anderson sharply. "You come along
with me or you'll get something worse'n that."
"Is--is he dead!" groaned Bonaparte, his eyes almost starting from his
head.
Anderson backed away from the sprawling, motionless figure on the floor.
"I--I--gosh, I hope not. I--I was as much surprised as anybody. Say, you
see if he's breathin'. We got to git him out o' this place right away
an' send for a doctor. The good Lord knows I didn't intend to light on
him like that. It was an accident, I swear it was. You know just how it
happened, an'--you'll stand by me, won't you, if--"
Just then a loud voice came from above.
"Hey, down there!" A second's pause. Then: "We've got you dead to
rights, so no monkey business. Come up out o' that, or we'll pump enough
lead down there to--"
"Don't shoot,--don't shoot!" yelled Mr. Bonaparte shrilly. "Tell your
men not to fire, Mr. Crow!"
"Tell--tell _who_?" cried Anderson blankly. Suddenly he sprang to his
companion's side; seizing him by the arm, he whispered hoarsely: "By
gosh, I thought there was somethin' queer about that gang. Have you got
any of the gold here? I recollect that feller's voice, plain as day.
They're after the gold. They've heard about--"
"Are you coming up?" roared the voice from the outer world.
"Who are you?" called back Anderson stoutly.
"Oh, I guess you'll recognize United States marshals when you see 'em.
Come on, now."
Abraham Lincoln Bonaparte faced Marshal Crow, the truth dawning upon him
like a flash.
"You damned old rube!" he snarled, and forthwith planted his fist under
Anderson's chin-whiskers, with such surprising force that the old man
once more landed heavily on the prostrate form of the unfortunate Bacon.
"O-oh, gosh!" groaned Anderson, and as his eyes rolled upward he saw a
million stars chasing each other around the ceiling.
"I'll get _that_ much satisfaction out of it anyhow," he heard some one
say, from a very great distance.
Sometime afterward he was dimly aware of a jumble of excited voices
about him. Some one was shouting in his ear. He opened his eyes and
everything looked green before them. In time he recognized pine trees,
very lofty pine trees that slowly but surely shrank in size as he gazed
wonderingly at them.
There were a lot of strange men surrounding him. Out of the mass, he
finally selected a face that grew upon him. It was the face of Alf
Reesling.
"By jinks, Anderson, you done it _this_ time," Alf cried excitedly. "I
told 'em you was on your way up here to arrest these fellers, an' by
jinks, I knowed you'd get 'em."
"Le--lemme set down, please," mumbled Anderson, and the two men who
supported him lowered him gently to the ground, with his back against a
tree trunk. "Come here, Alf," he called out feebly.
Alf shuffled forward.
"Who are these men?" whispered Anderson.
"Detectives--reg'lar detectives," replied Alf. "United States
detectives--what do you call 'em?"
"Scotland Yard men," replied Anderson, who had done a good deal of
reading in his time.
"I started out after you on my wheel, Andy, thinkin' maybe you'd have
trouble. Down the road I met up with these fellers in a big automobile.
They stopped me an' said I couldn't go up the hill. Just then up comes
another car full of men. They all seemed to be acquainted. I told 'em I
was a deputy marshal an' was goin' up the hill to help you arrest a
feller named Bonyparte. Well, by jinks, you oughter heard 'em! They
cussed, and said the derned ole fool would spile everything. Then, 'fore
you could say Joe, they piled into one o' the cars an' sailed up the
hill. I didn't get up here till after they'd hauled you an' your
prisoners out o' that hole, but I give 'em the laugh just the same. You
captured the two ringleaders. By gosh, I'm glad you're alive, Andy. I
bet the Kaiser'll hate you fer this."
"The--the what?"
"Ole Kaiser Bill. Say, you was down there quite a little spell, an' they
won't let me go down. What does a wireless plant look like, Anderson?"
* * * * *
That evening Marshal Crow sat on the porch in front of Lamson's store,
smoking a fine cigar, presented to him by Harry Squires, reporter for
the _Banner_. He had a large audience. Indeed, he was obliged to raise
his voice considerably in order to reach the outer rim.
He had been called a hero, a fearless officer, and a lot of other
pleasant things, by the astonished United States marshals, and he had
been given to understand that he would hear from Washington before long.
Mr. Bacon (Kurt von Poppenblitz) and Mr. Bonaparte (Conrad Bloom) had
also called him something, but he didn't mind. His erstwhile partners,
with their four or five henchmen, were now well on their way to limbo,
and Mr. Crow was regaling his hearers with the story. During the first
recital (this being either the ninth or tenth), Alf Reesling had been
obliged to prompt him--a circumstance readily explainable when one stops
to consider the effect of the murderous blow Mr. Crow had received.
"'Course," said Anderson, "they _did_ fool me at first. But I wasn't
long gittin' onto 'em. I used to sneak up there and investigate ever'
now an' ag'in. Finally I got onto the fact that they was German spies--I
got positive proof of it. I can't tell you just what it is, 'cause it's
government business. Then I finds out they got a wireless plant all in
order, an' ready to relay messages to the coast o' Maine, from some'eres
out west. So today, I goes over to Justice Robb's and gits a warrant for
intoxication. That was to make it legal fer me to bust into their shanty
if necessary. Course, the drunk charge was only a blind, as I told the
U. S. marshal. I went right straight to that underground den o' their'n,
an' afore they knowed what was up, I leaped down on 'em. Fust thing I
done was to put the big and dangerous one horse de combat. He was the
one I was worried about. I knocked him flat an' then went after t'other
one. He let on like he was surrenderin'. He fooled me, I admit--'cause I
don't know anything 'bout wireless machinery. All of a sudden he give me
a wireless shock--out o' nowhere, you might say--an' well, by cracky, I
thought it was all over. 'Course, I realize now it was foolish o' me to
try to go up there an' take them two desperadoes single-handed, but
I--What's that, Bud?"
"Mrs. Crow sent me to tell you if you didn't come home to supper this
minute, you wouldn't git any," called out a boy from the outskirts of
the crowd.
"That's the second wireless shock you've had today, Anderson," said
Harry Squires, drily, and slowly closed one eye.
THE BEST MAN WINS!
ANDERSON CROW MEETS HIS WATERLOO AND HIS MARNE
For sixteen consecutive years Anderson Crow had been the Marshal of
Tinkletown. A hiatus of two years separated this period of service from
another which, according to persons of apparently infallible memory, ran
through an unbroken stretch of twenty-two years. Uncle Gid Luce stoutly
maintained--and with some authority--that anybody who said twenty-two
years was either mistaken or lying. He knew for a positive fact that it
was only twenty-one for the simple reason that at the beginning of the
Crow dynasty a full year elapsed before Anderson could be convinced that
he actually had been victorious at the polls over his venerable
predecessor, ex-marshal Bunker, who had served uninterruptedly for
something like thirty years before him.
It took the wisest men in town nearly a year to persuade the incredulous
Mr. Bunker that he had been defeated, and also to prove to Mr. Crow that
he had been elected. Neither one of 'em would believe it.
It was the consensus of opinion, however, that Anderson Crow had
served, all told, thirty-eight years, the aforesaid hiatus being the
result of a decision on his part to permanently abandon public life in
order to carry on his work as a private detective. Mr. Ed. Higgins held
the office for two years and then retired, claiming that there wasn't
any sense in Tinkletown having _two_ marshals and only paying for one.
And, as the salary and perquisites were too meagre to warrant a
division, and the duties of office barely sufficient to keep _one_ man
awake, he arrived at the only conclusion possible: it was only fair that
he should split even with Anderson.
After thinking it over for some time, he decided that about the best way
to solve the problem was for him to take the pay and allow Anderson to
do the work,--an arrangement that was eminently satisfactory to the
entire population of Tinkletown.
Elections were held biennially. Every two years, in the spring, as
provided by statute, the voters of Tinkletown--unless otherwise
engaged--ambled up to the polling place in the rear of Hawkins's
Undertaking Emporium and voted not only for Anderson Crow, but for a
town clerk, a justice of the peace, and three selectmen. No one ever
thought of voting for any one except Mr. Crow. Once, and only once, was
there an opposition candidate for the office of Town Marshal. It is on
record that he did not receive a solitary vote.
Republicans and Democrats voted for Anderson with persistent fidelity,
and while there were notable contests for the other offices at nearly
every election, no one bothered himself about the marshal-ship.
The regular election was drawing near. Marshal Crow was mildly
concerned,--not about himself, but on account of the tremendous battle
that was to be waged for the office of town clerk. Henry Wimpelmeyer,
the proprietor of the tanyard, had come out for the office, and was
spending money freely. The incumbent, Ezra Pounder, had had a good deal
of sickness in his family during the winter, and was in no position to
be bountiful.
Moreover, Ezra was further handicapped by the fact that nearly every
voter in Tinkletown owed money to Henry Wimpelmeyer. Inasmuch as it was
just the other way round with Ezra, it may be seen that his adversary
possessed a sickening advantage. Mr. Wimpelmeyer could afford to slap
every one on the back and jingle his pocketful of change in the most
reckless fashion. He did not have to dodge any one on the street, not
he.
Anderson Crow was a strong Pounder man. He was worried. Henry
Wimpelmeyer had openly stated that if he were elected he would be
pleased to show his gratitude to his friends by cancelling every
obligation due him!
He was planning to run on what was to be called the People's ticket.
Ezra was an Anderson Crow republican. Tinkletown itself was largely
republican. The democrats never had a chance to hold office except when
there was a democratic president at Washington. Then one of them got the
post-office, and almost immediately began to show signs of turning
republican so that he could be reasonably certain of reappointment at
the end of his four years.
Anderson Crow lay awake nights trying to evolve a plan by which Henry
Wimpelmeyer's astonishing methods could be overcome. That frank and
unchallenged promise to cancel all debts was absolutely certain to
defeat Ezra. So far as the marshal knew, no one owed Henry more than
five dollars--in most cases it was even less--but when you sat down and
figured up just how much Henry would ever realize in hard cash on these
accounts, even if he waited a hundred years, it was easy to see that the
election wasn't going to cost him a dollar.
For example, Alf Reesling had owed him a dollar and thirty-five cents
for nearly seven years. Alf admitted that the obligation worried him a
great deal, and it was pretty nearly certain that he would jump at the
chance to be relieved. Other items: Henry Plumb, two dollars and a
quarter; Harvey Shortfork, ninety cents; Ben Pickett, a
dollar-seventy-five; Rush Applegate, three-twenty; Lum Gillespie,
one-fifteen,--and so on, including Ezra Pounder himself, who owed the
staggering sum of eleven dollars and eighty-two cents. There was, after
all, some consolation in the thought that Ezra would be benefited to
that extent by his own defeat.
Naturally, Mr. Crow gave no thought to his own candidacy. No one was
running against him, and apparently no one ever would. Therefore, Mr.
Crow was in a position to devote his apprehensions exclusively to the
rest of the ticket, and to Ezra Pounder in particular.
He could think of but one way to forestall Mr. Wimpelmeyer, and that was
by digging down into his own pocket and paying in cash every single cent
that the electorate of Tinkletown owed "the dad-burned Shylark!" He even
went so far as to ascertain--almost to a dollar--just how much it would
take to save the honour of Tinkletown, finding, after an investigation,
that $276.82 would square up everything, and leave Henry high and dry
with nothing but the German vote to depend upon. There were exactly
twenty-two eligible voters in town with German names, and seven of them
professed to be Swiss the instant the United States went into the war.
Mr. Crow was making profound calculation on the back of an envelope when
Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, came scuttling excitedly around the
corner from the _Banner_ office.
"Gee whiz!" gasped Alf, "I been lookin' all over fer you, Anderson."
"Say, can't you see I'm busy? Now, I got to begin all over ag'in. Move
on, now--"
"Have you heard the latest?" gulped Alf, grabbing him by the arm.
"What ails you, Alf? Wait a minute! No, by gosh, it's more like onions.
For a second I thought you'd--"
"I'm as sober as ever," interrupted Alf hotly.
"That's what you been sayin' fer twenty years," said Anderson.
"Well, ain't I?"
"I don't know what you do when I'm not watchin' you."
"Well, all I got to say is I never felt more like takin' a drink. An'
you'll feel like it, too, when you hear the latest. Maybe you'll drop
dead er somethin'. Serve you right, too, by jiminy, the way you keep
insinyating about--"
"Go on an' tell me. Don't talk all day. Just _tell_ me. That's all
you're called on to do."
"Well," sputtered Alf. "Some one's come out ag'in you fer marshal. I
seen the item they're printin' over at the _Banner_ office. Seen the
name an' everything."
Anderson blinked two or three times, reached for his whiskers and missed
them, and then roared:
"You must be crazy, Alf! By thunder, I hate to do it, but I'll have to
put you in a safe--"
"You just wait an' see if I'm--"
"--safe place where you can't harm nobody. You oughtn't to be runnin'
round at large like this. Here! Leggo my arm! What the dickens are you
tryin' to--"
"Come on! I'll _show_ you!" exclaimed Alf. "I'll take you right around
to the _Banner_ office an'--say, didn't you know the People's Party
nominated a full ticket las' night over at Odd Fellers' Hall?"
Anderson submitted himself to be led--or rather dragged--around the
corner into Sickle Street.
Several business men aroused from mid-morning lassitude allowed their
chairs to come down with a thump upon divers mercantile porches, and
fell in behind the two principal citizens of Tinkletown. Something
terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow wouldn't be summoned in any
such imperative manner as this.
[Illustration: _Something terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow
wouldn't be summoned in any such imperative manner as this_]
"What's up, Anderson?" called out Mort Fryback, the hardware dealer,
wavering on one leg while he reached frantically behind him for his
crutch. Mort was always looking for excitement. He hadn't had any to
speak of since the day he created the greatest furor the town had
experienced in years by losing one of his legs under an extremely heavy
kitchen stove.
"Is there a fire?" shouted Mr. Brubaker, the druggist, half a block
away.
* * * * *
Mr. Jones, proprietor of the _Banner_ Job Printing office, obligingly
produced the "galley-proof" of the account of the People's Convention,
prepared by his "city editor," Harry Squires, for the ensuing issue of
the weekly. Mr. Squires himself emerged from the press-room, and
sarcastically offered his condolences to Anderson Crow.
"Well, here's a pretty howdy-do, Anderson," he said, elevating his
eye-shade to a position that established a green halo over a perfectly
pink pate.
"Howdy-do," responded Anderson, with unaccustomed politeness. He was
staring hard at the dirty strip of paper which he held to the light.
"Didn't I _tell_ you?" exclaimed Alf Reesling triumphantly. "There she
is, right before your eyes."
Mr. Reesling employed the proper gender in making this assertion. "She"
was right before the eyes of every one who cared to look. Anderson
slowly read off the "ticket." His voice cracked deplorably as he
pronounced the last of the six names that smote him where he had never
been smitten before.
Clerk--Henry Wimpelmeyer
Justice of the Peace--William Kiser
Selectman, First District--Otto Schultz
Selectman, Second District--Conrad Blank
Selectman, Third District--Christopher Columbus Callahan
Marshal--Minnie Stitzenberg.
A long silence followed the last syllable in Minnie's name, broken at
last by Marshal Crow, who turned upon Harry Squires and demanded:
"What do you mean, Harry Squires, by belittlin' a woman's name in your
paper like this? She c'n sue for libel. You got no right to make fun of
a respectable, hard-workin' woman, even though she did make a derned
fool of herself gittin' up that pertition to have me removed from
office."
"Well, that's what she's still trying to do," said Harry.
"What say?"
"I say she's still trying to remove you from office. She's going to get
your hide, Anderson, for arresting her when she tried to make that
Suffrage speech in front of the town hall last fall."
"I had a right to arrest her. She was obstructin' the public
thoroughfare."
"That's all right, but she said she had as much right to block the
street as you had. You made speeches all over the place."
"Yes, but I made 'em in good American English, an' she spoke half the
time in German. How in thunder was I to know what she was sayin'? She
might 'a' been sayin' somethin' ag'in the United States Government, fer
all I knew."
"Well, anyhow, she's going to get your scalp for it, if it's in woman's
power to do it."
"I'm ag'in any female citizen of this here town that subscribes to a
German paper printed in New York City an' refuses to read the _Banner_,"
declared Anderson loudly--and with all the astuteness of the experienced
politician. "An' what's more," pursued Anderson scornfully, "I'm ag'in
that whole ticket. There's only one American on it, an' he was a
Democrat up to las' Sunday. Besides, it's ag'in the law to nominate
Minnie Stitzenberg."
"Why?" demanded Harry Squires.
"Ain't she a woman?"
"Certainly she is."
"Well, ain't _that_ ag'in the law? A woman ain't got no right to run for
nothin'," said Anderson. "She ain't--"
"She ain't, eh? Didn't you walk up to the polls last fall and vote to
give her the right?" demanded Harry. "Didn't every dog-goned man in this
town except Bill Wynkoop vote for suffrage? Well, then, what are you
kicking about? She's got as much right to run for marshal as you have,
old Sport, and if what she says is true, every blessed woman in
Tinkletown is going to vote for her."
Marshal Crow sat down, a queer, dazed look in his eyes.
"By gosh, I--I never thought they'd act like this," he murmured.
Every man in the group was asking the same question in the back of his
startled brain: "Has _my_ wife gone an' got mixed up in this scheme of
Minnie's without sayin' anything to me?" Visions of feminine supremacy
filled the mental eye of a suddenly perturbed constituency. The
realization flashed through every mind that if the women of Tinkletown
stuck solidly together, there wasn't the ghost of a chance for the sex
that had been in the saddle since the world began. An unwitting, or
perhaps a designing, Providence had populated Tinkletown with at least
twenty more women than men!
* * * * *
Alf Reesling was the first to speak. He addressed the complacent Mr.
Squires:
"I know one woman that ain't goin' to vote for Minnie Stitzenberg," said
he, somewhat fiercely.
"What are you going to do?" inquired Harry mildly. "Kill her?"
"Nothin' as triflin' as that," said Alf. "I'm goin' to tell my wife if
she votes for Minnie I'll pack up and leave her."
"Minnie's sure of _one_ vote, all right," was Harry's comment.
Fully ten minutes were required to convince the marshal that Minnie
Stitzenberg was a bona fide candidate.
Anderson finally arose, drew himself to his full height, lifted his
chin, and faced the group with something truly martial in his eye.
"Feller citizens," he began solemnly, "the time has come for us men to
stand together. We got to pertect our rights. We got to let the women
know that they can't come between us. For the last million years we have
been supportin' an' pertectin' and puttin' up with all sorts of women,
an' we got to give 'em to understand that this is no time for them to
git it into their heads they can support and pertect us. Everybody,
includin' the women, knows there's a great war goin' on over in Europe.
Us men are fightin' that war. We're bleedin' an' dyin' an' bein'
captured by the orneriest villains outside o' hell--as the feller says.
I'm not sayin' the women ain't doin' their part, mind you. They're doin'
noble, an' you couldn't git me to say a thing ag'in women _as_ women.
They're a derned sight better'n we are. That's jest the point. We got to
_keep_ 'em better'n we are, an' what's more to the point, we don't want
'em to find out they're better'n we are. Just as soon as they git to be
as overbearin' an' as incontrollable as we are, then there's goin' to be
thunder to pay. I'm willin' to work, an' fight, an' die fer my wife an'
my daughters, but I'm derned if I like the idee of them workin' an'
fightin' ag'in _me_. I'm willin' the women should vote. But they
oughtn't to run out an' vote ag'in the men the first chance they git.
When this war's over an' there ain't no able-bodied men left to run
things, then you bet the women will be derned glad we fixed things so's
_they_ won't never have to worry about goin' to war with the
ding-blasted ravishers over in Germany. If the time ever comes--an' it
may, if they keep killin' us off over there--when the women have to run
this here government, they'll find it's a man-sized job, an' that we
took care of it mighty well up to the time we got all shot to pieces
preservin' humanity, an' civilization, an' all the women an' children
the Germans didn't git a chance to butcher because we wouldn't let 'em.
Now, I'm ready any time to knuckle under to a man that's better'n I am.
But I'm dog-goned if I'm willin' to admit that Minnie Stitzenberg's that
man! Yes, sir, gentlemen, we men have got to stand together!"
"'Sh!" hissed Mort Fryback, jerking his head in the direction of Main
Street. With one accord the men on the porch turned to look.
Miss Minnie Stitzenberg had come into view on the opposite side of the
street, and was striding manfully in their direction. The Higgins dog
trotted proudly, confidently, a few feet ahead of her. She waved a
friendly hand and called out, in a genial but ludicrous effort to mimic
the lordly Mr. Crow:
"Move on there, now. Don't loiter."
A little later, the agitated town marshal, flanked by the town drunkard
and the one-legged Mr. Fryback, viewed with no little dismay a group of
women congregated in front of Parr's drygoods store. In the centre of
this group was the new candidate for town marshal. Alf Reesling stopped
short and said something under his breath. His wife was one of Miss
Stitzenberg's most attentive listeners.
[Illustration: _In the centre of this group was the new candidate for
town marshal_]
Marshal Crow was not disheartened. He knew that Minnie Stitzenberg could
not defeat him at the polls. The thing that rankled was the fact that a
woman had been selected to run against him. It was an offence to his
dignity. The leaders of the People's Party made it quite plain that they
did not consider him of sufficient importance to justify anything so
dignified as masculine opposition!
On the day of the Republican Convention, which was to be held in the
town hall in the evening, Anderson went in despair and humility to Harry
Squires, the reporter.
"Harry," he said, "I been thinkin' it over. I can't run ag'in a woman.
It goes ag'in the grain. If I beat her, I'd never be able to look
anybody in the face, an' if she beats me--why, by gosh, I couldn't even
look myself in the face. So I'm goin' to decline the nomination
tonight."
He was rather pathetic, and Harry Squires was touched. He had a great
fondness for the old marshal, notwithstanding his habit of poking fun at
him and ridiculing him in the _Banner_. He laid his hand on the old
man's arm and there was genuine warmth in his voice as he spoke to him.
"Anderson, we can't allow you to withdraw. It would be the vilest thing
the people of this town could do if they turned you out of office after
all these years of faithful service. We--"
"Can't be helped, Harry," said Anderson firmly. "I won't run ag'in a
woman, so that's the end of it."
Harry looked cautiously around, and then, leaning a little closer, said:
"I know something that would put Minnie in the soup, clean over her
head. All I've got to do is to tell what I know about--"
"Hold on, Harry," broke in the marshal sternly. "Is it somethin' ag'in
her character?"
"It's something that would prevent every man, woman and child in
Tinkletown from voting for her," said Harry.
"Somethin' scand'lous?" demanded Anderson, perking up instantly.
"Decidedly. A word from me and--"
"Wait a second. Is--is there a man in the case?"
"A _man_?" cried Harry. "Bless your soul, Anderson, there are fifty men
in it."
Anderson fell back a step or two. For a moment or two he was speechless.
"Sakes alive! _Fifty?_ For goodness' sake, Harry, are you sure?"
"Not exactly. It may be sixty," amended Harry. "We could easily find out
just how many--"
"Never mind! Never mind!" cried Anderson, recovering himself. "If it's
as bad as all that, we just got to keep still about it. I wouldn't allow
you to throw mud at her if she's been carryin' on with only _one_ man,
but if there's fifty or--But, gosh a' mighty, Harry, it ain't possible.
A woman as homely as Minnie--why, dog-gone it, a woman as homely as she
is simply couldn't be bad no matter how much she wanted to. It ain't
human nature. She--"
"Hold your horses, Anderson," broke in Harry, after a perplexed stare.
"I guess you're jumping at conclusions. I didn't say--"
"There ain't going to be no scandal in this campaign. If Minnie
Stitzenberg--German or no German--has been--"
"It isn't the kind of scandal you think it is," protested Harry. "What
I'm trying to tell you is that it was Minnie Stitzenberg who got that
guy up here from New York two years ago to sell stock in the Salt Water
Gold Company, and stung fifty or sixty of our wisest citizens to the
extent of thirty dollars apiece. I happen to know that Minnie got five
dollars for every sucker that was landed. That guy was her cousin and
she gave him a list of the easiest marks in town. If I remember
correctly, you were one of them, Anderson. She got something like two
hundred dollars for giving him the proper steer, and that's what I meant
when I said there were fifty or sixty men in the case."
"Well, I'll be ding-blasted!"
"And do you know what she did with her ill-gotten gains?"
Anderson could only shake his head.
"She went up to Boggs City and took singing lessons. Now you know the
worst."
The marshal found his voice. "An' it went on for nearly six months,
too--people had to keep their windows shut so's they couldn't hear her
yellin' as if somebody was tryin' to murder her. An' when I went to her
an' respectfully requested her to quit disturbin' the peace, she--do you
know what she said to me?"
"I've got a sneaking idea."
"Well, you're wrong. She said I was a finicky old jackass." The memory
of it brought an apoplectic red to his face.
"And being a gentleman, you couldn't deny it," said Harry soberly.
"What's that?"
"I mean, you couldn't call her a liar. What did you say?"
"I looked her right in the eyes an' I said I'd been neutral up to that
minute, but from then on I'd be derned if I'd try any longer. By gosh, I
guess she knowed what I meant all right."
"Well, as I was saying, all you've got to do is to tell the voters of
this town that she helped put up that job on them, and--"
Anderson held up his hand and shook his head resolutely.
"Nope! I'm through. I'm not goin' to run. I mean to withdraw my name
tonight."
Considering the matter closed, he sauntered to the middle of the street
where he held up his hand and stopped a lame and venerable Ford
driven--or as Mr. Squires was in the habit of saying, urged--by Deacon
Rank.
"What's your speedo-_meter_ say, Deacon?" inquired the marshal blandly.
"It don't say anything," snapped the deacon.
Anderson saw fit to indulge in sarcasm. "Well, by gum, I'd 'a' swore
your old machine was movin'. Is it possible my eyes deceived me?"
"Course it was movin'--movin' strictly accordin' to law, too. Six miles
an hour. What you holdin' me up for?"
"So's I could get in and take a little joy ride with you," said Mr. Crow
affably. "Drop me at the post office, will you?" He stepped up beside
the deacon and calmly seated himself.
The deacon grumbled. "'Tain't more'n a hundred yards to the post
office," he said. "Stoppin' me like this an'--an' makin' me get out and
crank the car besides. An' I'm in a hurry, too. Couldn't you--"
"Well, I ain't in no hurry. If I was, don't you suppose I'd 'a' walked?"
That evening the town hall was filled with discouraged, apprehensive
Republicans. A half-dozen newly enfranchised women occupied front seats.
Ed. Higgins confided to those nearest him that he felt as though he was
in church, and Alf Reesling loudly advised the convention to be
careful, as there were ladies present.
Mr. Hud Lamson, as usual, was the chairman of the "Convention." No one
else ever had a chance to be chairman for the reason that Hud did not
insist upon having the honour thrust upon him. He simply _took_ it.
Following the usual resolutions condemning the Democratic Party to
perdition and at the same time eulogizing the Democratic Administration
at Washington, Mr. Ezra Pounder was nominated by acclamation for the
responsible post of town clerk. In swift succession, Ed. Higgins, Abner
Pickerell and Situate M. Jones were chosen for selectmen. Justice Robb
was unanimously chosen to succeed himself.
Then ensued a strange, significant silence--a silence fraught with
exceeding gravity and the portentous suggestion of something devastating
about to overtake the assemblage. Some one in the back of the hall
cleared his throat, and instantly, with one accord, every eye was turned
in his direction. It was as if he were clearing the way for action.
Harry Squires, the perennial secretary of all conventions held by all
parties in Tinkletown, by virtue of his skill with the pencil, arose
from his seat--and stepped to the front of the platform.
[Illustration: _Harry Squires stepped to the front of the platform_]
"Order!" called out Marshal Crow, in his most authoritative voice,
sweeping the convention with an accusing eye.
"Mr. Chairman, fellow Republicans and voters of the opposite sex," began
Harry, in a distinctly lugubrious tone, "we have now come to the most
critical moment in the history of Tinkletown. It is with ineffable
sorrow and dismay that I stand before you this evening, the bearer of
sad tidings. On the other hand, I expect to derive great joy in
offsetting this sad news later on in my humble speech. I am now,
gentlemen--and ladies--speaking of our most noted and most cherished
citizen, Mr. Anderson Crow, known to you all, I believe, without
exception. I--"
At this juncture, up jumped Alf Reesling and shouted:
"Three cheers for Anderson Crow!"
And three cheers were given with a vim. Uncle Dad Simms, a patriot of
long-standing but of exceedingly short memory, took the convention by
storm by crying out in a cracked but penetrating voice:
"Three cheers for the President of the United States! I don't keer if he
is a Democrat! Come on, now, men! Three cheers for President Cleveland!"
A roar of laughter went up and Uncle Dad, being quite deaf, followed it
with two squeaky cheers, all by himself, and then looked about in
triumph. Alf Reesling proposed three cheers for President Wilson, and
again the welkin rang. Having established a success as a promoter of
enthusiasm, Alf mounted a chair and roared:
"Now, let's give three cheers for General Pershing an' the boys over in
France, includin' the four noble young men from Tinkletown who are with
him in the trenches, killin' the botches! Now, hip--hip--"
And once more the air shivered under the impact of vocal enthusiasm.
Mr. Squires held up his hands and checked what might have become a habit
by thanking the convention for the timely and admirable interruption,
explaining that the digression had given him an opportunity to regain
command of his emotions.
"It is, however, with pain that I am authorized to announce, not only to
the glorious Republican Party, but to the City of Tinkletown, that--Hold
on, Alf! We can get along without three cheers for Tinkletown! To
announce that the name of Anderson Crow is hereby withdrawn from the
consideration of this convention for the--er--the nomination for Town
Marshal. Mr. Crow positively declines to make the race. It is not
necessary for me to dilate upon the manifold virtues and accomplishments
of our distinguished marshal. His fame extends to the uttermost corners
of the earth. For nearly half a century he has kept this town jogging
along in a straight and narrow path, and I for one--and I feel that I
voice the sentiment of every citizen here and elsewhere--I for one do
not resent the frequent reproaches and occasional arrests he has heaped
upon me in the discharge of his duty. It was all for the good of the
community, and I am proud to say that I have been arrested by Marshal
Crow more times than I have fingers and toes. And, I am further proud to
add, that on not a single occasion did Marshal Crow hesitate to admit
that he was mistaken. Gentlemen, it takes a pretty big man to admit that
he is mistaken. But, if you will read the next issue of the _Banner_,
you will see that I can write about him much more eloquently than I can
speak. He has positively decided not to be a candidate for re-election.
While we are thereby plunged into grief of the darkest hue, I am here to
tell you that our grief is mitigated by the most gorgeous ray of light
that ever beamed upon the human race. It is my pleasure, gentlemen of
the Republican Party--and ladies of the same sect--to present for
your--"
Alf Reesling's voice was heard in plaintive protest. He spoke to his
elbow neighbour, but in a tone audible to every one, far and near.
"I'll be dog-goned if I'll stand for that. It's an insult to every man
here to say they are of the same sex. We give 'em the vote and, by gosh,
they claim our sex. I--"
"Order!" commanded Marshal Crow.
The orator resumed. "It is my privilege to present for your
consideration the name of one of our most illustrious citizens for the
honourable office of Town Marshal. A name that is a household word,
second only to that of the present incumbent. Circumstances over which
we have no control--although we did have it up to a short time ago--make
it possible for me to present to you a name that will go down in history
as one of the grandest since the bonny days of good Queen Bess.
Gentlemen--and at the same time, ladies--I have the honour to put in
nomination for Town Marshal our distinguished fellow voter, Mrs.
Anderson Crow!"
A silence even more potential than the one preceding Mr. Squire's
peroration ensued. It was broken this time by Uncle Dad Simms, who
proceeded to further glorify his deafness by squeaking:
"And he'll be elected, too, you bet your boots. We don't want no
gosh-blamed woman fer--eh? What say, Alf?" And Alf, making a cup of his
hands, repeated with great vigour an inch or so from Uncle Dad's ear the
timely remark that had caused the ancient to hesitate. It is not
necessary to quote Alf, but Uncle Dad's rejoinder is important.
"Well, _Jee_-hosaphat!" he gasped.
"Is there a second to the nomination?" inquired the chairman.
Marshal Crow arose. "I second the nomination," he said, taking a sudden
tug at his whiskers. "Before we take a ballot, Mr. Chairman, I want to
say right here an' now that Mrs. Crow will have my full an' undivided
support, just as she has always had. I have allus maintained that a
woman's place is in the home. Therefore, when it comes time fer Mrs.
Crow to assume the responsibilities of this here office, I am goin' to
see to it that she _stays_ home an' tends to her household duties. I am
goin' to be deputy marshal durin' her term of office, without pay,
ladies an' gentlemen, an' I am goin' to lift every bit o' the work off'n
her shoulders. I believe in equal sufferin'. If she'll do the woman's
share o' the work, I'll do the man's, an' nothin' could be fairer than
that. Between us we'll give the city o' Tinkletown the best
administration the office of marshal has ever had. My wife ain't here
tonight to accept the honour you are goin' to heap on her, but I think I
can safely promise she'll consent to make the race. She may kick like a
bay steer at first, but when she sees it's her _duty_ to run, you bet
she'll do it! It's a case of woman ag'in woman, feller Republicans, an'
man ag'in man. All I got to say is that the best woman's bound to win. I
almost forgot to say that if the voters o' Tinkletown don't jump at the
chance to git a marshal an' a experienced deputy for the price o' one
salary, it's because there's more derned fools in the town than I
thought there was."
Mr. Ed Higgins sprang to his feet.
"I move, Mr. Chairman, that we make the nomination unanimous without a
dissenting vote," he cried out. "We got a chance to get the best deputy
marshal in the United States of America without it costin' us a red
cent, an' besides that, we get the best cook in all Tinkletown for
marshal. If there's anybody here, male or female, who c'n deny that Mrs.
Crow is the best cook alive I'd like to hear him say so. I've eat a
hundred meals in her house an' I know what I'm talkin' about. I defy
anybody--"
"I call for a vote!" cried out one of the women, bridling a little. "And
I want to say to you, Ed Higgins, that while I think Mrs. Crow will make
the best marshal we've ever had, I wouldn't go so far as to say she's
the best cook in Tinkletown. You haven't been invited to eat in _every_
house in this town, don't forget that."
"All in favour of making the nomination of Mrs. Crow unanimous signify
by holding up their hands," said the chairman.
Every hand went up. Then a rousing cheer was given for the "next Marshal
of Tinkletown," followed by the customary mumbling of "The Star Spangled
Banner."
Three full days were devoted by Anderson and the leaders of the
Republican Party to the task of inducing Mrs. Crow to make the race
against Minnie Stitzenberg. At first she refused point-blank. She
didn't intend to neglect her household duties for all the offices in
Tinkletown!
"But, consarn it, Eva!" Anderson protested for the hundredth time,
"nobody's askin' you to neglect your household duties. Ain't I agreein'
to handle the job for you?"
"Well, I posi-_tive_-ly refuse to wear a star--or carry a pistol."
"You don't have to. I'll wear the star."
"And if you think I'll traipse the streets of Tinkletown from morning
till night, you're very much--"
"That ain't any respectable woman's job," said her husband stiffly.
"You're not expected to do it as long as you got a deputy."
"And as for snooping around putting my nose into other people's
business,--why--"
"Now, don't let that worry you, Eva. That's part o' my job."
"Who's going to tend jail when there's anybody locked up in it?"
"I am, o' course."
"And who's going to be street commissioner, truant officer, chief of the
fire depart--"
"You are, Eva,--but I'm going to look after _everything_, mind you. All
you got to do is to see that I git somethin' to eat whenever I need it,
an' a bed to sleep in at night, an' I'll--"
"A bed to sleep in, you ninny!" she cried. "You're going to sleep in
the same bed you've been sleeping in for forty years. What are you
talking about? Ain't you going to sleep with me if I appoint you deputy
marshal?"
"Certainly," Anderson made haste to assure her. "Unofficially, o'
course," he went on, with profound regard for the ethics involved.
"Well, I'll think it over," she said wearily. "Don't bother me now, you
two; can't you see I'm making apple butter?"
"I hope you will consent to run, Mrs. Crow," put in the wily Mr.
Squires, "if only for the sake of showing Minnie Stitzenberg that it
won't do her any good to be saying things about--well, about anybody in
particular." He concluded very lamely.
"Has that woman been saying things about me?" demanded Mrs. Crow.
"I ought to have sense enough to keep my mouth shut," said Harry,
scowling darkly. Catching the astonished look on Anderson's face, he
hastily suggested that they "beat it."
Out in the front yard Anderson halted him. "Has Minnie been saying
anything about my wife, Harry Squires?"
Harry first looked over his shoulder and then winked. "Not that I know
of," he said, chuckling. "But I guess it's safe to go ahead and print
the ticket with Mrs. Crow's name on it."
Never in all its sedentary existence had Tinkletown experienced a
livelier campaign.
"If you vote for Minnie Stitzenberg, I'll never speak to you again," was
the common argument of the Crowites, and "Don't you ever try to look me
in the face again if you vote for that old Mrs. Crow," was the slogan of
the opposition.
Mrs. Crow conducted her own campaign.
Anderson discovered to his great dismay that his meals were not only
irregular in the matter of time, but frequently did not materialize at
all. His wife and daughters neglected him completely. On three separate
occasions after waiting until nearly eight o'clock for his supper, he
strolled disconsolately over to the equally abandoned home of Alf
Reesling.
"I'm a mighty poor cook," confessed Alf on the first occasion, a hungry,
harassed look in his eyes. "But anything's better'n starvin', ain't it?"
"It shore is," said Anderson with feeling.
"I ain't seen a petticoat around my house since half-past nine this
mornin'," lamented Alf, upsetting a pan of milk while trying to get a
plate of cold ham out of the icebox. "It's terrible."
"Lemme take your knife, Alf. I'll peel the pertatoes--if you'll tell me
where they are."
"I don't know where anything is," said Alf, leaning dejectedly against
the kitchen sink.
"Well," said Anderson, "let's look."
"If the election was a week further off, I'd give up an' go to drinkin'
again," said Alf on another occasion. "I'd sooner drink myself to death
than starve. Starvation is a terrible end, Anderson. Worse than hangin',
they say."
"Only four days more," sighed Anderson, clipping off a hunk of bologna.
"My wife says if I'll hold out till after election, she won't never
leave the kitchen ag'in long as she lives."
"That's what mine says. Sherman was only half right. War may be hell for
men, but, by gosh, women are hell for war. An' that's what it is--war,
Anderson, war to the hilt. Every woman in town's got her knife out an',
my God, how they're slashin' each other! There won't be a whole woman
left."
"Well, I'd be satisfied with half a one," mused Anderson, a faraway look
in his eyes.
The day before the election, Mrs. Crow played her trump card. She had
treasured an open boast made years before by the disappointed old maid
who now opposed her. Minnie, before attaining years of discretion and
still smarting under the failures of youth, had spitefully announced
that she was a spinster from choice. With great scorn she had stated,
while sitting on Mrs. Crow's porch, that she would die an old maid a
hundred times over sooner than marry any one in Tinkletown. And, she
added, the best proof that she meant what she said was the fact that
nearly every man in town had asked her to marry him before he asked any
one else!
The news spread like wildfire the instant Mrs. Crow released it. Mrs.
Crow's veracity was not a thing to be questioned.
When the returns were all in, Mrs. Crow was found to have received 573
votes (women included), out of a total of 601 cast. Miss Stitzenberg
held the German vote solid, including seven from her own sex who could
afford to disregard the slander because they had been safely married in
Germany long before coming to Tinkletown.
* * * * *
The day after the new marshal's induction into office Anderson appeared
with his star glittering so brightly that it dazzled the eye. His shoes
were polished, his clothes brushed and--shocking to relate--his trousers
creased. In all his career as marshal he had never gone to such extremes
as this. He was, however, not in a happy frame of mind. His customary
aplomb was missing.
"Well, of all the--" began Alf Reesling. Then, before Anderson could put
in a word of warning, he shouted to the group in front of Lamson's
store: "Hey! Look at the dude!"
Anderson, very red in the face, declined a seat on a soap box.
"If I'd knowed she was goin' to act like this, I'd a voted ag'in her
myself," he said rather wanly. "She started in bossin' me the very
minute she got my place as marshal. She's laid down the law to me, an',
by crickety, she says if I'm goin' to be her deputy I've got to look
like this every day. Look at them shoes! And these pants! No, I can't
set down. I don't dare risk sp'ilin' the creases my daughter Susie put
in 'em 'fore I was up this mornin'."
VICIOUS LUCIUS
Lucius Fry lived up back of the Power-house on the outskirts of
Tinkletown. He had a wife, two children and a horse and buggy. For a
great many years he had led a quiet, peaceful, even suppressed
existence. Being a rather smallish, bony sort of man, with a large
Adam's apple and bow legs, he was an object of considerable scorn not
only to his acquaintances but to his wife and children, and after a
fashion, to his horse.
The latter paid absolutely no attention to him when he said "Get-ap," or
when he applied the "gad"; she neither obeyed the command nor resented
the chastisement. She jogged along in her own sweet way quite as if he
were nowhere in the vicinity. His wife abused him, and his children
ignored him. No one, it would appear, had the slightest use or respect
for Lucius Fry.
He was, by profession, a well-digger. The installation of a water-works
system in Tinkletown had made him a well-digger in name only. For a
matter of five or six years, barring the last six months, he had been in
the employ of his wife. She took in washing, and it was his job to
collect and deliver the "wash" three times a week. In return for this he
received board and lodging and an occasional visit to the
moving-picture theatre. One of his daughters clerked in the
five-and-ten-cent store, and the other, aged twelve, was errand girl to
Miss Angie Nixon, the fashionable dressmaker.
Lucius had married very much above him, so to speak. That is to say, his
wife was something like nine or ten inches the taller of the two. When
they appeared on the street together,--which was seldom,--you could see
him only if you chanced to be on _that_ side of her. Mrs. Fry was nearly
six feet tall and very wide, but Lucius was not much over five feet two.
He had a receding chin that tried to secrete itself behind a scant,
dun-colored crop of whiskers, cultivated by him with two purposes in
view; first, to provide shelter for his shrinking chin, and second, to
avoid the arduous and unnecessary task of shaving.
[Illustration: _When they appeared on the street together_]
Roughly speaking, Lucius was a shiftless creature. It had long been the
consensus of opinion--freely expressed throughout Tinkletown--that he
did not amount to a tinker's dam.
However that may be, some six or seven months prior to the incidents
about to be related, Mr. Fry himself wrought a tremendous and
unbelievable change in the foregoing opinion. Almost in the wink of an
eyelash he passed through a process of transmogrification that not only
bewildered him but caused the entire community to sit up and take notice
of him.
It all came about in the oddest sort of way. For a number of years
Lucius had been in the habit of currying the old grey mare on Saturday
mornings. Away back in his mind lurked an hereditary respect for the
Sabbath. He wanted old Peggy to be as clean as possible on
Sunday--observing the same principle, no doubt, that induces a great
many people to take a bath on Saturday night. Moreover, he changed the
bedding in her stall on Saturdays, employing a pitchfork and a spade.
For a number of years Peggy had put up with these attentions, responding
amiably to his directions--such as "Get over, dern ye," or "Whoa, back,"
"Stan' still, can't ye?" and so on.
One never-to-be-forgotten Saturday morning in the spring of the year,
Peggy happened to be peevish. The cause of her peevishness was a swarm
of intensely active flies. Mr. Fry was accustomed to an occasional swish
of her tail across his face. He even welcomed it, for the flies bothered
him almost as much as they did Peggy. On mornings when he felt unusually
tired, he was rather grateful to Peggy for including him in the sweep of
her tail.
But on this particular morning the exasperated nag planted one of her
hoofs on Mr. Fry's toes while he was engaged in brushing out the kinks
in her mane.
Mrs. Fry happened to be in the stable at the time, seeing if the hens
had mislaid anything in the hay. She was astonished by the roar of a
mighty oath, followed almost instantly by a thunderous thump on the
barrel-like anatomy of the family horse. A second or two later Peggy's
head came in for a resounding whack, and the stream of profanity
increased to a torrent.
Springing to her feet, the surprised lady cast a startled glance over
the manger into the stall. Her husband had old Peggy backed up against
the partition and was preparing to deliver a third blow with the spade
when she called out to him: "Stop it, you little fool!"
Mr. Fry's attention was diverted. Peggy was spared the impending blow.
Instead, the outraged hostler charged around the partition, through a
narrow passage and into the presence of his wife. He hobbled painfully.
Inarticulate sounds issued from his compressed lips. He gripped the
spade-handle so tightly that cords stood out on his rather formidable
forearms.
Mrs. Fry got as far as "You ugly little--" and then, as he bore down
upon her, turned to flee. He altered his course, and as she passed him
on the way to the open door, the flat of the spade landed with impelling
force upon the broadest part of her person. The sound was not so hollow
as that which resulted from the wallop on Peggy's ribs, but its echo was
a great deal more far-reaching. Indeed, Mrs. Fry's howl could have been
heard a quarter of a mile away. She passed through the door into the
barnyard on the wing, as it were.
[Illustration: _He altered his course, and as she passed him, the flat
of his spade landed with impelling force_]
Lucius blindly took another swing at her with the spade as she made her
exit. Missing her by several feet, he spun completely around several
times with the momentum; then, not to be deprived of the full measure of
triumph, he hurled the implement after her retreating figure. Rage
improved the accuracy as well as the force of his effort. The spade
caught Mrs. Fry below the waistline and for nearly a month thereafter
she was in the habit of repairing with female visitors to an upstairs
bedroom where she proudly revealed to them the extensive welt produced
by her husband's belated return to power.
Not completely satisfied, however, he set out in pursuit of her,
principally on one foot, but with a swiftness that surprised both of
them. Overtaking her near the barnyard gate, he pulled up suddenly,
realizing the peril of being too precipitate. He was rushing into
disaster. She was likely to turn and snatch the offensive away from him.
But just as he was on the point of turning to run the other way, she
flopped down on her knees and began begging him for God's sake to spare
her! Her eyes were tightly closed, and her arms were raised to shield
her face.
Seizing this fine opportunity, he edged around in front of her, took the
most careful, deliberate aim, and forthwith planted his fist solidly
upon her unprotected nose.
He had always wanted to do it, but never before had the opportunity
presented itself. He couldn't remember when he had caught her with her
eyes closed before. She invariably stayed awake longer than he did at
night, telling him the same thing she had told him the night before, and
in the morning she kicked him out of bed before his eyes were open. Now
here was the golden, long-desired chance. It might never occur again. So
he swung with all his might and main.
Mrs. Fry involuntarily arose from her knees, balanced on her heels for a
second or two and then sat down some distance away with the same heels
in the air.
Then and there Lucius Fry ceased to be a person of no consequence.
Two or three neighbours, bent on rescuing Mrs. Fry, got no nearer than
the barn-lot fence. Lucius, still hopping around on one foot, gathered
up a stick of stove-wood in each hand, and let fly at them with such
determination and precision that they decided to let him go ahead and
murder her.
When Mrs. Fry's daughters hurried into the house a short time afterward,
they found their mother dressing and bandaging Mr. Fry's foot and
chokingly inquiring if she was hurting him. Between sentences she
applied a wet towel to a prodigious, unrecognizable object that had once
been her nose.
Juliet, the elder, planted herself in front of her father and
passionately inquired if it was true that he had dared to strike her
mother.
Lucius, with rare forethought, had provided himself with a stick of
stove-wood before entering the house. He now held it in his right hand.
He was not going to take any chances on his wife's treachery. He was
ready for the slightest sign of an uprising. Without answering his
daughter's question, he took a firm grip on the stick and started to
arise from his chair, upsetting the pail of water that his wife had been
using. Mrs. Fry screeched.
"Don't hit her! Don't kill her, Lucius! For God's----"
"Shut up!" snarled Lucius. "I'm goin' to belt the life out of her if she
comes around here disturbin' the peace. I'm peaceable now, Stella--we've
got perfect peace now, ain't we? But if she tries to--Well, you'll see
what'll happen, young lady. Go an' get a mop and clean up that water.
D'ye hear me? Beat it!"
"For the Lord's sake, Juliet, do what he tells you," begged Mrs. Fry.
"An' do it _quick_," said Mr. Fry.
Having so suddenly--and unintentionally--gained the upper hand in his
household, he was determined if possible to retain it. Temporarily at
least he had his wife scared almost to death and so submissive that he
couldn't think of half enough indignities to heap upon her, no matter
how hard he tried; and his disdainful daughters spoke in hushed voices,
and got up every morning to start the kitchen fire, and carried in the
wood, and waited on him first at meals, and allowed him to read _The
Banner_ before any one else claimed it, and fed the chickens, and
behaved as daughters ought to behave. It was too good to be true. But as
long as it really appeared to be true, he couldn't afford to relax for
an instant; he went about with a perpetual scowl and swore from morning
till night.
Every other week he went out to the stable, and after closing the doors,
proceeded to belabour an old saddle with a pitchfork handle. The sounds
reaching the back porch of the house caused Mrs. Fry to cover her ears
and moan: "Poor old Peggy! O-oh! My gracious! He'll--he'll kill her!"
Occasionally he threw a stove-lid or a hatchet or something else at his
wife, but his aim was singularly bad, for try as he would, he did not
appear to come closer than five or six feet to her with any of the
missiles. Once in a while he displayed the most appalling desire to
destroy everything in sight. On such occasions he smashed chairs, broke
up the crockery or tramped all over the garments that Mrs. Fry had just
hung out to dry. By mistake, he once picked up a hot stove-lid, and then
he swore in earnest. His dutiful wife wrapped his hand up in soda and
called the stove-lid a "nasty old thing!"
In a very short time everybody in Tinkletown was talking about Lucius
Fry. Some one, lying with a little more enterprise than the rest,
started the report that he had gone to Boggs City, the county seat, and
had thrashed a bartender who refused to sell him a drink. This report
grew until Lucius was credited with having polished off a whole bar-room
full of men without so much as sustaining a scratch himself.
When Lucius appeared on Main Street, men who had never noticed him
before went out of their way to be polite and friendly. Women who pitied
Mrs. Fry looked at him with interest and called him, under their breath,
a "big ugly brute." Children stopped playing and ran when they saw
Lucius Fry approaching.
Harry Squires, editor of _The Banner_, in reporting one of Mr. Fry's
most violent eruptions, alluded to him as "vicious Lucius." The name
clung to the little man. It was some time before the general public
could utter it with confidence. Haste was not conducive to accuracy.
Rash assuredness frequently turned Mr. Fry into "Vooshious Lishius" or
"Lishius Vooshious" or even "V'looshious Ooshious."
Mrs. Fry, in course of time, grew to be very proud of her master, the
despot of Power-house Gully. She revealed her pride every time she fell
in with acquaintances on the way to church. In reply to an oft-repeated
question as to why Mr. Fry did not go to church with her any longer, she
invariably gave the supercilious reply that nowadays when she requested
her husband to go to church, he told her to go to hell instead--and that
was the kind of a man she respected, she said, not one of your
weak-kneed, henpecked cowards who go to church because they are more
afraid of their wives than they are of the devil. And while the
mountainous Mrs. Fry was no longer able to thrash her five-foot-two
husband, she still inspired fear among churchgoers of both sexes and all
ages. She frequently asserted that she could lick any man in Tinkletown
except her husband--and moreover, if any officer of the law ever
attempted to arrest Lucius for what he did to her, she'd beat his head
off--that's what she'd do.
The marshal of Tinkletown, Anderson Crow, on three separate occasions
organized a posse to go out to Power-house Gully to arrest Lucius on the
complaint of neighbours who said they couldn't stand hearing his wife's
howls any longer. On each of these occasions, the marshal got as far as
the Fry front gate, backed by eight or ten of the huskiest men in town.
There they were intercepted by Mrs. Fry, who told them that Lucius was
upstairs peaceably reloading his double-barreled shotgun, or oiling up
his trusty old horse-pistol, as the case may have been, and she didn't
believe he would like to be disturbed.
"Is he ca'am an' quiet, Stella?" Marshal Crow would ask.
"As quiet as a lamb," Mrs. Fry would reply.
"Then I guess we'd better leave him alone," the Marshal would say,
adding: "But if he ever goes on the rampage again, just you send for me,
Stella, an' I'll come as quick as I can."
And the wife of Vicious Lucius would say: "Don't forget to bring the
undertaker with you when you come, Anderson. You won't need a doctor."
At times Lucius would feel his courage slipping. At such times he would
go out to the barn and jostle old Peggy around in the stall, hoping
against hope, but without the desired result. She simply _wouldn't_ step
on his foot.
One bitter cold night just before Christmas, a group of Tinkletown's
foremost citizens sat around the big sheet-iron stove in Lamson's store.
Outside, the wind was blowing a gale; it howled and shrieked around the
corners of the building, banged forgotten window-shutters, slammed
suspended signboards with relentless fury, and afforded unlimited food
for reflection, reminiscence and prophecy. It was long past Mr. Lamson's
customary hour for closing the store, but with rare tact the loungers
permitted him to do most of the talking. It was nice and warm in the
vicinity of the stove, and there were tubs of dried apples and prunes
and a sack of hazel nuts within easy reach.
"I'll never forget the Christmas I spent out in Nebraska," Mr. Lamson
was saying. He was probably the most travelled man in town. Every time
he told a story, he went a little farther West. (Harry Squires
disconcerted him on one occasion by asking in his most ironic manner if
he didn't think it would be a good idea to settle in California when he
got there, and Mr. Lamson, after thinking it over, stopped his
subscription to _The Banner_.) "Yes sir; that was a terrible winter. I
don't know as I ever told you about it, but we had to drive twenty-six
miles in sleighs to get a tree on Christmas Eve. I mean a Christmas
tree. The thermometer registered twenty-six below zero and--"
He was interrupted by the opening of the door. An icy draft swept down
the length of the store.
"Shut that door!" roared out Marshal Crow.
But the door remained open. Whereupon every one craned his neck to see
who was responsible. There was no one in sight.
"That's funny," said Newt Spratt. "I shut it tight when I came in awhile
ago."
"Well, go and shut it again," ordered Mr. Crow. "Do you want us to
freeze our ears right here in sight o' Jim Lamson's stove?"
Newt got up and kicked the door shut, saw that it was latched, and
returned to his place near the stove. Marshal Crow, during his absence,
had bettered his position. He had exchanged a seat on a box of soap for
the cane-bottom chair Newt had been occupying.
"As I was sayin'," resumed Mr. Lamson, "the thermometer registered--"
Again the door flew open, banging against a barrel of sugar. With one
accord the assembled group arose and peered at the open door.
"Well, now, that _is_ funny," said Newt. "I latched her sure that time."
"Acts like ghosts," said Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer.
"If I was a drinking man," said Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, "I'd
think I had 'em."
Marshal Crow stalked to the door, pulling his coat-collar up about his
throat as he encountered the furious blast of the wind.
At the top of the steps leading up to the porch stood a small figure
wrapped in a shawl. The light from within shone full upon the figure. It
was that of a young girl, and she was looking intently up the street.
"Well, of all the--Say, don't you know it's after nine o'clock?"
exclaimed the old Marshal. "What's a young girl like you doin' out this
time o' night?"
"Is--is that you, Mr. Crow?" quaked the girl without turning her head.
"It is. What's that got to do with it?"
"I--You don't see him anywheres up the street, do you?"
"Come inside if you want to talk to me. I ain't goin' to stand here in
this door an' freeze to death. Come in here, I say."
"I dassent. Maybe he follered me."
"Maybe who follered you?"
"Him."
By this time several other customers had joined the Marshal.
"Why, it's Lucius Fry's girl Elfaretta," said Elmer K. Pratt. "What's
the matter, Elfie?"
"You're sure he ain't follerin' me? Look hard," said the girl.
They all looked hard.
"I don't see anybody, Elfie," said Anderson Crow.
"It's a little early for Santa Claus," said Harry Squires, turning back
to the stove, his eye on the only rocking-chair in the place. "Come
inside and tell us all about it."
The girl entered the store, and some one closed the door. She was
shivering, and not altogether from the cold. Her glance darted hither
and thither, as if in quest of a more enduring protection than that
exemplified by the man-power surrounding her.
"Roll that barrel of sugar over against the door," she ordered quickly.
"I wouldn't have him catch me here for anything."
"You needn't be skeered," said the Marshal. "Ain't we here? Let's see:
there's one, two--eight of us. I guess--"
"He'd clean this bunch up as easy as rolling off a log," said Elfaretta,
edging toward the fire, but all the while casting uneasy apprehensive
glances over her shoulder.
Newt Spratt and Situate M. Jones jointly took it upon themselves to roll
the barrel of sugar up against the door.
"Are you referring to your estimable dad?" inquired Mr. Squires from the
rocking-chair.
"Yes, I am," said Elfaretta somewhat defiantly.
"Is he a little more vicious than usual tonight?" asked the reporter.
"He never was worse," said the girl. "He's just simply awful. I had to
come out to see if I couldn't get Mr. Crow to come up to the house
an'--an' settle him. He seen me just as I was going out the door, and
took after me. Out by the front gate he slipped on the ice and set down
like a ton of bricks. Oh, I never heard such cussing. You got to come up
to the house right away, Mr. Crow. He's just terrible. He--"
"Hold on a minute," interrupted the Marshal. "Go slow, now, an' answer
my questions. Is he--"
"He's throwing things around something awful. Ma's in the pantry with
the door locked, and Juliet's hiding up in the--"
"I know all that," broke in Mr. Crow sharply. "You needn't tell me about
that. What I want to know is, is he or is he not in his own house, under
his own roof?"
"He is, unless he's still setting out there in the front yard--or
follerin' after me," she concluded with a terrified look at the
barricaded door. "Do you think that barrel's heavy enough to stop him?"
"Well, if he's inside his own house, I can't touch him without a
warrant. You'll have to go an' swear out a search-warrant for him,
Elfarettie. It's against the law for me to arrest--"
"But ain't it against the law for him to be trying to murder Ma and
Juliet and me?"
"There ain't no use arguing about it. I can't go an' get him without a
warrant."
"You won't have to go in," said she confidently. "All you got to do is
to let him know you're outside--anywheres--looking for him, and he'll
come out; and he'll come without a warrant--you can bet your life on
that, Mr. Crow. He says he's getting awful sick of having nothing to
lick but women. He--"
"Did he say that?" demanded Marshal Crow, frowning and pulling at his
whiskers.
"He put in some extra words, but I can't say 'em," said Elfaretta.
"I've a notion to--to--" began the Marshal in a somewhat bellicose
manner, and then sadly shook his head. "No, it wouldn't be legal. I'm an
officer of the law. But let me tell you one thing, Elfaretta Fry, if I
_wasn't_ an officer of the law, I'd take your dad by the back of the
neck and shake him till his shoes flew off."
"We're getting away from the main issue," broke in Mr. Squires, the
gadfly. "The point is, Anderson, are you going to let Vicious Lucius
beat his family to death, or are you going up to the Gully and arrest
him?"
The Marshal looked at Harry reproachfully. "You know I ain't empowered
by law to enter a man's house without a warrant, Harry Squires."
"But the girl says you won't have to. She says her father will be only
too glad to step outside."
"How do I know she's telling the truth about all this rumpus? She ain't
under oath, is she? Well, there's got to be an affidavit, properly sworn
to, before I do anything. It's the law, an' you know it. She may be
lyin' like all get-out."
The girl flared up. "I'm going to tell Pa you called me a liar. He'll
bust your jaw if--"
"I didn't _call_ you a liar," snapped Anderson. "I only said _maybe_
you're lyin'. I leave it to anybody here if I said you was a liar; an'
besides, your pa ain't man enough to bust my jaw anyhow. You go home an'
tell him I said--"
"Let's get the facts about this present embroglio, Anderson, before we
make arrangements for another," put in Mr. Squires.
"I've no objection to that," said Anderson, a note of relief in his
voice. "She can't swear out a warrant till tomorrow morning anyhow, so
there's no particular hurry."
"But he's killin' Ma tonight!" burst in the girl.
"Keep cool now, my girl; don't get excited," cautioned the Marshal.
"What was he plannin' to kill her with? A gun?"
"No, sir. He had a hammer in one hand and a flatiron in the other, the
last I saw of him."
"Well, go on--tell us all about it."
"It was awful sudden. We were all setting around the kitchen stove, and
Pa was cracking hickory-nuts, just as nice and peaceful as anything. He
was joking with Ma and telling her he couldn't help it if the women up
our way were going plumb crazy over him--specially that Mrs. Banks,
whose husband works at the tanyard. Every time Pa goes out in the back
yard, she comes and leans on her fence and talks to him, making eyes and
grinning like a cat. She's worse than Mrs. Elam Crippen and Mrs.
Ducker--and Ma's been noticing it too. She's worried about Pa.
"Up to three months ago there wasn't a woman in town that'd look at him,
and now they can't seem to look at anybody else. Mrs. Banks came out in
her back yard yesterday and gave Pa a good pair of overshoes and a fur
cap that belonged to her husband. Pa didn't want to take 'em, but she
said she didn't care if Mr. Banks _did_ get mad; he wasn't much of a man
anyhow and she wouldn't take any back talk off'n him. Juliet heard Mrs.
Crippen say to Pa the other day that if he'd give her one of his
photographs, she'd be the happiest mortal alive. And Mrs. Ducker calls
to see Ma nearly every washday now, just when she's busiest, and so Pa
has to sit and entertain her.
"Yesterday a couple of women that Ma don't even know stopped out in
front of the house and giggled at everything Pa said, and one of 'em
said: 'Oh, you naughty man!' When Pa came into the house, Ma asked him
what he was saying to those strange women that made 'em call him a
naughty man, and Pa looked awful worried and wouldn't tell her. He said
it wasn't his fault if women acted like fools. He's all swelled-up, Pa
is. Wears his best clothes every day and has taken to smoking cigarettes
instead of a pipe when he's outside the house. Ma was counting up the
other day just to see how much the cigarettes cost her, and--But that
wasn't what I started to tell you. I--"
"I seen him walkin' down Cutler Street day before yesterday with a
woman," said Alf Reesling. "Fat sort of a woman with a pink hat on."
"That's Mrs. Banks. She--"
"Never mind about Mrs. Banks," interrupted the Marshal. "Confine
yourself to the evidence in this case, an' nothing else."
"Well, as I was saying, Pa was peaceful and quiet, cracking nuts on the
flatiron. He got hold of a tough hickor'-nut, and it wouldn't crack very
easy. So he had to hit it as hard as he could. Somehow he missed it, and
smack went the hammer right on his thumb. My goodness! You'd ought to
have heard him yell. He hopped up and began dancing around the kitchen,
sucking his thumb and trying to swear with his mouth full. Ma
says,--this is all she said,--Ma says: 'Did you hit your finger,
Lucius?' Pa let fly the hammer. It didn't miss her head a foot. Then he
fired the flatiron at her feet. Ma screamed and started to run to'ards
the back stairs. Pa knocked over the kitchen table trying to head her
off. She stumbled and fell down on her hands and knees. Then while he
was looking for something to beat her brains out with, she got up and
run into the pantry and locked the door.
"Juliet was squealing her head off. Pa picked up the hammer and started
to'ard her. Juliet made a break for the stairs, and Pa let go with the
hammer. He missed her, but he knocked a big hole in the ceiling. Then he
grabbed the tea-kettle off the stove and threw it at the cat. He got
some of the boiling water on his legs, I guess, because he grabbed 'em
in his hands and yelled like an Indian. He swore he'd kill everybody in
the house. So I beat it. He was hunting for the flatiron and the hammer,
and I was outside before he noticed me. I grabbed this old red
tablecloth as I went out and put it around me. When I saw a light in
your store, Mr. Lamson, I knowed Mr. Crow would be here, so up I came.
Now, what are you going to do about it, Mr. Crow?"
The Marshal pondered. "You say your Ma's safely locked in the pantry?"
"She was--unless he busted the door down."
"And Julie is up in the attic?"
"Yes, and she's probably dead by this time. There ain't any lock on the
attic door."
"Well, seems to me they're perfectly safe till morning. Julie could jump
out of the attic window if the worst come to the worst. The thing that's
worryin' me is you. Where are you going to sleep tonight, Elfie?"
"Right here in Mr. Lamson's rocking-chair," said the girl promptly.
"I'll take her up to my house," said Alf Reesling. "She can crawl in
with my daughter Queenie."
"That's out of the question," said Harry Squires, arising and looking
around for his overcoat. "We will need you, Alf. The Marshal is going to
organize a posse and go up to Power-house Gully and capture Vicious
Lucius dead or alive, before he's half an hour older."
"What's that?" demanded the Marshal, startled.
"You heard what I said. Get into your overcoats and goloshes, gentlemen.
The Marshal instructs me to say that we will be leaving here in five
minutes."
"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" oozed from Marshal Crow's lips. He was
staring quite hopelessly at Harry Squires.
"Isn't that a fact, Mr. Crow?" inquired Harry, fixing him with a most
disconcerting look.
Anderson indulged in a short fit of coughing. "Yes," he said, after
recovering himself, "it _is_ a fact, but I'd like to know how you got
onto it."
"I am a mental telegrapher, Mr. Crow," said the reporter, carefully
placing a hat upon Mr. Reesling's head. "There's your hat, Alf. Now be
sure and pick out a good coat."
* * * * *
The Marshal's posse eventually resolved itself into a party of
two--Anderson Crow and Harry Squires. Elmer K. Pratt remembered that his
youngest child had the croup, and he couldn't leave her; Situate M.
Jones complained of a sudden and violent attack of lumbago; Newt Spratt
loudly demanded the flaxseed his wife had asked him to bring home so
that she could make a poultice for a terrible toothache she was enjoying
that evening; Alf Reesling refused to desert poor little Elfie; and two
other gentlemen succeeded in sneaking out the back way while the
Marshal's view was obstructed by the aforesaid slackers. Storekeeper
Lamson had a perfectly sound excuse. He was a pacifist. However, he was
willing to lend his revolver to the Marshal and a pair of brass "knucks"
to Harry Squires.
Approaching Power-house Gully, the two adventurers observed shadowy
forms moving about in the darkness at the foot of the slope. They
paused.
"Mostly women, I should say," remarked the Marshal.
"Probably hoping that Lucius is a widower by this time," said the
reporter.
"So's they c'n send flowers an' victuals to him all the time he's in
jail," said Anderson. "S'pose you go down an' talk to 'em, Harry, while
I sneak around the back way and reconnoitre."
"That's a good idea," said Harry. "I'll just rush in through the front
door, and he'll make a break to escape by the rear, so you'll be right
there to head him off."
"Come to think of it," said Anderson hastily, "maybe we'd better see if
he's out in the front yard first. Come on."
Eight or ten people were congregated in front of the Fry house,
conversing in a hushed, excited manner. The Marshal and his companion
bore down upon them. As the former had remarked, they were "mostly"
women. There was but one man in the group. He turned out to be no other
than Vicious Lucius himself.
[Illustration: _Eight or ten people were congregated in front of the Fry
house_]
"What's this I hear about you, Lucius Fry?" demanded Anderson Crow.
"Don't you dare arrest Mr. Fry, Anderson Crow," cried one of the ladies.
"He ain't done anything but give her what she deserves, and----"
"Can I speak to you private, Mr. Crow?" interrupted Vicious Lucius in a
hurried manner. He was wearing an overcoat that came down to his heels,
and a derby hat that rested rather firmly upon his ears.
Anderson stared at him in horror.
"Good gosh, Lucius, have you--have you had your hands cut off?" he
gasped, looking hard at the flapping coat-sleeves.
"Course I ain't," said Mr. Fry, lifting his arms on high, allowing the
sleeves to slip down a half a foot or more and revealing his hands.
"This ain't my coat. It's Jim Banks'. A little too big fer me--and the
hat too, I reckon."
"I just couldn't let him catch his death o' cold," explained the buxom
Mrs. Banks.
"He just simply won't go back into the house," said Mrs. Ducker. "And I
don't blame him, either. He's afraid he might throw her out of a window
and--and break her neck, didn't you say, Lucius?"
"No, I didn't. I said I was afraid I'd break the winder," said Lucius,
glaring at Mrs. Ducker from beneath the rim of Mr. Banks' hat.
"Where is your wife?" demanded Anderson.
"In there," said Lucius, pointing a drooping coat-sleeve in the general
direction of his domicile. "Come on over here by the lamp-post, Mr.
Crow. I got something important I want to say to you."
"You ain't going to give yourself up without a fight, are you, Lucius?"
cried Mrs. Banks in considerable agitation.
"You leave me alone," snarled Lucius in a manner so malevolent that Mrs.
Banks cried out delightedly:
"Oh, ain't he just grand? Did you hear the way he spoke to me, Emma
Ducker? Goodness, what would I give if I had a man that could talk to me
like--"
"You ought to heard what he said to me when I asked him to come over to
our house and--" began Mrs. Ducker somewhat acrimoniously.
"Oh, cut it out--cut it out!" rasped Lucius. "Beat it! Go home, all of
you! Gosh a'mighty, can't a feller lick his own wife without--Here!
Leggo my arm! What in thunder are you tryin' to do, Lou Banks?"
"I'm going to take you over to my house and put your feet in a hot
mustard bath, and--"
"No, you ain't! Leggo, I say! Fer the Lord's sake, Officer, chase 'em
away!"
"Move on, now--move on, all of you," commanded the Marshal, waving the
revolver in lieu of his well-known night-stick. "What you got to say to
me, Lucius?" he asked as the women fell back.
"Do you think they c'n hear?"
"Not unless you whisper loudern' that."
"Well, say, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to take me up to
the jail an' lock me in."
"You--you want to be locked in?"
"I don't care whether you put it that way er to lock all these fool
women out. It's all the same to me. I ain't had a minute's peace for
nearly two months. I--"
"Why don't you go in your own house an' stay there?" demanded Anderson.
"That don't seem to help any. They come to call on me so often you'd
think I was a preacher or a doctor. An' what's more, my wife's beginnin'
to get her dander up. I c'n see what's comin'. If she ever--gee, it will
be awful!"
"Then you hain't murdered her yet? I understood you had."
* * * * *
Vicious Lucius looked over his shoulder and drew closer to the Marshal.
"This here strain is gittin' to be too much fer me, Mr. Crow. I can't
keep it up much longer. I'm breakin' down. I been thinkin' it over, an'
I can't see any way out of it except to go to jail fer a month er two."
"What's the charge?"
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