All He Knew(@@) - John Habberton (ink ebook reader .txt) 📗

Bartram. His eyes met the lawyer's, and at once the deacon looked defiant. Then he pulled himself together, and, with a mighty effort, remarked,--

"Sam, some folks say I am down on you, and that I don't sympathize with you. Some folks talk a good deal for you, and to you, and don't do anything for you. But I just came in this morning for the sole purpose of saying this: You've had a hard row to hoe, and you've worked at it first rate ever since you got out of jail. I've been watching you, though perhaps you don't know it, and I came here to say that I believe so much in your having had a change--though I do insist you haven't gone far enough--I came around to say that I was going to buy out this place from Larry, and give it to you at your own terms, so that you can make all the money that comes in."

Sam looked up in astonishment at the lawyer. The lawyer looked down smilingly at the deacon, who was seated on a very low bench, and said,--

"Deacon, we're all a good, deal alike in this world in one respect: our best thoughts come too late.

CHAPTER XVII.page 106

I don't hesitate to say that some good thoughts, which I have heard you urge upon other people but which you never mentioned to me, have come to me a deal later than they should. But, on the other hand, this matter of making Sam the master of this shop has already been attended to. I've bought it for him myself, and made him a free and clear present of it last night in token of the immense amount of good which he has done me by personal example."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the deacon.

"I don't mind saying," continued the lawyer, "that if you will go to work and do me half as much good, I will buy just as much property and make you a free and clear present of it. I am open to all possible benefits of that kind nowadays, and willing to pay for them, so far as money will go, to the full extent of my income and capital." The deacon arose and looked about him in a dazed sort of fashion. Then he looked at the lawyer inquiringly, put his hand in his pocket, drew forth a mass of business papers, shuffled them over once more, looked again at the lawyer, and said,--

"Mr. Bartram, I've got some particular business with you that I would like to talk about at once. Would you mind coming to my office, or taking me around to yours?"

"Not at all. Good luck, Sam," said the lawyer. "Good day."

The two men went out together. No sooner were they outside the shop than the deacon said, rapidly,--

"Reynolds Bartram, my business affairs are in the worst possible condition. You know more about them than anybody else. You have done as much as anybody else to put them in the muddle that they're in now. You helped me into them, and now, church or no church, religion or no religion, you've got to help me out of them, or I've got to go to the devil. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"Is it as bad as that?" murmured the lawyer.

"Yes, it's as bad as that, and I could put it a good deal stronger if it was necessary. Everything has been going wrong.

CHAPTER XVII.page 107

That walnut timber tract over on the creek, that I expected to get about five thousand dollars out of, isn't worth five thousand cents. Since the last time I was over there some rascal stole every log that was worth taking, and the place wouldn't bring under the hammer half what I gave for it. I have been trying to sell it, but somehow everybody that wanted it before has found out what has been going on. This is an awfully mean world on business-men that don't look out for themselves all the time."

"I should not think you had ever any right to complain of it, deacon," said the lawyer.

"Come, come, now," said the deacon, "I'm not in any condition to be tormented to-day, Reynolds,--I really ain't. I'm almost crazy. I suppose old Mrs. Poynter has been at you to get her interest-money out of me, hasn't she?"

"Hasn't spoken a word to me about it," said the lawyer.

"Well, I heard she was after you every night in the meeting--"

"She was after me, talking about one sinner or another of her acquaintance, but she didn't mention you, deacon. It's a sad mistake, perhaps, but in a big town like this a person can't think of everybody at once, you know."

"For heaven's sake, Bartram, shut up, and tell me what I have to do. Time is passing. I must have a lot of ready cash to-day, somehow, and here are all these securities; the minute I try to sell them people go to asking questions, and you're the only man they can come to. Now, you know perfectly well what the arrangements and understandings were when these papers were drawn, because you drew them all yourself. Now, if people come to you I want you to promise me that you're not going to go back on me."

The deacon still held the papers in his hand, gesticulating with them. As he spoke, the lawyer took them, looked at them, and finally said,--

"Deacon, how much money do you need?"

"I can't get through," said the deacon, "with less than nine hundred dollars ready cash, or first-class checks and notes, this very day."

CHAPTER XVII.page 108

"Humph!" said the lawyer, still handling the papers. "Deacon, I'll make you a straightforward proposition concerning that money. If you will agree that I shall be agent of both parties in any settlement of these agreements which I hold in my hand, and that you will accept me as sole and final arbitrator in any differences of opinion between you and the signers, I will agree personally to lend you the amount you need, on your simple note of hand, renewable from time to time until you are ready to pay it."

"Ray Bartram," exclaimed the deacon, stopping short and looking the lawyer full in the face, "what on earth has got into you?"

"Religion, I guess, deacon," said the lawyer. "Try it yourself: it'll do you good."

The lawyer walked off briskly, and left the deacon standing alone in the street. As the deacon afterwards explained the matter to his wife, he felt like a stuck pig.

CHAPTER XVIII.page 109

"Tom," said Sam Kimper to his eldest son one morning after breakfast, "I wish you'd walk along to the shop with me. There's somethin' I want to talk about."

Tom wanted to go somewhere else; what boy doesn't, when his parents have anything for him to do? Nevertheless, the young man finally obeyed his father, and the two left the house together.

"Tom," said the father, as soon as the back door had closed behind them, "Tom, I'm bein' made a good deal more of than I deserve, but 'tain't any of my doin's, and men that ort to know keep tellin' me that I'm doin' a lot o' good in town. Once in a while, though, somebody laughs at me,--laughs at somethin' I say. It's been hurtin' me, an' I told Judge Prency so the other day; but he said, 'Sam, it isn't what you say, but the way you say it.' You see, I never had no eddication; I was sent to school, but I played hookey most of the time."

CHAPTER XVIII.page 110

"Did you, though?" asked Tom, with some inflections that caused the cobbler to look up in time to see that his son was looking at him admiringly; there could be no doubt about it. Sam had never been looked at that way before by his big boy, and the consequence was an entirely new and pleasurable sensation. After thinking it over a moment, he replied,--

"Yes, I did, an' any fun that was to be found I looked after in them days. I don't mind tellin' you that I don't think I found enough to pay for the trouble; but things was as they was. Now I wish I'd done diff'rent; but