Tom Watson's Magazine, Vol. I, No. 4, June 1905

Mayhew stared in alarm for a moment, then he said:

“There’s no use talking about parting. I only want to kind of hold you in check. You get your sympathies stirred up and make plunges sometimes when you ought to act with a clear head. You say the crop looks well; then, it’s all right. Go ahead, Mrs. Stark. Anything Nelson does is agreeable to me.”

“Well, it’s mighty good of you both,” the old woman said, wiping tears of joy from her eyes. “No, I won’t buy anything today. I’ll ride out to the farm as quick as I can and tell Peter the good news. He’s mighty nigh out of his senses about it.”

Mayhew followed her down into the store. It was as if he were ashamed to meet the quizzical look which Pole Baker had fixed upon him. He had no sooner turned his back than Pole faced Floyd and asked: “How does she stand by your ticker?”

Floyd looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter-past eleven,” he said.

“The hell it is!” Pole went to the back door and looked out at the dreary stable-yard and barn. He stood there for several minutes in deep thought. Then he seemed to make up his mind on something that was troubling him, for he suddenly thrust his hand into his hip-pocket and drew out a revolver and rapidly twirled the cylinder with his heavy thumb.

“Yes, I ’lowed I’d swore off from shootin’ scrapes,” he mused; “but I shore have to git in this ’un. I’d never look Sally an’ the childern in the face agin ef I was to stand still an’ let that dead shot kill the best friend me an’ them ever had. No, Poley, old boy, you’ve got to enlist this mornin’, an’ thar hain’t no two ways about it. I’d take a drink on that, but a feller’s aim hain’t wuth a dang when he sees double.”

His attention was suddenly attracted to Floyd, who had left his stool and was putting a revolver into the pocket of his sack coat. Pole shoved his own cautiously back into his pocket and went to his friend’s side.

“What you goin’ to do now?” he asked.

“I have just thought of something that ought to be attended to,” was Floyd’s answer. “Is Mel Jones still down there?”

“Yes; I see ’im now through the left-hand window,” said Pole. “Do you want to see ’im?”

“Yes.” Floyd moved in the direction indicated and Pole wonderingly followed. Outside on the pavement at the corner of the store Mel Jones stood talking to a group of eager listeners. He stopped when he saw Floyd, and looked in the opposite direction, but in a calm voice the young merchant called him.

“Mel, may I see you a minute?”

“Certainly.” The face of the gaunt farmer fell as he came forward, his eyes shifting uneasily.

“I got a message from Jeff Wade just now,” said Floyd.

“Oh, did you? Is that so?” the fellow exclaimed.

“Yes; he says he has a private matter to settle with me, and says he’ll be here at the store at twelve. Now, as you see, there are a good many people standing around—women and children, and somebody might get hurt or frightened. You know where Price’s spring is, down behind the old brick yard?”

“Oh, yes; I know where it is, Floyd.”

“Well, you will do me a favor if you will ride out to Wade’s and tell him I’ll meet him there. He could reach it without coming through town, and we’d escape a lot of prying people who would be in the way.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Jones, his strong face lighting up. “Yes, I’ll go tell ’im. I’m glad to see that you are a man o’ backbone, Floyd. Some ’lowed you’d throw up the sponge an’ leave fer parts unknown, but Jeff’s got to tackle the rale stuff. I kin see that, Floyd. Minnie Wade raised a lots o’ devilment, an’ my wife says whatever rumors spread about her was her own fault. But Jeff cayn’t be expected to see it through a woman’s eyes. I wish you was goin’ to meet a man that wasn’t sech a dead shot. I seed Jeff knock a squirrel out of a high tree with his six-shooter that three men had missed with rifles.”

“I’ll try to take care of myself, Mel. But you’d better hurry up and get to him before he starts to town.”

“Oh, I’ll git ’im all right,” said the farmer, and he went out to the hitching-rack, jumped on his horse and galloped away.

The group Jones had been talking to now drew near, their eyes and mouths open.

“It’s all off, boys,” Pole said, with one of his inscrutable laughs. “Explanations an’ apologies has been exchanged—no gore today. It was a big mistake all round.”

This version soon spread, and a sigh of relief went up from everybody. Fifteen minutes passed. Pole was standing in the front door of the store, cautiously watching Floyd, who had gone back to his desk to write a letter. Suddenly Pole missed him from his place.

“He’s tryin’ to give me the slip,” Pole said. “He’s gone out at the back door and has made fer the spring. Well, he kin _think_ he’s throwed old Pole off, but he hain’t by a jugful. I know now which road Jeff Wade will come by, an’ I’ll see that skunk before Nelson does or no prayers hain’t answered.”

He went out to the hitching-rack, mounted, and, waving his hand to the few bystanders who were eying him curiously, rode away, his long legs swinging back and forth from the flanks of his horse. A quarter of a mile outside of the village he came to a portion of the road leading to Jeff Wade’s house that was densely shaded, and there he drew rein and dismounted.

“Thar hain’t no other way fer ’im to come,” he said, “an’ he’s my meat—that is, unless the damn fool kin be fetched to reason.”

CHAPTER VIII

There was a quilting party at Porter’s that day. Cynthia had invited some of her friends to help her, and the quilt, a big square of colored scraps, more or less artistically arranged in stars, crescents and floral wreaths, occupied the centre of the sitting-room. It was stitched to a frame of four smooth wooden bars, which were held together at the corners by pegs driven into gimlet holes and which rested on the backs of four chairs. The workers sat on two sides of it and stitched, with upward and downward strokes, toward the centre, the quilt being rolled up as the work progressed.

Hattie Mayhew was there, Kitty Welborn and two or three others. As usual they were teasing Cynthia about the young preacher.

“I know she’s the apple of his eye,” laughed Kitty Welborn. “He really can’t, as you said the other night, keep from looking at her during preaching. I noticed it particularly one Sunday not long ago and told Matt Digby that I’d be sure to get religion if a man bored it into me with eyes like his.”

“I certainly would go up to the mourners’ bench every time he called up repentant sinners,” said Hattie Mayhew. “I went up once while he was exhorting and he turned me over to Sister Perdue, that snaggle-toothed old maid. He didn’t even offer his hand.”

Cynthia said nothing, but she smiled good-naturedly as she rose from her chair and went to the side of the quilt near the crudely screened fireplace to see that the work was rolled evenly on the frame. While thus engaged her father came into the room, vigorously fanning himself with his old slouch hat. The girls knew he had been to the village, and all asked eagerly if he had brought them any letters.

“No, I clean forgot to go to the office,” he made slow answer as he threw himself into a big armchair with a rawhide bottom, near a window on the shaded side of the house.

“Why, father,” his daughter chided him, “you promised the girls faithfully to call at the office. I think that was very neglectful of you when you knew they would be here to dinner.”

“And he usually has a good memory,” spoke up Mrs. Porter, appearing in the doorway leading to the dining-room and kitchen. She was rolling flakes of dough from her lank hands and glanced at her husband reprovingly. “Nathan, what _did_ you go and do that way for, when you knew Cynthia was trying to make her friends pass a pleasant day?”

“Well, I clean forgot it,” Porter said, quite undisturbed. “To tell you the truth, thar was so much excitement on all hands, with this un runnin’ in with fresh news, an’ that un sayin’ that maybe it was all a false alarm, that the post-office plumb slipped out o’ my head. Huh, I hain’t thought post-office once sence I left here! I don’t know whether I could ’a’ got in thar anyway, fer the Postmaster hisse’f was runnin’ round like a camp-meetin’ chicken with its head cut off. Besides, I tell you, gals, I made up my mind to hit the grit. I never was much of a hand to want to see wholesale bloodshed. Moreover, I’ve heard of many a spectator a-gittin’ shot in the arms an’ legs or some vital spot. No, I sorter thought I’d come on. Mandy, have you seen anything o’ my fly-flap? When company comes you an’ Cynthia jest try yoreselves on seein’ how many things you kin put out o’ place, an’ I’m gittin’ sick an’ tired o’——”

“Nathan, what’s going on in town?” broke in Mrs. Porter. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know what’s goin’ on _now_,” Porter drawled out as he slapped at a fly on his bald pate with an angry hand. “I say I don’t know what’s goin’ on _now_; but I know what was jest gittin’ ready to go on. I reckon the coroner’s goin’ on with the inquest ef he ain’t afeared of an ambush. Jeff Wade—” Porter suddenly bethought himself of something, and he rose, passed through the composite and palpable stare of the whole room and went to the clock on the mantelpiece and opened it. “Thar!” he said impatiently. “I wonder what hole or crack you-uns have stuck my chawin’ tobacco in. I put it right in the corner of this clock, right under the turpentine bottle.”

“There’s your fool tobacco!” Mrs. Porter exclaimed, running forward and taking the dark plug from beneath the clock. “Fill your mouth with it; maybe it will unlock your jaw. What is the trouble at Springtown?”

“I was jest startin’ to tell you,” said Porter, diving into his capacious trousers pocket for his knife and slowly opening th