Anderson Crow, Detective Part 41

"I see you're not," went on Harry. "Of course you understand you can't very well manufacture hard cider and sell it and still retain your untarnished reputation as a defender of the law."

"I'm not figurin' on makin' hard cider," said Anderson, with some irritation. "You don't _make_ hard cider, Harry. It makes itself. All you do is to rack the apple juice off into a barrel, or something, with a little yeast added, and then leave it to do the work. It ferments an'

then, if you want to, you rack it off again an' bottle it an'--well, gee whiz, how tight you c'n get on it if you ain't got sense enough to let it alone. But I ain't thinkin' about what I'm goin' to do, 'cause I ain't to do anything but make appleb.u.t.ter out of my orchard,--an' maybe a little cider-vinegar fer home consumption. What's worryin' me is what to do about all these other people around here. If they all take to makin' cider this fall,--or even sooner,--an' if they bottle or cask it proper,--we'll have enough hard cider in this township to give the whole state of New York the delirium trimmins."

"I don't see that you can do anything, Anderson," said Squires, leaning back in his chair and puffing at his pipe. "You can't keep people from making cider, you know. And you can't keep 'em from drinking it.

Besides, who's going to take the trouble to ascertain whether it contains one-half of one percent alcohol? What interests me more than anything else is the possibility of this township becoming 'wet' in spite of itself,--an' to my certain knowledge, it has been up to now the barrenest desert on G.o.d's green earth."

"People are so all-fired contrary," Anderson complained. "For the last fifty years the citizens of this town and its suburbs have been so dead set ag'inst liquor that if a man went up to Boggs City an' got a little tipsy he had to run all the way home so's he'd be out of breath when he got there. n.o.body ever kept a bottle of whiskey in his house, 'cause n.o.body wanted it an' it would only be in the way. But now look at 'em!

The minute the Government says they can't have it, they begin movin'

things around in their cellars so's to make room fer the barrels they're going to put in. An' any day you want to drive out in the country you c'n see farmers an' hired men treatin' the apple-trees as if they was the tenderest plants a-growin'. I heard this mornin' that Henry Wimpelmeyer is to put in a cider-press at his tanyard, an' old man Smock's turnin' his grist mill into an apple-mill. An' everybody is h.o.a.rdin' apples, Harry. It beats the Dutch."

"It's up to you to frustrate their nefarious schemes, Mr. Hawkshaw. The fair name of the Commonwealth must be preserved. I use the word advisedly. It sounds a great deal better than 'pickled.' Now, do you want me to begin a campaign in the _Banner_ against the indiscriminate and mendacious hardening of apple-cider, or am I to leave the situation entirely in your hands?"

Marshal Crow arose. The fire of determination was in his ancient eye.

"You leave it to me," said he, and strode majestically from the room.

Encountering Deacon Rank in front of the _Banner_ office, he chanced this somewhat offensive remark:

"Say, Deacon, what's this I hear about you?"

The deacon looked distinctly uneasy.

"You can always hear a lot of things about me that aren't true," he said.

"I ain't so sure about that," said Anderson, eyeing him narrowly. "Hold on! What's your hurry?"

"I--I got to step in here and pay my subscription to the _Banner_," said the deacon.

"Well, that's something n.o.body'll believe when they hear about it," said Anderson. "It'll be mighty hard fer the proprieter of the _Banner_ to believe it after all these years."

"Times have been so dog-goned hard fer the last couple of years, I ain't really been able to--"

"Too bad about you," broke in Anderson scornfully.

"Everything costs so much in these days," protested the deacon. "I ain't had a new suit of clothes fer seven or eight years. Can't afford 'em. My wife was sayin' only last night she needed a new hat,--somethin' she can wear all the year round,--but goodness knows this ain't no time to be thinkin' of hats. She--"

"She ain't had a new hat fer ten years," interrupted Anderson. "No wonder the pore woman's ashamed to go to church."

"What's that? Who says she's ashamed to go to church? Anybody that says my wife's ashamed to go to church is a--is a--well, he tells a story, that's all."

"Well, why don't she go to church?"

"'Tain't because she's ashamed of her hat, let me tell you that, Anderson Crow. It's a fine hat an' it's just as good as new. She's tryin' to save it, that's what she's tryin' to do. She knows it's got to last her five or six years more, an' how in tarnation can she make it last that long if she wears it all the time? Use a little common sense, can't you? Besides, I'll thank you not to stick your nose in my family affairs any--"

"What's that you got in your pocket?" demanded Anderson, indicating the bulging sides of the deacon's overcoat.

"None of your business!"

"Now, don't you get hot. I ask you again, civil as possible,--what you got in your pocket?"

"I'm a respectable, tax-paying, church-going citizen of this here town, and I won't put up with any of your cussed insinuations," snapped the deacon. "You act as if I'd stole something. You--"

"I ain't accusin' you of stealin' anything. I'm only accusin' you of havin' something in your pocket. No harm in that, is there?"

The deacon hesitated for a minute. Then he made a determined effort to temporize.

"And what's more," he said, "my wife's hat's comin' back into style before long, anyhow. It's just as I keep on tellin' her. The styles kinder go in circles, an' if she waits long enough they'll get back to the kind she's wearin', and then she'll be the first woman in Tinkletown to have the very up-to-datest style in hats,--'way ahead of anybody else,--and it will be as good as new, too, you bet, after the way she's been savin' it."

"Now I know why you got your pockets stuffed full of things,--eggs, maybe, or hick'ry nuts, or--whatever it is you got in 'em. It's because you're tryin' to save a piece of wrappin' paper or a bag, or the wear and tear on a basket. No wonder you got so much money you don't know how to spend it."

"And as for me gettin' a new suit of clothes," pursued the deacon, doggedly, "if times don't get better the chances are I'll have to be buried in the suit I got on this minute. I never knowed times to be so hard--"

The marshal interrupted him. "You go in an' pay up what you owe fer the _Banner_ an' I'll wait here till you come out."

Deacon Rank appeared to reflect. "Come to think of it, I guess I'll stop in on my way back from the post office. Ten or fifteen minutes--"

He stopped short, a fixed intent look in his sharp little eyes. His gaze was directed past Anderson's head at some object down the street. Then, quite abruptly and without even the ceremony of a hasty "good-bye," he bolted into the _Banner_ office, slamming the door in the marshal's face.

"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" burst from the lips of the astonished Mr.

Crow. "I never knowed him to change his mind so quick as that in all my life,--or so often. What the d.i.c.kens--"

Indignation succeeded wonder at this instant, cutting off his audible reflections. Snapping his jaws together, he laid a resolute hand on the doork.n.o.b. Just as he turned it and was on the point of stamping in after the deacon, his eye fell upon an approaching figure--the figure of a woman. If it had not been for the hat she was wearing, he would have failed to recognize her at once. But there was no mistaking the hat.

"Hi!" called out the wearer of the too familiar object. Marshal Crow let go of the door k.n.o.b and stared at the lady in sheer stupefaction.

Mrs. Rank's well-preserved hat was perched rakishly at a perilous angle over one ear. A subsequent shifting to an even more precarious position over the other ear, as the result of a swift, inaccurate sweep of the lady's hand, created an instant impression that it was attached to her drab, disordered hair by means of a new-fangled but absolutely dependable magnet. Never before had Marshal Crow seen that ancient hat so much as the fraction of an inch out of "plumb" with the bridge of Mrs. Rank's undeviating nose.

She approached airily. Her forlorn little person was erect, even soldierly. Indeed, if anything, she was a shade too erect at times. At such times she appeared to be in some danger of completely forgetting her equilibrium. She stepped high, as the saying is, and without her usual precision. In a word, the meek and retiring wife of Deacon Rank was hilariously drunk!

Pedestrians, far and near, stopped stockstill in their tracks to gaze open-mouthed at the jaunty drudge; storekeepers peered wide-eyed and incredulous from windows and doors. If you suddenly had asked any one of them when the world was coming to an end, he would have replied without the slightest hesitation.

She bore down upon the petrified Mr. Crow.

"Is zat you, An'erson?" she inquired, coming to an uncertain stop at the foot of the steps. Where--oh, where! was the subdued, timorous voice of Sister Rank? Whose--oh, whose! were the shrill and fearless tones that issued forth from the lips of the deacon's wife?

"For the Lord's sake, Lucy,--wha--what ails you?" gasped the horrified marshal.

"Nothing ails me, An'erson. Nev' fel' better'n all my lipe--life.

Where's my hush--hushban'?"

She brandished her right hand, and clutched in her fingers an implement that caused Anderson's eyes to almost start from his head.

"What's that you got in your hand?" he cried out.

"Thish? Tha.s.s a hashet. Don't you know wha.s.s a hashet is?"

"I--I know it's a hatchet. Lucy,--but, fer heaven's sake, what are you goin' to do with it?"