Anything Once Part 8

"Well," grumbled the other, "I don't hold with pickin' up tramps in the road, but I'm sick of handin' out good money to them loafers at the dock to unload, an' I ain't got a hired man to take along no more; they're allus lazy, good-for-nothin' fellers that eat more'n they work out, let alone their wages goin' sky-hootin'!"

"But you must be making a handsome profit, with the price of eggs going up, too, all the time," Jim remarked.

The old man gave him a sly glance.

"That's how you look at it," he replied. "They oughter go up twice the price they be. My wife's doin' the hired man's work now, an' she's allus pesterin' me to git an incubator, but them things cost a powerful sight of money, an' I don't hold with new-fangled notions; too much resk to them. You can allus sell hens when they git too old to set or lay, but what're you going to do with a wore-out incubator?"

He cackled shrilly at his own witticism and then grew morose again. "The way things is, there ain't no profit skeercely in nothin'."

They jogged along drowsily through the slumberous heat, while the old man continued his harangue against the cost of everything except his own commodity, and the underfed horses strained to drag their burden over the hilly road. The mountains had been left behind, and all over the rolling hillsides about them on either hand the vineyards stretched in undulating lines, each heavy with the load of purpling grapes.

Mile after mile pa.s.sed slowly beneath the creaking wheels of the wagon; noon came, and still Riverburgh remained tantalizingly ahead. At last, on the rise of a hill, the old man pulled up and pointed with his whip to the spreading sweep of brick buildings fronting on the river's edge below.

"There's the town," he announced, adding, with a touch of regret: "We're ahead of time, after all, an' I could have unloaded by myself. Well, it don't matter noways except for the extra drag on the horses. Giddap!"

"There's--there's an ottermobile comin' up behind," Lou ventured. "They been tootin' at you for some time, mister."

"Let 'em," the old man cackled shrilly once more. "I've been drivin' on these roads afore them things was heard of, an' I don't calc'late to turn out for 'em."

The warning of the siren sounded again disturbingly close, and the rush of the oncoming car could be plainly heard. Jim glanced at the old man, and, noting the stubborn set of his jaw, said nothing; but Lou spoke again, and her voice held no note of alarm, but rather indignation at the obvious lack of fair play.

"But they got a right; you're on their side of the road," she exclaimed.

"If you'd give them their half, mister, they could pa.s.s easy."

"Don't calc'late to let 'em," he responded obstinately. "Ain't goin' to take their dust if I kin help it."

Deliberately he tugged on the left reins and headed the team straight across the road. Lou gave a quick glance over the side of the wagon and behind, and then gripped Jim's arm. He turned and caught one glimpse of her set face, and then with a roar and a grinding crash they both felt themselves lifted into the air and landed in some golden, slimy fluid in the ditch.

"Lou, are you hurt?" Jim tried to wipe the clinging stuff from his eyes and ears with his sleeve. "Where are you?"

The rapidly diminishing clatter of horses' hoofs down the hill, and the old man's vigorously roared recriminations a.s.sured him of the safety of the rest of the entourage even before Lou replied.

"Not hurt a mite, but I'm laughin'!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Oh, Jim, you--you should have seen it. That ottermobile hit square in the middle of the wagon, and there ain't--isn't--a single egg----"

"Here, you!" the old man, dripping from head to foot with the golden slime, rushed up and tugged excitedly at Jim's arm. "Come on an' help me to ketch them horses! What'd I bring you along for? Let the girl be, I don't ker if her neck's broke! I got to lodge a complaint against them rascals, an' have 'em stopped! You're my witnesses that they run into me, an' I'll make 'em pay a pretty penny----"

"I care whether my sister's neck is broken or not!" Jim retorted grimly.

"Go after your own horses. I engaged to unload eggs, and it looks as if the job was finished. Lou, are you sure you're all right?"

The old man danced up and down in the road, spattering flecks of egg about him.

"We'll see about that," he shrilled. "You come along with me! You're my witnesses----"

"We'll be your witnesses that you were on the wrong side of the road, and knew it," Jim helped Lou to her feet. "They warned you, and you wouldn't turn out."

With an outburst of inarticulate rage the old man dashed off down the road, and Lou, helpless with laughter, clung to Jim's slippery sleeve.

"Don't mind him," she gasped. "Old skinflint! Oh, Jim, you l-look like an omelet."

CHAPTER VI

The Red Note-Book

For a moment Jim laughed with her; then the seriousness of their situation was borne in upon him, and his face sobered.

"It's the kind of an omelet that won't come off in a hurry, I'm afraid,"

he said. "How on earth are we going to walk into Riverburgh like this?"

It was the first time that he had appealed to her, and Lou's laughter ceased also, but her cheerful confidence did not fail her.

"We gotter find some place where we can git cleaned up, that's all," she replied practically. "Most anybody would let you do that, I guess, if you told them what happened, an' if you can't ask--why, I kin. Anybody 'cept a mean old thing like that! I s'pose I ought to be sorry that his wagon's broke an' his eggs are all over us instead of where they was goin', but I'm not a mite. Long's he wasn't hurt, I'm kinder glad."

"Still, those people in the car ought to have stopped to see the extent of the damage they had done, even if they did have the right-of-way,"

Jim observed. "The old fellow had his grievance, but he got my goat when he said he didn't care if your neck was broken or not, and I wouldn't have helped him if I could."

"'Goat'?" Lou repeated.

Jim had no opportunity to explain, for at that moment a woman in a faded gingham gown toiled hurriedly over the brow of the hill, and, on seeing them, stopped, with one hand at her breast.

"Oh!" she gasped. "There's wasn't anyone hurt, was there? I saw the accident from my porch, and I came just as quick as I could."

Jim explained, and the woman listened, wide-eyed.

"You both come straight along with me," she invited when he had finished. "I'll lend you some overalls, and you and the little girl can just sit around while your clothes dry."

She led the way back to a tiny but very neat cottage, with flowers blooming in the door-yard and a well-tended truck-garden in the rear.

Broad hay-fields stretched on either side, but only two little boys were visible, tossing the hay awkwardly with pitchforks almost bigger than they were themselves.

The woman left them standing for a minute on the back porch, and then came out to them, bearing a cake of soap, a towel, and a pair of overalls and shirt, which, although immaculately clean, bore many patches and darns, and were deeply creased, as though they had been laid away a long time.

"Take these down to the barn." She handed them to Jim. "You'll find a spigot there, and cold water's best for egg-stains. I left some rags in the empty box-stall that you can use to clean your shoes, and then, if you'll give me your clothes that you've got on now, I'll soak them and get them out while the sun's high; corduroy takes a long time to dry."

When Jim had expressed his grat.i.tude and departed for the barn, the woman led Lou into the kitchen, and, providing her also with clean garments, she dragged a wash-tub out on the porch.

"I--if you'll let me, I'd like to wash my own things and Jim's." Lou appeared shyly in the door in a gown several sizes too large for her.

"He'd like it, too, I think, and he can help with the hayin' till the things git dried out enough, so's we kin go on."

"Oh, would he?" the woman asked quickly. "I'd pay him well if he's looking for work; I can't get any hands, though I've tried, and the hay is rotting for want of being turned. I didn't think I'd seen you two around here before, but I've known old Mr. Weeble always."

"You mean that--that with the egg-wagon? He was givin' us a lift into Riverburgh; we're just traveling through," Lou added shortly.

"Did he pick you up back near his place?" At Lou's nod the woman exclaimed: "Then you two haven't had a bite of dinner! You put your things to soak and I'll go right in the house and get you up a little something; it's past two."

Lou started to protest, but the woman disappeared into the kitchen, and Jim appeared from the barn. He was attired in a shirt which strained at his broad shoulders, and overalls which barely reached his shoe-tops.