John Henry Smith Part 6

About a month ago he employed a fellow named Wallace, who admitted that he did not know much about farming, but who said he was strong and healthy and was willing to do the best he could. It was in the haying season and Bishop was short of men, so he gave this chap a chance.

I met Bishop one day shortly after he put Wallace to work, and he told me something about him.

"He's strong an' willin' enough," said Bishop, as we stood talking over the fence, "but he surely is the blamedest, funniest hired man I ever had, an' I've had some that'd make a man quit the church. What do you think he wants?"

I a.s.sured him that I could not imagine.

"Soap in his room, and cake soap at that!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't given it to him he'd a quit, so I had to give it to him. He takes a bath every morning, an' shaves. That's what he does! Gets up about four o'clock and goes down to the old swimming hole in the crick, paddles around a while, an' then comes back to the house an' shaves, an' then goes out an' milks an' cleans out the stables. Never saw a man wash his hands so much in my life, but accordin' to his lights he's a mighty good worker. He eats a lot, but then all hired men eats a lot. An' he reads!

Brought a big trunk with him, an' in it was a lot of books in French, Dutch or some other language that no white man can understand. And fight! You know Big Dave Cole, that's been with me for years?"

I a.s.sured him that I should never forget "Big Dave" Cole. I have known him ever since he went to work for Bishop, and that was when I was a boy. From that day he has been the terror of the neighbourhood, and I have sometimes thought that even Bishop stood in fear of him.

"Wal," he said slowly and impressively, biting the end from a plug of tobacco, "this here Wallace licked the life plumb out of Big Dave no more than yesterday, an' Big Dave is that disgusted he has packed up and quit me."

"What caused the trouble?" I asked.

"Big Dave called him an English dude, an' it seems that Wallace took offense because he's Scotch," explained Bishop, "at least that's what the other men who was there when it started said. I couldn't get a word outer Wallace, who said he'd quit if I wanted him to, but I told him that a man who could lick Big Dave and come out without a scratch had the makings of a rattlin' good hired man, an' I raised his wages two dollars a month an' gave him Big Dave's room, which is bigger than the one he had. If he could milk, an' run a seeder, or a thresher, or stack oats an' corn as well as he can fight, I would give him forty dollars a month."

This incident was related to me several weeks ago, and I have made it a point to study this chap when I have met him. I should say he is about my age, twenty-five or so, and I must say that he is a good-looking fellow. He is tall, dark of complexion, broad of shoulder and narrow of loin, and certainly looks as if he was able to take care of himself. I presume that he is some college chap who cannot make his way in the profession he has chosen, and who is trying to get a financial start by working on a farm.

I am going to have a talk with him at the first opportunity, and if my suspicion is verified I shall try to find some way to give him a quicker start. I doubt if Bishop is paying him more than twenty dollars a month.

As I started to describe, LaHume, Miss Olive Lawrence and I were playing a threesome. It was along about noon when we came to the tenth tee, which is located so that a sliced ball may go into or over the country road which separates the Bishop farm from the golf course. Miss Lawrence is not an accurate player, but she drives as long a ball as any woman golfer in Woodvale.

She hit the ball hard, but sliced it, and a strong westerly wind helped deflect it to the right. It sailed over the fence, and struck in a ploughed field only a few feet from a man whom I recognised as Wallace.

He had evidently been looking in our direction, and he followed the flight of the ball. He walked up to it.

"Are you playing bounds?" he shouted, lifting his cap.

"Yes!" answered LaHume, "throw it back!"

Wallace carried a stout stick of some kind in his hand. He looked at the end of it critically, placed the ball on a clod of soil, glanced at us and called "Fore!" and then lofted that ball with as clean a shot as ever I saw, dropping it almost at LaHume's feet. He bowed again, twirled the stick about his fingers, and then turned and went toward the farmhouse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Fore"]

"Well, what do you think of the cold nerve of that clodhopper?"

exclaimed LaHume, staring at the retreating figure of Wallace. "I presume he has ruined that new ball."

"Not with that stroke," I said. "I wish I could make as good an approach with any club in my bag as he did with that improvised cane."

I picked up the ball and found that there was not a blemish on it.

"Wasn't he a handsome young gentleman?" murmured Miss Lawrence, whose eyes had been fixed on Wallace until he vanished behind a clump of trees. "Who is he?"

"Gentleman?" laughed LaHume, teeing the ball. "He's a farm labourer; old Bishop's hired man. One of his duties is to deliver milk every morning at the club house."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Miss Lawrence. "I presume it is impossible for him to attend to such duties and remain a gentleman."

"Not impossible, but highly improbable," laughed young LaHume, unaware that he was treading on thin ice.

"My father made his start in that way, and before he died there were many who called themselves gentlemen who were glad to a.s.sociate with him," declared Miss Lawrence with a warmth uncommon to her. "What did your father do?"

"Really now, I did not mean anything," stammered LaHume, the red flushing through the tan of his face. It suddenly dawned on me that there was a period in the life of my father when he worked as a hired man in order to earn the money with which to marry my mother, and that from this humble start he was able finally to acquire the ancestral Smith farm, then in the possession of a more wealthy branch of the family. I made common cause with Miss Lawrence, and I did it with better grace from the fact that I resent the airs a.s.sumed by LaHume.

"LaHume's father founded the roadhouse down yonder," I said, pointing towards a resort which yet goes by the LaHume name, and one which does not enjoy a reputation any too savory. Of course this is not the fault of the elder LaHume, who has since made a fortune in the hotel business.

I could see that the shot went home.

"I say, Smith, let's play golf and cut out this family history business," protested LaHume, who was fighting angry. "It is your shot, Miss Lawrence."

"Don't you think he is handsome, Mr. Smith?" she asked.

"Who; Mr. LaHume?" I returned, not averse to rubbing it into the descendant of the roadhouse keeper.

"Of course not," she replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I mean that lovely hired man."

"He's a rustic Apollo," I said, "and it may interest our friend to know that he also combines the qualities of Hercules and Mars."

And while LaHume fumed and Miss Lawrence clapped her hands I told the story of the downfall of "Big Dave" at the hands of the quiet and cleanly Wallace, making sure that the defeat of the village bully lost nothing in its telling.

All the way back to the club house--we did not play out the remaining holes--Miss Lawrence plied me with questions concerning Wallace. Of course I know that her object was to punish LaHume, and she did it most effectively.

She pretended to believe that there is some great romance back of Wallace's present status. She pictured him as a Scotch n.o.bleman, or the son of one, I have forgotten which, forced by most interesting circ.u.mstances to remain for a while in foreign lands. She conjured from her fancy the castle in which he was born, and over which he will some time rule, and I helped her as best I could.

I can see that it will be a long time before LaHume will ask me to make up a threesome with Miss Lawrence. I wonder what "the hired man" would think if he knew that his lucky stroke with a hickory club had created so great a furor? I have a suspicion that this was not a lucky day in LaHume's campaign for the Lawrence hand and fortune.

ENTRY NO. V

THE EAGLE'S NEST

Miss Grace Harding is here again, and I am to play a game of golf with her to-morrow. Carter does not know it yet, but that is because I have not had a chance to tell him.

Carter is a rattling good fellow and a fine golfer--he has made Woodvale in seventy-seven; two strokes better than my low score--but he is a bit conceited; he imagines he is a lady's man, and I propose to take him down a peg.

I am certain he schemed to play with Miss Harding before I did, and he went about it in what he doubtless thought was a diplomatic way. He opened his campaign this morning by playing a round with her father.

Carter furnished clubs and b.a.l.l.s for Mr. Harding, who broke two of the clubs and lost six new b.a.l.l.s, to say nothing of those he mutilated.

Diplomacy is not my long suit. I prefer to carry things by a.s.sault. When I saw what Carter was up to I formed a plan and put it into operation without delay. It was very simple. I walked right up to Miss Harding and asked her if she would like to play a round with me. That was this morning.

"When?" she asked, with a charming smile which told me victory was in sight.

"Right now!" I said, bold as could be.

"You are brave to ask me to play with you, after what I have told you of my game," she said, pressing down a worm cast with the toe of her dainty shoe. We were standing on the edge of the practise putting green. I am no hand to describe a woman's gowns, and in fact know nothing of them, but I recall distinctly that she was dressed in blue, with some white stuff here and there, and it was very becoming.