Ma Pettengill Part 2

And after lunch he went out to the woodpile where old Pete was working and offered him two bits in money to tell him the secret, and when old Pete scorned him he raised it to four bits. I guess the idea of any one refusing money merely for a little talk had never seemed possible to him.

He must of thought there was sure something in it. I was away that day, but when I got back and heard about his h.e.l.lish attempt to bribe old Pete I told the boys they sure had the chance of a lifetime. I said if there was a mite of financial prowess in the bunch they would start the price on them runt mules at one hundred dollars flat, because it was certain that Safety had struck the skids.

Next day it looked better than ever. Safety not only appeared in the afternoon but he brought me a quart jar of honey from his own bees. Any one not having looked up his criminal record would little understand what this meant. I pretended to be too busy to be startled at the gift, which broke thirty years of complete inactivity in that line. I looked worried and important with a litter of papers on my desk and seemed to have no time to waste on callers. He mentioned mules once or twice with no effect whatever, then says he hears I'm going into a new line that seems like it might have a few dollars in it, and he hopes I won't lose my all, because so many things nowadays look good till they're tried.

I was crafty. I said I might be going into a new line, then again it might be nothing but idle talk and he better not believe everything he hears.

He took up the jar of honey and fondled it, with his face looking like he was laying a loved one to rest, and said he wouldn't mind going into something new himself if he could be sure it was sound, because the stock business at present was a dog's life. He said the war was to be won by food, and every patriot should either go across or come across, and he was trying to stand by the flag and save all the food he could, but by the way his help acted at mealtime you'd think they was a gang of German spies. Watch 'em eat beans, he said, and you'd think they'd never heard that beans had gone from three cents a pound to sixteen; but they had heard it, because he'd told 'em so in plain English more than once. But it had no effect. The way they dished into 'em you'd think we'd been endowed with beans the same as with G.o.d's own sunlight.

He said it was discouraging to a staunch patriot. Here was the President trying to make democracy safe for the world, and he was now going to stand by the Administration even if he had voted the Republican ticket up to now; but three of his men had quit only yesterday and the war was certainly lost if the labouring cla.s.ses kept on making G.o.ds of their stomachs that way. And as a matter of fact now, as between old friends and neighbours, if I had something that looked good, why not keep it all together just with us here in the valley, he, though a poor man, being able to sc.r.a.pe up a few thousand dollars in round numbers for any enterprise that was a cinch.

And the old hound being worth a good half million dollars at that instant! But I kept control of my face and looked still more worried and important and said I might have to take in a good man, and then again I might not. I couldn't tell till I got some odd lots of stock cleaned up. Then I looked at some more doc.u.ments and, like I was talking unconsciously to myself, I muttered, though distinctly: "Now that there bunch of runt mules--they'll have to go; but, of course, not for any mere song."

Then I studied some more doc.u.ments in a masterful manner and forgot my caller entirely till at last he p.u.s.s.yfooted out, having caught sight of Sandy down by the corral.

Pretty soon Sandy reports to me. He says Safety is hurt at my cold manner to an old friend and neighbour that's always running in with a jar of honey or some knickknack; and he had mentioned the runt mules, saying he might be induced to consider 'em though I probably won't let 'em go for any mere song, contemptible as they are. Sandy says he's right; that it's got to be a whole opera with words and music for them mules. He says I got a reason for acting firm about the price, the reason being that this new line I'm going to embark in is such a sure thing that I want only friends to come in, and I got to be convinced first that their heart is in the right place.

Safety says his heart is always getting the best of his head in stock deals, but just how foolish will I expect an old and tried friend to seem about these scrub mules that n.o.body in his right mind would touch at any price.

Sandy yawns like he was weary of it all and says a hundred dollars flat.

He said Safety just stood still and looked at him forever without batting an eye, till he got rattled and said that mebbe ninety-five might be considered. That's a trick with this old robber when a party's got something to sell him. They tell their price and he just keeps still and looks at 'em--not indignant nor astonished, not even interested, but merely fishlike. Most people can't stand it long, it's that uncanny.

They get fussed and nervous, and weaken before he's said a single word.

But it was certain now that the mystery was getting to Safety, because otherwise he'd have laughed his head off at the mention of a hundred dollars for these mules. Three months before he'd heard me himself offer 'em for forty a head. You see, when I bought bands of mules from time to time I'd made the sellers throw in the little ones to go free with the trade. I now had twenty-five or so, but it had begun to get to me that mebbe those sellers hadn't been so easy as I thought at the time. They was knotty-headed little runts that I'd never bothered to handle.

Last spring I had the boys c.h.i.n.k up the cracks in the corral and put each one of the cunning little mites into the chute and roach it so as to put a bow in its neck; then I put the bunch on good green feed where they would fatten and shed off; but it was wasted effort. They looked so much like field mice I was afraid that cats would make a mistake. After they got fat the biggest one looked as if he'd weigh close up to seven hundred and fifty. It was when they had begun to buy mules too; that is to say, mules! But no such luck as a new West Pointer coming to inspect these; nothing but wise old cavalry captains that when they put an eye on the bunch would grin friendly at me and hesitate only long enough to put some water in the radiator. I bet there never was a bunch of three-year-old mules that stood so much condemning.

After offering 'em for forty a head one time to a party and having him answer very simply by asking how the road was on beyond and which turn did he take, I quit bothering. After that when buyers come along I told the truth and said I didn't have any mules. I had to keep my real ones, and it wasn't worth while showing those submules. And this was the bunch Sandy had told S.F. Timmins he could take away for a hundred a head--or even ninety-five. And Safety hadn't laughed!

And would you have wondered when he sifts in a couple days later and makes me a cold offer of sixty dollars a head for this choice livestock?

Yes, sir! He says "Live and let live" is his motto, and he wants to prove that I have wronged him in the past if I ever had the faintest suspicion that he wasn't the ideal party to have in on a deal that was going to net everyone concerned a handsome fortune. He says the fact is money goes through his fingers like water if you come right down to it; and sixty or even sixty-five if I want to push him to extremes, because he's the last man on G.o.d's green earth to let five dollars split up old neighbours that ought to be hand and glove in any new deal that come up.

It like to of keeled me over, but I recovered and become busier than ever and got out my bank book and begun to figure over that. I said Sandy Sawtelle had the handling of this particular bunch of my a.s.sets and I couldn't be bothered by it.

So he mooches down to the barn till Sandy come in with Buck Devine.

They was chattering about three hundred thousand dollars in round numbers when they got near enough for him to overhear their private conversation.

They wondered why they had wasted so much of their lives in the cattle business, but now them old hard-working days was over, or soon would be, with nothing to do but travel round in Pullman palace cars and see America first, and go to movies, and so forth. Safety wished to haggle some about the mules, but Sandy says he's already stated the price in clear, ringing tones, and he has no time to waste, being that I must send him down that night to get an order on the wire for two carloads of the Little Giant peanut. Safety just blinked at this, not even asking why the peanuts; and the boys left him cold.

When I told 'em about the offer to me of sixty or a possible sixty-five, they at once done a medicine dance.

"This here will be the richest coop ever pulled off west of Cheyenne,"

says Buck; and Sandy says he guesses anybody not blind can now see that well-known street in New York he ought to have his office on. He says he hopes Safety don't fall too easy, because he wants more chance to work it up.

But Sandy is doomed to disappointment. Safety holds off only two days more. Two days he loafs round at mealtimes, listening to their rich converse and saying he'd like to know who's a better friend of this outfit than he's been for twenty years. The boys tell him if he's such a good friend to go ahead and prove it with a little barter that would be sure to touch my heart. And the first day Safety offers seventy-five a head for these here jack rabbits, which they calmly ignore and go on talking about Liberty Bonds being a good safe investment; and the second day he just cries like a child that he'll pay eighty-five and trust to their honour that he's to have in on this new sure-thing deal.

That seemed enough, so they all shook hands with the spendthrift and slapped him on the back in good fellowship, and said they knew all the time he had a heart of gold and they feel free to say now that once the money has pa.s.sed he won't be let to go off the place till he has heard all about the new enterprise and let in on the ground floor, and they hope he won't ever forget this moment when the money begins to roll in fit to smother him in round numbers. So Safety says he knows they're a good square set of boys, as clean as a hound's tooth, and he'll be over to-morrow to take over the stock and hear the interesting details.

The boys set up late that night figuring their share of the burglary.

There was twenty-five of these ground squirrels. I was to get my fifty a head, at least ten of which was illegitimate. Then for the thirty-five, which was the real robbery, I was to take half, and eight of the boys the other half. I begun to wonder that night just what could be done to us under the criminal law. It looked like three years in some good jail wouldn't be a bit too harsh.

Next day bright and early here comes frugal Safety, gangling along behind his whiskers and bringing one of his ill-fed hirelings to help drive the stuff back. Safety is rubbing his hands and acting very sprightly, with an air of false good fellowship. It almost seems like he was afraid they had thought better of the trade and might try to crawl out. He wants it over quick. They all go down and help him drive his purchase out of the lower field, where they been hiding in the tall gra.s.s, and in no time at all have the bunch headed down the lane on to the county road, with Safety's man keeping well up to protect 'em from the coyotes.

Next there's kind of a solemn moment when the check is being made out.

Safety performs that serious operation down at the bunk house. Making out any check is always the great adventure with him. He writes it with his heart's blood, and not being the greatest scholar in the world he has to count the letters in his name after it's written--he knows there ought to be nine together--and then he has to wipe the ink off his hands and sigh dismally and say if this thing keeps up he'll be spending his old age at the poor farm, and so forth. It all went according to schedule, except that he seemed strangely eager and under a severe nervous strain.

Me? I'd been, sort of hanging round on the edge of events while the dastardly deed was being committed, not seeming to be responsible in any way. My Lord! I still wanted to be able to face the bereaved man as an honest woman and tell him it was only some nonsense of the boys for which I could not be held under the law, no matter how good a lawyer he'd get.

When they come trooping out of the bunk house I was pretending to consult Abner, the blacksmith, about some mower parts. And right off I was struck by the fact that Safety seemed to be his old self again; his air of false gayety and nervous strain had left him and he was cold and silent and deadly, like the poisonous cobra of India.

But now they was going to spring the new secret enterprise on him, so I moved off toward the house a bit, not wanting to be too near when his screams begun. It did seem kind of shameful, taking advantage of the old miser's grasping habits; still, I remembered a few neat things he'd done to me and I didn't slink too far into the background. Safety was standing by his horse with the boys all gathered close round him, and I heard Sandy say "Elephants--nothing but elephants--that's the new idea!"

Then they all begun to talk at once, jabbering about the peanuts and popcorn that crowds of people will come to buy from us to feed back to our stock, and how there's more meat in an elephant than in six steers, and about how the punchers will be riding round in these little cupalos up on top of their big saddle elephants; and they kept getting swifter and more excited in their talk, till at last they just naturally exploded when they made sure Safety got the idea and would know he'd been made a fool of. They had a grand time; threw their hats in the air and danced round their victim and punched each other, and their yells and hearty laughter could of been heard for miles up and down the creek. Two or three had guns they let off to add to the gleeful noise. Oh, it was deuces wild for about three minutes. They nearly died laughing.

Then the whole thing kind of died a strange and painful death. Safety wasn't taking on one bit like a man that's been stung. He stood there cold and malignant and listened to the noise and didn't bat an eye till he just naturally quelled the disorder. It got as still as a church, and then Safety talked a little in a calm voice.

"Elephants?" says he, kind of amused. "Why, elephants ain't no good stock proposition because it takes 'em so long to mature! Elephants is often a hundred and twenty years old. You'd have to feed one at least forty years to get him fit to ship. I really am surprised at you boys, going into a proposition like that without looking up the details. It certainly ain't anything for my money. Why, you couldn't even veal an elephant till he was about fifteen years old, which would need at least six thousand dollars' worth of peanuts; and what kind of a stock business is that, I'd like to know. And even if they could rustle their own feed, what kind of a business is it where you could only ship once in a lifetime? You boys make me tired, going h.e.l.l-bent into an enterprise where you'd all be dead and forgotten before the first turnover of your stock."

He now looked at 'em in a sad, rebuking manner. It was like an icy blast from Greenland the way he took it.

Two or three tried to start the big laugh again, but their yips was feeble and died quickly out. They just stood there foolish. Even Sandy Sawtelle couldn't think of anything bright to say.

Safety now climbs on his horse, strangely cheerful, and says; "Well, I'll have to be getting along with them new mules of mine." Then he kind of giggled at the crowd and says: "I certainly got the laugh on this outfit, starting a business where this here old Methusalem hisself could hardly get it going good before death cut him off!"

And away he rides, chuckling like it was an awful joke on us. Not a single scream of agony about what had been done to him with them stunted mules.

Of course that was all I needed to know. One deadly chill of fear took me from head to foot. I knew perfectly well our trench was mined and the fuse lighted. Up comes this chucklehead of a Sawtelle, and for once in his life he's puzzled.

"Well," he says, "you got to give old S.F. credit for one thing. Did you see the way he tried to switch the laugh over on to us, and me with his trusty check right here in my hand? I never would have thought it, but he is certainly one awful good game loser!"

"Game loser nothing!" I says. "He's just a game winner. Any time you see that old boy acting game he's won. And he's won now, no matter how much the known facts look against it. I don't know how, but he's won."

They all begin to tell me I must be mistaken, because look at the price we got for stuff we hadn't been able to sell at any price before. I says I am looking at that, but I'm also obliged to look at Safety after he's paid that price, and the laws of Nature certainly ain't been suspended all at once. I offer to bet 'em what they've made on the deal that Safety has run true to form. "Mark my words," I says, "this is one sad day for the Arrowhead! I don't know how or why, but we'll soon find out; and if you don't believe me, now's the time to double your money."

But they hung off on that. They got too much respect for my judgment. And they admitted that Safety's way of standing the gaff had been downright uncanny. So there was nothing to do but pay over their share of this tainted money and wait for the blow, eight hundred and seventy-five dollars being the amount I split with 'em for their masterly headwork in the depredation.

That very day in the mail comes a letter that has been delayed because this here Government of ours pinches a penny even worse than old Timmins does. Yes, sir; this letter had been mailed at Seattle with a two-cent stamp the day after the Government had boosted the price to three cents.

And what does the Government do? Does it say: "Oh, send it along! Why pinch pennies?" Not at all. It takes a printed card and a printed envelope and the time of a clerk and an R.F.D. mail carrier to send me word that I must forward one cent if I want this letter--spends at least two cents to get one cent. Well, it takes two days for that notice to reach me; and of course I let it lie round a couple of days, thinking it's probably an advertis.e.m.e.nt; and then two days for my one-cent stamp to go back to this parsimonious postmaster; and two days for the letter to get here; making about eight days, during which things had happened that I should of known about. Yes, sir; it's a great Government that will worry over one cent and then meet one of these smooth profiteers and loosen up on a million dollars like a cowhand with three months' pay hitting a wet town. Of course it was all over when I read this letter.

I rolled another cigarette for the injured woman it being no time for words.

"It just goes to show," she observed after the first relishing draft, "that we should be honest, even with defectives like old Timmins. This man in Seattle that keeps track of prices for me writes that the top of the mule market has blown sky-high; that if I got anything looking at all like a mule not to let it go off the place for less than two hundred dollars, because mule buyers is sure desperate. Safety must of got the same tip, only you can bet his correspondent put the full three cents on the letter. Safety would never have trusted a strange postmaster with the excess. Anyway he sold that bunch of rabbits a week later for one hundred and seventy-five a head, thus adding twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars of my money to his tainted fortune. You can imagine the pins and needles he'd been on for a week, scared I'd get the tip and knowing if he even mentioned them runts at any price whatever that I'd be wise at once.

That joke of the boys must of seemed heaven-sent to him.

"You ought to heard the lecture I read them fool punchers on common honesty and how the biter is always bit. I scared 'em good; there hasn't been an elephant on the place since that day. They're a chastened lot, all right. I was chastened myself. I admit it. I don't hardly believe I'll ever attempt anything crooked on old Safety again---and yet, I don't know."

The lady viciously expelled the last smoke from her cigarette and again took up the knitting.

"I don't really know but if there was some wanton, duplicity come up that I could handle myself and not have to leave to that pack of amateur thieves out in the bunk house, and it was dead sure and I didn't risk doing more than two years' penal servitude--yes, I really don't know.

Even now mebbe all ain't over between us."