Old Ebenezer Part 38

"No, we'll go over and deposit it."

They went over to the bank, laughing like boys as they crossed the street. McElwin had not come down. The ceremony was conducted by the cashier, a humdrum performance to him, but to Lyman and Warren one of marked impressiveness. They returned to the office with the air of capitalists. At the threshold of the "sanctum" they met a man who wanted to subscribe for the paper. Warren took his name and his money, and when he was gone, turned to Lyman with a smile. "It has begun to work already. The news of the deposit has flashed around town and they are coming in for recognition. Oh, we're all right. Do you remember those cigars you brought from the moonlight picnic? I believe I'll go out and get some just like them. Why, h.e.l.loa, here is our old friend."

Uncle Buckley was standing at the door. Lyman jumped up and seized the old fellow by the hand and led him to a chair. "Look out, Sammy," he said with an air of caution. "Don't shake me or you'll make me spill the things Mother has stuffed me with. These here are harvest apples,"

he went on, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his brown jeans coat and drawing forth yellow apples. "I'll jest put them here on the table. And here is an Indian peach or two, the earliest ones I ever saw. And look at this, a pone of cracklin' bread. Think of that, this time of year. The fact is we killed a shote the other day. Mother 'lowed you couldn't git any sich bread in town and a feller has to have somethin' to eat once in awhile. Now, I do wonder what this here is," he added, tugging at his pocket. "Well, if it ain't the thighs and the pully-bone of a fried chicken, I'm the biggest liar that ever walked a log. Oh, I'm full up. She got up before day, mother did, and stuffed me for an hour or more. Blamed if a peart youngster didn't yell, 'Hi, there, sausage,' as I come in town. Now, I'm blowed if I know what this is. Yes, sir, it's a pair of socks, knit under the light of a tallow candle without the drappin' of a st.i.tch. Oh, it ain't no laughin' matter, boys; there ain't no fun in gettin' up at four o'clock of a mornin' to be stuffed, I tell you. Well, I reckon I'm reasonably empty now." He leaned back and looked at his cargo, arrayed upon the table.

"I'll hire a wagon and have these things taken over to the house,"

said Lyman. "You tell her, bless her old heart, that I'm coming out there pretty soon with enough stuff to smother both of you. Warren, get those cigars."

"Sure. Is there anything else we want? Uncle Buckley, don't you want something to drink?"

"Well, if you've got some right good b.u.t.termilk handy I mout take a gla.s.s. But I don't want no licker, young man. I never touched it but once, and then I swapped a fine young mare for an old mule, and I swore then that I'd never tech it again. Go on and get your segyars and I'll make a shift of burnin' one of 'em."

Warren went out. Lyman feasted his eyes on the old man. "How are they all, Uncle Buckley?"

"Jest about the same. Jimmy killed the biggest black snake yistidy--I think it was yistidy. Let me see. I know in reason it was yistidy, for I was a splittin' some wood when he fotch the thing along, draggin' it by the tail. Though that mout have been day before yistidy. I believe it was day before yistidy. Anyhow it was the biggist black snake ever killed out there since the war, but of course in my day they killed bigger ones. He found him out in a blackberry patch and mauled him to death. Oh, he was a snorter. That's about the biggest piece of news I've got. Let me see. Lige met a pole-cat somewhere in the woods and socity ain't been hankering after Lige since then. I seen him this mornin' as I was comin' in, and I yelled at him to keep his distance, and he did or I would have hit him. Yes, sir, I can't stand a pole-cat. You ricollect Mab Basey, I reckon. She run away with a feller that come to help cut wheat and they ain't seen her sense. Oh, he married her and all that, but they don't know where she is. Luke Brizentine didn't git over it."

"What, Mab's running away?"

"Oh, no, not that. Didn't I tell you? Why, Jeff Sarver filled him so full of shot that his hide looked like a nutmeg grater. Yes, sir. They got into a difficulty over a steer that had been jumpin' into a field, and he tried to stab Jeff and Jeff shot him. Made a good deal of a stir at the time and Luke didn't live but two days, but how he could live that long was more than we could see, and it caused a good deal of surprise. Now, wait a minit. It was day before yistidy that Jimmy killed the snake. Sammy, where is that man that was your partner?"

"He has an office on the other side of the square."

"Yes, but are you sure, Sammy, that he ain't your partner?"

"Absolutely certain, Uncle Buckley."

The old man scratched his head. "Sammy, that man ain't honest."

"I am quite sure of that."

"He has fotch it home to me that he ain't, Sammy. But I don't know that I ought to tell you about it; I reckon I ought to let it go. And still, it wouldn't be treatin' you exactly right. He is a forger, Sammy. Look at this."

He had taken out a pocket-book and from about it was unwinding a string, and when the string came off, he took out a piece of paper and handed it to Lyman. It was a note for one hundred dollars and appended were the names of John Caruthers and Samuel Lyman.

"Understand, Sammy, that I don't want you to pay it; I simply want you to know that the feller has used your name wrong."

"It is a forgery," said Lyman.

"Yes, that's what I have been believing for some time past, but I didn't say anything about it to mother. When you went out that day he comes to me and says, 'We must have a hundred dollars and though we don't like to do it we have to appeal to you. Lyman says that he hasn't the heart to ask, so he has put it off on me.' And so, I s.n.a.t.c.hes out my wallet and lets him have the money. But I don't ask you to pay it, Sammy."

"Why, my dear old friend, do you suppose I would let you lose it? I can pay it without a flinch; more than that, if you are in need of money, I can let you have five times as much." He tucked the note into his pocket and took up his check-book.

"Why, Sammy, I don't know whuther to laugh or to cry or to holler when you talk like that. But I don't need no money, and especially none that you have raked together."

"But you must take this," said Lyman, handing him a check. "It's the first check I ever made out," he added, laughing.

"Then you ain't been rich very long, Sammy," said the old man, taking the piece of paper. "But you've writ this in jest like you are used to it. You can't write as well, however, as Blake Peel. I reckon he's the finest writer in this country. Why, he can make a bird with a pen, and it looks like it's jest ready to fly--he's teached writin' school all up and down the creek, and I reckon he's the best. But I'm sorry about this thing, and I don't feel like takin' it."

"You've got to take it."

"Then I must. But you know where it is any time you want it," he said, putting the check into his pocket. "And now, Sammy, what are you going to do with that feller? The note wasn't signed as a firm, but your names was put on individual, and as you didn't write your name he forged it. What are you goin' to do with him?"

"I don't know. Here comes Warren. Don't say anything more about it now."

Warren came in. "Uncle Buckley," said he, "here is a cigar that will make you forget your woes."

"Thank you, my son. I don't believe I've got time to smoke jest now.

I'll take this thing home and crumble it up and mother and I will smoke it in our pipes."

Warren staggered. "Gracious alive, don't do that!" he cried.

"All right, my son, I'll set out on a stump and burn it in the moonlight, a thinkin' of you and Sammy. Well, I must be movin'.

Good-bye, all han's, and ricollect that my latch-string hangs on the outside."

They shook hands affectionately, and then sat in silence, listening to his footsteps as he trod slowly down the stairs.

"Why don't you light your cigar?" Warren asked.

"I don't care to smoke just now," Lyman answered. "I have some business on the other side of the square."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

LAUGHED AT HIS WEAKNESS.

Lyman walked slowly across the public square. The lawyers, the clerks, the tradesmen, who had become acquainted with his habits were wont to say, as they saw him strolling about, "There he goes, blind as a bat, with a story in his head." And they commented upon him now, but they could see that he was not in a dreaming mood, for his head was high and his heels fell hard upon the ground. At the edge of the sidewalk he halted for a moment, and his eye ran along the signs over the doors. Then he stepped up to an open door and entered without pausing at the threshold. Caruthers was sitting with his face toward the door.

He flushed as Lyman entered, took his feet off the corner of the table and straightened himself back in his chair. Lyman stepped up to the table and without a word, stood there looking at him.

"Well, you have come at last," said Caruthers, "I have been sitting here day after day, waiting for you."

"You expected me," said Lyman.

"Yes, as I say I have been waiting for you day after day. But where is the constable? You didn't bring him along."

Lyman took out the note. "The fog that settled between us," said he.

Caruthers nodded.

"I would have come sooner," said Lyman, "but the fog was not defined until a few moments ago."

"And I suppose your plan is to send me to the penitentiary. Tell me what you intend to do--don't stand there looking at me that way. Give a man a chance to defend his honor."

"Honor," Lyman repeated, with a cold smile. "You haven't as much honor as a hyena."

"Well, then, let me say name."