Scattergood Baines Part 57

Justice of the Peace Bender cleared his throat.

"This here," he said, "looks to me to be suthin' the folks of this town, the friends and neighbors of this here father and son, ought to settle, instid of the law. Maybe it hain't legal, but I dunno who's to interfere.... Folks, what ought to be done to this here boy that done a crime and suffered the consequences of it, jest to save his father from another crime the old man never done a-tall?"

Neither Mavin nor his father heard. The old elder was muttering over and over, "My boy that was dead and is alive again...."

Scattergood arose silently and pointed to the door, and the crowd withdrew silently, withdrew to group about the entrance outside and to wait. They were patient. It was an hour before Elder Newton descended, his son on one side and Mattie Strong on the other.... The band, with a volunteer drummer, lifted its joyous voice, and, looking up, the trio faced a banner upon which Scattergood had caused to be painted, "Welcome Home, Mavin Newton."

Coldriver had taken judicial action and thus voiced its decision.

CHAPTER XIII

HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT

Jason Locker, who was Sam Kettleman's rival in Coldriver's grocery industry, was a trifle too amenable to modern ideas at times. He took notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two parades.

Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference was as to when and exactly _how_ Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and p.r.o.nounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered.

But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current fashions, made her appearance in a s.p.a.ce cleared in the middle of the store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far.

It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country making coffee for every Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, and wearing a smile for everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from their midst.

But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst.

"Looks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' _as_ well _as_ proper follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be expected to ensue."

"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette--that way. Looks like French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask her."

"Names don't count," said Old Man Bogle, oracularly. "She hain't to blame for pickin' her name. Her ma gave it to her out of a book, seems as though. Nevertheless, 'tain't no fit name for a woman, and, so fur's I kin see, she fits her name like Ovid Nixon's tailor pants fits his laigs."

"She's light," said the elder.

"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her."

"While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup,"

said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders.

"Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a deacon of the church."

"She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was willin'."

"I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes, "that she hain't no stranger to wearin' _tights._"

"Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em."

"My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle, tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly.

"How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with the wiles of it?"

"He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the path."

"You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle, waggling his head.

"Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon.

"Look.... Comin' acrost the bridge. There's Locker's boy and that there Wife-ette, and him lookin' like he'd enjoy divin' down her throat."

"Poor Jason," said the elder, "he's reapin' the whirlwind."

"Kin he be blind?"

"Somebody ought to take Jason off to one side and give him warnin'."

The deacon considered, puckering his thin lips and c.o.c.king a hard old eye. "'Tain't fer us to meddle," he said, righteously. "They's a divine plan in ever'thing, and we hain't able to see what's behind all this here. We'll jest set and wait the outcome."

That is what all Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went undiscussed. n.o.body in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the coffee demonstrator--with the one exception of Homer's father, who was too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice anything else.

On the fourth evening of Yvette's stay in Coldriver there was a dance in the town hall. Especial interest immediately, attached to this affair because of the speculations as to whether Homer would be so rash as to invite Yvette as his partner. The village refused to believe the young man would fail them and remain away. That would be a calamity not easily endured, so it set itself to plan its actions in case she made her appearance. It wondered, how she would dress and how she would behave.

Every girl in the village who possessed clear t.i.tle to a young man knew exactly how _she_ would deport herself. The night before the dance no less than a score of young men were informed with finality that they were not to dance with the stranger, nor to be seen in her vicinity.

Norma Grainger expressed the will of all when she told Will Peasley that if he danced one dance with that coffee girl she would up and go home alone. In the beginning there was no definite concerted action; it was a.s.sured, however, that Yvette would have few partners.

Homer did not disappoint his friends. During the first dance he entered the hall with Yvette, and the music all but stopped to stare. Undeniably she was pretty. It was not her prettiness the women resented, however, but her air and her clothes. Actually she wore a dress cut low at the neck, and sleeveless. Coldriver had heard of such garments, and there were those who actually believed them to exist and to be worn by certain women in European society among kings and dukes and other frightfully immoral people. But that one should ever make its appearance in Coldriver, under their very eyes, was a thing so startling, so outrageous, as almost to demand the spontaneous formation of a vigilance committee.

Even yet there was no concerted action, but sentiment was crystallizing.

Homer and Yvette danced three dances, and Homer's face began to wear a scowl. No less than five young men approached by him with the purpose of securing them as partners for Yvette declined with brevity.

"What's the matter with you??" he demanded, belligerently. "There hain't no pertier girl nor no better dancer on the floor."

"Mebby so. Hain't noticed. Got all _my_ dances took."

"Me too. My girl she says--"

"She says what?" snapped Homer.

"She says she'll go home if I dance with yourn."

"And _I_ say," said Homer, with set jaw, "that you fellers is goin' to dance with Yvette, or there's goin' to be more fights in Coldriver 'n Coldriver ever see before. That's _my_ say."

He announced he would be back after the next dance, and that _somebody_ would dance with Yvette. "The feller that refuses," said he, "goes outside with me."

He went back to Yvette, who, not lacking in shrewdness, sensed something of the situation.

"I wish I hadn't come," she said, uneasily.

"I don't ... if you hain't got no objection to dancin' jest with me."