The Ancient Law Part 3

Nodding his thanks for the information, Ordway crossed the building and rapped lightly on the door. In response to a loud "come in," he turned the k.n.o.b and stood next instant face to face with the genial giant of the evening before.

"Good-morning, Mr. Baxter, I've come back again," he said.

"Good-morning!" responded Baxter, "I see you have."

In the full daylight Baxter appeared to have increased in effect if not in quant.i.ty, and as Ordway looked at him now, he felt himself to be in the presence less of a male creature than of an embodied benevolent impulse. His very flabbiness of feature added in a measure to the expansive generosity of mouth and chin; and slovenly, unwashed, half-shaven as he was, Baxter's spirit dominated not only his fellow men, but the repelling effect of his own unkempt exterior. To meet his glance was to become suddenly intimate; to hear him speak was to feel that he had shaken you by the hand.

"I hoped you might have come to see things differently this morning,"

said Ordway.

Baxter looked him over with his soft yet penetrating eyes, his gaze travelling slowly from the coa.r.s.e boots covered with red clay to the boyish smile on the dark, weather-beaten face.

"You did not tell me what kind of work you were looking for," he observed at last. "Do you want to sweep out the warehouse or to keep the books?"

Ordway laughed. "I prefer to keep the books, but I can sweep out the warehouse," he replied.

"You can--can you?" said Baxter. His pipe, which was never out of his hand except when it was in his mouth, began to turn gray, and putting it between his teeth, he sucked hard at the stem for a minute.

"You're an educated man, then?"

"I've been to college--do you mean that?"

"You're fit for a clerk's position?"

"I am sure of it."

"Where did you work last?"

Ordway's hesitation was barely perceptible.

"I've been in business," he answered.

"On your own hook?" inquired Baxter.

"Yes, on my own hook."

"But you couldn't make a living at it?"

"No; I gave it up for several reasons."

"Well, I don't know your reasons, my man," observed Baxter, drily, "but I like your face."

"Thank you," said Ordway, and he laughed again with the sparkling gaiety which leaped first to his blue eyes.

"And so you expect me to take you without knowing a darn thing about you?" demanded Baxter.

Ordway nodded gravely.

"Yes, I hope that is what you will do," he answered.

"I may ask your name, I reckon, mayn't I?--if you have no particular objection."

"I don't mind telling you it's Smith," said Ordway, with his gaze on a huge pamphlet ent.i.tled "Smith's Almanac" lying on Baxter's desk. "Daniel Smith."

"Smith," repeated Baxter. "Well, it ain't hard to remember. If I warn't a blamed fool, I'd let you go," he added thoughtfully, "but there ain't much doubt, I reckon, about my being a blamed fool."

He rose from his chair with difficulty, and steadying his huge body, moved to the door, which he flung open with a jerk.

"If you've made up your mind dead sure to b.u.t.t in, you might as well begin with the next sale," he said.

CHAPTER IV

THE DREAM OF DANIEL SMITH

He had been recommended for lodging to a certain Mrs. Twine, and at five o'clock, when the day's work at Baxter's was over, he started up the street in a bewildered search for her house, which he had been told was situated immediately beyond the first turn on the brow of the hill. When he reached the corner there was no one in sight except a small boy who sat, crying loudly, astride a little whitewashed wooden gate. Beyond the boy there was a narrow yard filled with partly dried garments hung on clothes lines, which stretched from a young locust tree near the sidewalk to the front porch, where a man with a red nose was reading the local newspaper. As the man with the red nose paid no attention to the loud lamentations of the child, Ordway stopped by the gate and inquired sympathetically if he could be of help.

"Oh, he ain't hurt," remarked the man, throwing a side glance over his paper, "he al'ays yells like that when his Ma's done scrubbed him."

"She's washed me so clean that I feel naked," howled the boy.

"Well, you'll get over that in a year's time," observed Ordway cheerfully, "so suppose you leave off a minute now and show me the way to Mrs. Twine's."

At his request the boy stopped crying instantly, and stared up at him while the dirty tearmarks dried slowly on his cheeks.

"Thar ain't no way," he replied solemnly, "'cause she's my ma."

"Then jump down quickly and run indoors and tell her I'd like to see her."

"'T ain't no use. She won't come."

"Well, go and ask her. I was told to come here to look for board and lodging."

He glanced inquiringly at the man on the porch, who, engrossed in the local paper, was apparently oblivious of the conversation at the gate.

"She won't come 'cause she's washin' the rest of us," returned the boy, as he swung himself to the ground, "thar're six of us an' she ain't done but two. That's Lemmy she's got hold of now. Can't you hear him holler?"

He planted his feet squarely on the board walk, looked back at Ordway over his shoulder, and departed reluctantly with the message for his mother. At the end of a quarter of an hour, when Ordway had entered the gate and sat down in the cold wind on the front steps, the door behind him opened with a jar, and a large, crimson, untidy woman, splashed with soapsuds, appeared like an embodied tempest upon the threshold.

"Canty says you've come to look at the dead gentleman's room, suh," she began in a high voice, approaching her point with a directness which lost none of its force because of the panting vehemence with which she spoke.

"Baxter told me I might find board with you," explained Ordway in her first breathless pause.

"To be sure he may have the dead gentleman's room, Mag," put in the man on the porch, folding his newspaper, with a shiver, as he rose to his feet.