The Forged Note Part 28

"That little trunk is as heavy as lead," he heard that worthy saying.

"That has nothing to do with it," from the landlady. "They left fifty cents here to pay for it, and you must have agreed to that amount, or they would have left more."

"Seventy-five cents, seventy-five cents. That little trunk is like something filled with bricks."

"My trunk," mumbled Wyeth, coming to himself, and listening to the argument. "And that sucker is trying to work her. The dirty cur!" he now cried, angry for two reasons. One for being disturbed when he was sleeping so peacefully, and another for being worked, or trying to be.

With a bound he was on the floor, and in a jiffy he was in his trousers and upon the porch.

"Well, 'f' y' ain' go'n pay it, I'll haf t' take th' stuff back," the expressman said, as Wyeth came up. The other did not see him until he mounted the porch. Then he looked into his eyes which were fighting, and recoiled.

"What's this you are going to do!" he demanded, filling the doorway, and bestowing upon the other, a look that corresponded with his feelings.

"Well, stuff I brung down heah's mor'n I thought 't'was, so I'll haf t'

have a quarter mo'!"

"What kind of a proposition did we make with you in regard to hauling it at the depot awhile ago?"

"You said yu'd give me a haf a-dollah fo' haulin' it, but I didn't say I'd do it fo' a haf," he sulked, evasively.

Wyeth glared at him, but the other refused to meet his eye. "Then," he began, "when you took hold of it and loaded it into your wagon, you subsequently agreed to my offer, and now I want to see you get more."

"I'll haf t' take the stuff," argued the other, shifting about, but keeping at a safe distance. Something in the eye of the other did not offer welcome.

"Give him a quater more," called Legs, who had returned in the meantime, and had been trying to catch a little sleep.

"I don't intend to pay him one little dime more!" exclaimed Wyeth stubbornly.

"Then I'll haf t' see 'n' officer," bluffed the other, and turning, he started briskly down the street. Wyeth learned later, he was sure he could not have found one. He was not looking for any, but the landlady and Legs made up the quarter, and calling him back, paid him.

"Books is stubborn when he thinks he's been worked. M-m," said Legs, going back to bed. "Yeh, comes down to a show, believe he'd fight."

CHAPTER TWO

"_These Negroes in Effingham Are n.i.g.g.a's Proper_"

The next day dawned calm and beautiful, and Sidney made preparations to begin his canva.s.sing. In one city in Ohio, and which was also a great industrial center, he had found much success in selling his book to the mult.i.tude of workers employed there. Therefore, with what Moore had already told him, he was anxious to get his work under way.

The first thing necessary, of course, would be to secure agents. School had closed recently, and he had intended coming to the city, to enlist some of the teachers for that work. Securing a number of names and addresses, he began calling on them, but without any immediate success.

Late that afternoon, however, a teacher, a settled woman, gave him the name and address of one whom she felt, she a.s.sured him, would take up the work. "At least," she said, "she always does something during vacation. Her name is Miss Palmer," so thither he went.

She lived not far away, and near the center of a block in a small two story house, rusty and somewhat ramshackle. He mounted the steps, which were perhaps a half dozen, and asked for her. She was out, they informed him, but was expected to return shortly. Before they were through telling him, she came. She was a brown-skinned woman, although in the fading twilight, she struck him as being a mulatto. Of medium height and size, she gave a welcome that played about the corners of her small mouth. Her chin was long and tapered to a small point, which made her appearance unusual; her eyes were small, very small, and playful.

They were very soon in conversation, and he was pleased to learn, after he had talked with her a few minutes, that she was a woman with the strength of her convictions, although there was something about her he did not, and was not likely, he felt, to understand for some time to come, and he didn't.

Presently he stated the object of his visit, and suggested that she take up the work during her vacation. She shook her head dubiously, and said:

"I don't mind canva.s.sing; but I don't want to sell books."

"Why not books?" he inquired, in a tone of surprise, and then added: "It would seem that, being a teacher, selling a nice book would be preferable to something else."

"Yes, that may be," said she, thoughtfully now, "but n.i.g.g.a's here don't read. At least they won't buy and pay for books. Sell them toilet articles or hair goods, something to straighten their kinks or rub on their faces, anything guaranteed to make their hair grow soft and curly, or their black faces brighter."

He laughed long. She now observed him with something akin to admiration.

"Then the people of your community--the black people--don't consider feeding the mind an essential to moral welfare," he suggested mirthfully.

"Naw, Lord," she replied flatly. "These Negroes in Effingham are n.i.g.g.a's proper. They think nothing about reading and trying to learn something, they only care for dressing up and having a good time."

He was silent and resigned for a time. They now sat together in a swing that hung suspended from the porch. Directly, when he had said nothing for some time, she looked again at him, and with something in her demeanor that was anxious.

"What book is it?" she inquired.

He told her.

"That's a good t.i.tle, and should take if anything will," she said, a little more serious now than before. She did not impress Wyeth as being much of a literary person, as he now observed her. For a moment, he felt the interest wane, that he had experienced the moment she came up. She was speaking.

"I sold books one summer, 'Up From Bondage,' by the greatest Negro the race has ever known, and I had a time! I never want such another experience! They told me a thousand lies, and had me trotting after them all summer," whereupon, she shrugged her shoulders disgustedly.

"Well," said he, "I'm confident there are people, and plenty, who _do_ care to read, and will likewise buy when the book is properly presented.

So, of course, the duty of a distributer, will be to find these people, and it is for this purpose, I am here. I do not, of course, know what kind of a black population you have; but it is reasonable to suppose that, if I could and did, personally sell twelve hundred copies in Attalia in a matter of five months, I should be able to find a few readers here. Do you not agree with me?"

"Oh, of course," said she; "but you cannot as yet appreciate the fact that Effingham has the orneriest Negroes in the world. I am frank when I say that I do not have any confidence in them, but wait," she admonished, "you'll find out."

They sat together now, and conversed on topics otherwise than books and literature, which he observed, could be engaged in with more success.

Moreover, as the minutes wore on, he also came to see that Miss Palmer was somewhat sentimental. She smiled freely, moved close at times, and then away, artfully; saw him at moments out of liquid eyes, and said her words with a coquetishness that came by careful practice.

And so, Sidney Wyeth, a man free to practice the arts of coquetry--if a man may do so--accepted Miss Palmer's attention, and to that end he soon became a friend.

When he departed that evening, she had taken the agency, and had agreed to go with him on the morrow.

That night it rained, a heavy rain, and when he went forth the following morning, the streets were heavy with mud wherever there was no paving--which was, in this part of town, almost everywhere. Moreover, it showed signs of raining more. It had been one of the dryest springs the south had ever seen, and it was now probable that the deficiency in rainfall would be eradicated by an excess in moisture.

Wyeth, however, was impatient to begin as soon as possible. He wished to ascertain to what extent intelligence and regard for higher morals was prevalent in this town.

Miss Palmer was not ready when he arrived, and it was two hours before she was. "Thought since it rained," she explained, "that you would not, perhaps, go out today."

"Won't know the difference this time next year," he jested, with a cheerful smile, nevertheless, surveying the threatening elements anxiously.

"If we go into the quarter districts," she advised, "we will most likely get our feet wet--muddy."

"Are there no sidewalks out there?" he inquired.

They had decided, the evening before, at her suggestion, to begin in one of the many little towns, inhabited by Negroes employed in the mines, mills and furnaces, that made Effingham what it was. These little towns encircle the city proper, laying, many of them, at a considerable distance, to be incorporated as part of the city.

Some years before--between one census and the next--this city is recorded to have trebled and over in population. It had, but in doing so, it gathered all these little burgs for miles around. Some of them were even beyond the car lines, which were built to them after the city had incorporated them, and counted the people as a part of the population of Effingham. Wyeth perhaps, as well as the world at large, had not known this. The population, at this time, was estimated to be one hundred sixty-six thousand. Of this amount, two-fifths were Negroes.