Old Ebenezer Part 28

"Well," said Warren, "have you got another piece of news to suppress?"

"I am afraid so," Lyman answered, as he started up the stairs.

"You are afraid so?" said Warren, tramping beside him. "How much longer is this suppression act to remain in force? Confound it, you help make three-fourths of the news in the neighborhood and then won't print it because it concerns you. All news concerns somebody, you must understand."

They went into the editorial room. Lyman took up his pipe and Warren stood looking at him. Lyman sat down and lighted his pipe. "My boy,"

said he, "it may seem hard, but I have a reason for keeping this thing out of print. It is not for myself, for my own sense of delicacy does not protest against it, but it would wound an old woman, and we can't afford to do that. We might say something about the mob, but it won't do to mention names."

"You mean Mrs. Sawyer?"

"Yes; it would hurt her."

"Lyman, you are the best writer I ever saw, but you were not intended for a newspaper man."

"I know that, my boy. If I thought we could sell ten thousand papers I wouldn't print a thing to hurt an old woman."

"Oh, I don't want to hurt an old woman or a young one either," said Warren, "but I look at the principle of the thing. Somebody's hurt every time a paper comes from the press, and if everybody was as tender-hearted as you are, there would be no newspapers after awhile, and then where would we be?"

"We would be slower, less wise, but in many instances more respectable," Lyman replied. He leaned back in his chair, slowly puffing his pipe.

"From the high-grade point of view I reckon you're right," said Warren, raking up the newspapers on the table, "but we can't all live on the high grades. By the way," he added with a laugh, "I walked over to the express office this morning and took my paper out, as if it were a matter of course. The fellow looked at me and sighed, and I thought he was going to say something about the numerous times I had bled under the hob-nailed heel of his company. But he didn't; he asked me to send him the paper, and he paid for it right there. Oh, things are getting pretty bright when trusts and corporations begin to bid for your influence. But what are you going to do with that fellow Sawyer?" he asked, becoming grave, or rather, more serious, for gravity could hardly spread over his lightsome face.

"I don't know," Lyman answered.

"But you can't afford to keep on letting him hurt you; you'll have to hunt him to shut him off."

"Yes, I'll have to do something, but I don't know what it will be. I have met a good many mean men--mean fellows at a saw mill, and I thought that a mean mill man was about the meanest--but Sawyer strikes off somewhat in advance of any meanness I ever encountered."

"Well, don't you get mad? Don't you feel like you want to take a gun and shoot him?"

"Yes, I have all sorts of feelings with regard to him; and sometimes when I awake at night it is a good thing he is not within reach. But I'll try to worry along with him. I don't expect to stay here very much longer."

Warren caught his breath, as if he had stuck a splinter into his finger, and his face pinched up with sharp anxiety. "I have been expecting to hear that," he said, smoothing out the papers on the table. "I have been looking for it, and I don't blame you in the least, though I hate to give you up. But," he added, brightening, "you have given me a start and they can't take it away from me. I'm all right and I know you are. And the first thing you know, I'm going to get married and settle down. I am about half way in love with a girl now. She put her hand on a high seat and jumped right up into a wagon.

And when she batted her eyes, I wondered that they didn't crack like a whip, they were so sharp. I said to myself right then that I was about half way in love with her, and I watched her as she sat there, eating an apple; and when she drove away I went and got an apple and ate it, and I never tasted an apple before, I tell you. It must be a great girl that can give flavor to fruit."

"Who is she?" Lyman asked, his eyes brightening with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I don't know her name. She drove in with her father--I reckon he was her father--and I didn't find out her name or anything about her. I went into the store where the man bought a jug of mola.s.ses and asked the clerk in there if he knew the man, and he said he didn't. But I'll find out and will marry her if she has no particular objections.

A woman who can jump like that and then flavor an apple can catch me any day."

"You don't know but that she may be already married," said Lyman.

"Oh, no. We must not suppose that. Why, that would kill everything. Of course the fellow with her might be her husband, but it would be nonsense to presume so when, with the same degree of reason, I can presume he is not. If you've got to do any presuming, always presume for the best."

Lyman threw himself back and laughed. "Neither the ancients nor the moderns ever evolved from life any better philosophy than that," he declared. "Why, of course she is not married, nor shall she be until you marry her. It was intended that she should flavor your life, even as she flavored the apple. Here comes someone. Why, it's McElwin. Step out into the other room a moment, please. I believe he wants to see me alone."

CHAPTER XXIII.

AFTER AN ANXIOUS NIGHT.

McElwin arose after a night of cat-naps. He was up long before breakfast. He stood at the gate, looking up and down the road; and when a peddler came along the banker hailed him and asked if there were any news in the town. The fellow held up a chicken. McElwin shook his head and repeated the inquiry. The fellow put the chicken back into his cart and held up a duck, whereupon McElwin ordered him to move on. At the breakfast table he sat with an unseeing stare. The clouds were gone, the day was bright and the air came sweet from the garden. His daughter spoke to him and he broke his stare and looked at her.

"Did you speak to me?" he asked.

"I said I was afraid you were not well this morning."

"Oh, yes, quite well, I thank you. But I didn't sleep very much."

"You might say you didn't sleep at all," his wife spoke up; "and I don't think you ought to go down town today."

This preposterous suggestion made him nervous. "Gracious alive, don't make an invalid of me," he replied. "I am all right, but an over-concern about my health will make me sick. Did you ever notice that when the newspapers begin to discuss a man's health he dies pretty soon? It's a fact. One newspaper comes out and says that Mr.

Jones is not looking well. Another paper declares that Mr. Jones is looking better than he has looked for years. Then all the papers have their fling and the first thing you know Mr. Jones is dead."

Eva laughed; the idea struck her as being so humorously true, and Mrs.

McElwin smiled, but it was the sad smile of protest. "James," she said, "you are a man of wonderful judgment, but sometimes you persist in looking at life through stained gla.s.s. Something is wrong with you and you ought to see a doctor at once."

"There you go," he cried, winking at his daughter. "Call in a doctor and that would settle it. The newspapers would then have their fling and that would fix me. I am worried, I acknowledge that, but it won't last long. Who is that at the gate?" he broke off, looking through the window. "He's moving off now. I thought at first that it was old Jasper Staggs."

It was his custom to read a newspaper in the library after breakfast, but this morning he did not tarry a moment, but went straightway toward the bank. At the wooden bridge he met Caruthers, and halted to speak to him. It was the first time that the lawyer had ever received the great man's attention, but knowing the cause of the interest now manifested, he was determined to dally with it as a sort of revenge.

"Any news, Mr. Caruthers?"

"Oh, you know my name. I am much flattered, I a.s.sure you. Of course I have known you for many years, but I didn't think you remembered me."

McElwin stood blinking at the sun. "I think I have spoken to you on an average of once a day for the last fifteen years," said he. "I am not a gusher, however. I have not seen a newspaper this morning and ask you if there is any news."

"Oh, I suppose there must be," Caruthers replied, leaning back against the rail of the bridge. "I haven't seen a newspaper either and I don't know what may have happened in the outside world."

"Any news about town?"

"No, nothing unusual, I believe. A dog was found dead on the public square, I understand; and I hear that old Mart Henley's son has been suspected of stealing a ham from Avery's meat house. Let me see." He pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, as if in deep meditation. "Maxey's cow tramped down the roses in Donalson's yard and Thompson's hogs, covered with mud, have rubbed themselves against Tillman's white fence."

"Such occurrences are of no interest to me," said the banker.

"No, nor to me either. Well, I'll bid you good morning. Wait a moment," he added. "There was something else on my mind. Oh, did you hear of the White Caps?"

"No!" McElwin said with a gasp. "What about them?"

"Well, they went last night to have some fun with Sam Lyman."

"Ah, and they took him out and whipped him?"

"Well, hardly. He wore out a chair over them, and about three miles from town, I understand that old Doc Mason has been kept pretty busy since midnight sewing up their heads. Lyman didn't tell me, but I got it pretty straight that somebody stole the pistol out of his room; and if it hadn't been for that the undertaker would have had no cause to complain of the dullness of the season."