Scattergood Baines Part 7

"Do tell," said Mandy.

"Yes, ma'am. It's like this: I own a hardware store and some other prop'ty; not a heap, ma'am, but _some_. It's gittin' to be more. I calculate, some day, to be wuth consid'able. When a man gits to this p'int, he ought to have him a wife, eh?"

Mandy made no reply.

"So," said Scattergood, "I took to lookin' around a bit, and of all the girls there was, Mandy, it looked to me like you would be the only one to make the kind of a wife I want. That's honest. Yes, sir. Says I to myself, 'Mandy Randle's the one for me.' So I washed up the buggy and hitched up the horse and come right out. I been comin' ever since, because that there first impression of mine has been bore out by facts.... I'm askin' you, Mandy, will you be Missis Baines?"

"You're stiddy and savin'--and makin'," said Mandy. "Add what _you_ got to what I got, and we'll be pretty well off. And I aim to help take care of it."

"I aim to have you help," said Scattergood. "But, Mandy, I don't want you scrimpin' and savin' too much. I want my wife should have as good as the best, and be looked up to by the best. The day'll come, Mandy, when we'll keep a hired girl!"

"No extravagances, Scattergood, till I say we kin afford it.... And, Scattergood, you got to promise not to make no important move without consultin' me. I got a head for business."

"Mandy," said Scattergood, "you and me is equal partners."

Which, say both tradition and history, is how the arrangement worked out. Mandy and Scattergood _were_ equal partners. Scattergood was to learn through the years that Mandy's _was_ a good head for business, and, though business men who came to deal with Scattergood in the future sometimes laughed when they found Mandy present at their conferences, they never laughed but once.... And, though Scattergood's proffer of marriage had not been couched in fervent terms of love, nor had Mandy fallen on his overbroad bosom with rapture, theirs was a married life to be envied by most, for there was between them perfect trust, sincere affection, and wisest forbearance. For forty years Scattergood and Mandy lived together as man and wife, and at the end both could look back through the intimate years and say of the other that he had chosen well his mate.

It may be thought that this bit of romance is dropped in here by legend and history merely to amuse, or as a side light on the character of Scattergood Baines. This is not so. We are forced by the facts to regard the matter as an integral part of the business transaction related in this narrative. Not a minor part, not an important part, but perhaps the deciding factor....

John Bones, lawyer, age twenty-six, was a recent acquisition to Coldriver village. Scattergood had watched the young man's comings and goings, and had listened to his conversation. Early in November he went to his bank and drew from deposit two hundred and fifty dollars.... Then he went to call on Bones.

"Mr. Bones," he said, "folks says old Clayt Mosier's a client of your'n."

"He's given me some business, Mr. Baines."

"Uh-huh!... Somethin' to do with t.i.tle to a piece of timber over Higgins's Bridge way, wa'n't it?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, but I guess you'll have to ask Mr. Mosier about that."

"Huh!... Mosier hain't apt to tell _me_. Seems like I was sort of int'rested in that thing. I can't manage nohow to git the facts, so I thought I'd talk to you."

"I can't help you. I have no right to talk about a client's confidential matters."

"To be sure.... How's business?"

"Not very good."

"Not gittin' rich, eh?"

Young Bones looked unhappy, for making both ends meet was a problem he had not mastered as yet.

Scattergood got up, closed the door, and walked softly back to the desk.

He drew from his pocket the roll of bills, and spread them out in alluring pattern.

"Them's your'n," said he.

"Mine? How? What for?"

"I'm swappin' with you."

"For what, Mr. Baines?" A slight perspiration was noticeable on young Lawyer Bones's brow.

"Information," said Scattergood, looking him in the eye. As the young man did not speak, Scattergood continued, "about Mosier's t.i.tle matter."

For an instant the young man stood irresolute; then he reached slowly over, gathered up the money into a neat roll--while Scattergood watched him intently--and then, with suddenly set teeth, hurled the roll into Scattergood's face, and leaped around the desk.

"You _git_!" he said, between his teeth. "Git, and take your filthy money with you...."

Scattergood, who did not in the least look it, could move swiftly. The young lawyer was abruptly interrupted in his pastime of ejecting Scattergood forcibly. He found himself seized by his wrists and held as if he had shoved his arms into steel clamps.

"Set," said Scattergood, "and be sociable.... And keep the money. It's your'n. You're hired. I guess you're the feller I'm aimin' to use."

He forced the struggling young man back into his chair, and released him--grinning broadly, and not at all as a tempter should grin. "If it'll relieve your conscience," he said, "I hain't got no more int'rest in Mosier's affairs than I have in the emperor of the heathen Chinee....

But I _have_ got a heap of int'rest in a young feller that kin refuse a wad of money when he can't pay his board bill. Maybe 'twan't jest a nice way, but I had to find out. The man I'm needin' has to have a clost mouth--and somethin' a mite better 'n that--gumption not to sell out....

Git the idee?"

"I--yes, I guess I do--but--"

"Any objections to workin' for me?"

"None."

"All right. Keep the money. When you've worked it up come for more. And, young feller, if things turns out for me like I think they will, you're goin' to quit bein' a lawyer one of these days. I'm a-goin' to need you in my business. Come over to my store."

At the store Scattergood spread his maps before the young man, and pointed to a certain spot. "There's about fifty different pa.s.sels of timber in that crotch. I don't aim to need 'em all to-day, but I calc'late on gittin' a sort of fringe around the edge." He drew his finger down the East Branch and up the West Branch in a sort of horseshoe. "Your job's to git options on the fringe--in your own name.

Git the idee?"

"Yes."

"Git 'em cheap."

"Yes, sir."

"There's five thousand dollars on deposit in the bank in your name. Use it." When Scattergood trusted a man he trusted him. "And now," he said, "I calc'late to raise a little dust, so's you won't be noticed."

Scattergood's little dust consisted of allowing to be inserted in the local paper an item announcing that Scattergood Baines had bought all the stock and contracts of the Bailey Provision Company, which concern was purveying food supplies to all the camps of Messrs. Crane and Keith.... Then Scattergood settled back to watch the dust rise.

The dust arose, and filled the eyes and noses of Messrs. Crane and Keith, as Scattergood expected, with the result that Mr. Crane was a pa.s.senger on Scattergood's stage to Coldriver village.

"Howdy, Mr. Crane?" said Scattergood, as that gentleman belligerently entered the hardware store. "I was sort of lookin' forward to seein'

some of you folks."

"Look here, Baines," said Crane, "what are you b.u.t.ting into our game for? We let you get away with that other thing, but this last deal of yours makes it look as if you were hunting trouble. You bought that provision company to get a lever on us."

"Maybe so.... Maybe so, but I wouldn't get het up about it.... You see, it's like this: you folks kind of did what I expected you'd do on that dam and boom deal, and come pretty close to doin' me out of some valuable property. I didn't get het up, though, I jest sort of sat around and waited.... And it come out all right. Now, didn't it?"

"Bullhead luck."