David Harum

David poured half of his second cup of tea into his saucer to lower its temperature to the drinking point, and helped himself to a second cut of ham and a third egg. Whatever was on his mind to have kept him unusually silent during the evening meal, and to cause certain wrinkles in his forehead suggestive of perplexity or misgiving, had not impaired his appetite. David was what he called “a good feeder.”

Mrs. Bixbee, known to most of those who enjoyed the privilege of her acquaintance as “Aunt Polly,” though nieces and nephews of her blood there were none in Homeville, Freeland County, looked curiously at her brother, as, in fact, she had done at intervals during the repast; and concluding at last that further forbearance was uncalled for, relieved the pressure of her curiosity thus:

“Guess ye got somethin’ on your mind, hain’t ye? You hain’t hardly said aye, yes, ner no sence you set down. Anythin’ gone ’skew?”

David lifted his saucer, gave the contents a precautionary blow, and emptied it with sundry windy suspirations.

“No,” he said, “nothin’ hain’t gone exac’ly wrong, ’s ye might say⁠—not yet; but I done that thing I was tellin’ ye of today.”

“Done what thing?” she asked perplexedly.

“I telegraphed to New York,” he replied, “fer that young feller to come on⁠—the young man General Wolsey wrote me about. I got a letter from him today, an’ I made up my mind ‘the sooner the quicker,’ an’ I telegraphed him to come ’s soon ’s he could.”

“I forgit what you said his name was,” said Aunt Polly.

‘Stand without hitchin’!’ He, he, he!”

“I guess you wouldn’t think it was so awful funny if you hadn’t gone an’ stuck that horse onto Deakin Perkins⁠—an’ I don’t see how you done it.”

“Mebbe that is part of the joke,” David allowed, “an’ I’ll tell ye th’ rest on’t. Th’ next day I hitched the new one to th’ dem’crat wagin an’ put in a lot of straps an’ rope, an’ started off fer the East road agin. He went fust rate till we come to about the place where we had the fust trouble, an’, sure enough, he balked agin. I leaned over an’ hit him a smart cut on the off shoulder, but he only humped a little, an’ never lifted a foot. I hit him another lick, with the selfsame result. Then I got down an’ I strapped that animal so’t he couldn’t move nothin’ but his head an’ tail, an’ got back into the buggy. Wa’al, bom-by, it may ’a’ ben ten minutes, or it may ’a’ ben more or less⁠—it’s slow work settin’ still behind a balkin’ hoss⁠—he was ready to go on his own account, but he couldn’t budge. He kind o’ looked around, much as to say, ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ an’ then he tried another move, an’ then another, but no go. Then I got down an’ took the hopples off an’ then climbed back into the buggy, an’ says ‘Cluck, to him, an’ off he stepped

“Wa’al, the day but one after the deakin sold himself Mr. Stickin’-Plaster I had an arrant three four mile or so up past his place, an’ when I was comin’ back, along ’bout four or half past, it come on to rain like all possessed. I had my old umbrel’⁠—though it didn’t hender me f’m gettin’ more or less wet⁠—an’ I sent the old mare along fer all she knew. As I come along to within a mile f’m the deakin’s house I seen somebody in the road, an’ when I come up closter I see it was the deakin himself, in trouble, an’ I kind o’ slowed up to see what was goin’ on. There he was, settin’ all humped up with his ole broad-brim hat slopin’ down his back, a-sheddin’ water like a roof. Then I seen him lean over an’ larrup the hoss with the ends of the lines fer all he was wuth. It appeared he hadn’t no whip, an’ it wouldn’t done him no good if he’d had. Wa’al, sir, rain or no rain, I jest pulled up to watch him. He’d larrup a spell, an’ then he’d set back; an’ then he’d lean over an’ try it agin, harder’n ever. Scat my ⸻! I thought I’d die a-laughin’. I couldn’t hardly cluck to the mare when I got ready to move on. I drove alongside an’ pulled up. ‘Hullo, deakin,’ I says, ‘what’s the matter?’ He looked up at me, an’ I won’t say he was the maddest man I ever see, but he was long ways the maddest-lookin’ man, an’ he shook his fist at me jes’ like one o’ the unregen’rit.

“Wa’al,” said Mr. Harum, lifting himself to a seat on the counter, “how’ve you made out? All OK?”

“Yes,” replied John, “I think so.”

“Where’s Chet?”

“He went away some few minutes ago. He said he had a good many things to attend to as he was leaving in the morning.”

“E-um’m!” said David incredulously. “I guess ’t won’t take him long to close up his matters. Did he leave ev’rything in good shape? Cash all right, an’ so on?”

“I think so,” said John. “The cash is right I am sure.”

“How ’bout the books?”

“I asked him to let me have the balance sheets, and he said that you must have them, but that he would come in in the morning and⁠—well, what he said was that he would see me in the morning, and, as he put it, look after any little last thing.”

“E-um’m!” David grunted. “He won’t do no such a thing. We’ve seen the last of him, you bet, an’ a good riddance. He’ll take the nine o’clock tonight, that’s what he’ll do. Drawed his pay, I guess, didn’t he?”

“All right,” said David, “I won’t preach more ’n about up to the sixthly⁠—How’d you feel if I was to light up a cigar? I hain’t much of a hand at a yarn, an’ if I git stuck, I c’n puff a spell. Thank ye. Wa’al, Mis’ Cullom, you used to know somethin’ about my folks. I was raised on Buxton Hill. The’ was nine on us, an’ I was the youngest o’ the lot. My father farmed a piece of about forty to fifty acres, an’ had a small shop where he done odd times small jobs of tinkerin’ fer the neighbors when the’ was anythin’ to do. My mother was his second, an’ I was the only child of that marriage. He married agin when I was about two year old, an’ how I ever got raised ’s more ’n I c’n tell ye. My sister Polly was ’sponsible more ’n anyone, I guess, an’ the only one o’ the whole lot that ever gin me a decent word. Small farmin’ ain’t cal’lated to fetch out the best traits of human nature⁠—an’ keep ’em out⁠—an’ it seems to me sometimes that when the old man wa’n’t cuffin’ my ears he was lickin’ me with a rawhide or a strap. Fur ’s that was concerned, all his boys used to ketch it putty reg’lar till they got too big. One on ’em up an’ licked him one night, an’ lit out next day. I s’pose the old man’s disposition was sp’iled by what some feller said farmin’ was, ‘workin’ all day, an’ doin’ chores all night,’ an’ larrupin’ me an’ all the rest on us was about all the enjoyment he got.