Part 23

"This day's work will cost you a pretty penny, Messers Look and Sproul," she shrilled. "Killin' a woman's husband ain't to be settled with salve, a sorry, and a dollar bill, Messers Sproul and Look."

"I reckon we're messers, all right," murmured the Cap'n, gazing gloomily on the scene of the involuntary entombment of the three-times-dead Crymble. "I couldn't prove that he was ever dead in his life, but there's one thing I've seen with my own eyes. He acted as his own sexton, and that's almost as unbelievable as a man's comin' back to life again."

"I ain't lookin' for him to come back this last time," remarked Hiram, with much conviction; "unless there's an inch drain-pipe there and he comes up it like an angleworm. Looks from this side of the surface as though death, funeral service, interment, and mournin' was all over in record time and without music or flowers."

Batson Reeves brought the crowd.

It was plainly one of the opportunities of his life.

The word that he circulated, as he rattled down to Broadway's store and back, was that Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look had attacked him with murderous intent, and that after he had bravely fought them off they had wantonly grabbed Mr. Dependence Crymble, jabbed him down a hole in the ground and kicked the hole in on him.

"I've always vowed and declared they was both lunatics," cried the returning Mr. Reeves. He darted accusatory finger at the disconsolate pair where they stood gazing down upon the place of Crymble's sepulture. "They was hatchin' a plot and I busted it, and now this is what they've done for revenge. And I'll leave it to Mis' Crymble herself, who stands there and who saw it all."

Mrs. Crymble was in a state of mind to take the cue promptly, and affirmed the charge with an inspirational wealth of detail and a ferocity of shrill accusation that took effect on the crowd in spite of the lack of logic. In moments of excitement crowds are not discriminating. The Cap'n and Hiram gazed with some uneasiness on the lowering faces.

"They beat his brains out, gents," she screamed--"beat the brains out of the husband that had just come home to me after roamin' the wide world over. Hang 'em, I say! And I'll soap the clothes-line if you'll do it!"

"Ain't she a hell-cat, though!" muttered Hiram.

"When I think of what I was tryin' to make that poor critter do," said Cap'n' Sproul, absent-mindedly kicking a loosened clod into the hole, "I'm ashamed of myself. I reckon he's better off down there than up here. I don't wish him back."

"If accused wish to say anything in their own defence it will be heard," declaimed Squire Alcander, advancing from the gathering throng. "Otherwise, Constable Nute will--"

"Constable Nute will keep his distance from me," roared Cap'n Sproul, "or he'll get his everlastin' come-uppance. I can stand a certain amount of dum foolishness, and I serve notice that I've had full amount served out. Now you loafers standin' round gawpin, you grab anything that will scoop dirt and get to work diggin' here."

"I don't propose to have no bill of expense run up on me," announced Mrs. Crymble, "I've paid out for him all I'm goin' to, and I got done long ago."

"Bereaved and lovin' widder heard, neighbors and friends," said the Cap'n, significantly. "Now go ahead, people, and believe what she says about us, if you want to! Get to work here."

"You sha'n't stir a shovelful of that dirt," declared Mrs. Crymble. "You'll claim day's wages, every one of you."

"Wages is cheaper in Chiny," said the Cap'n satirically. "You can cable round and have him dug out from that side if you want to. But I'm tellin' you right here and now that he's goin' to be dug out from one side or the other."

"He's dead and he's buried, ain't he?" demanded Reeves, rallying to the support of the widow. "What more is there to do?"

"Go down to the graveyard and get that stone of his and set it here," replied Cap'n Sproul, with bitter sarcasm. "Go somewhere to get out of my way here, for if you or any other human polecat, male or female"--he directed withering glance at Mrs. Crymble--"gets in my way whilst I'm doin' what's to be done, if we ain't heathen, I'll split 'em down with this barn shovel." He had secured the implement and tossed out the first shovelful.

There were plenty of willing volunteers. They paid no attention to the widow's reproaches. All who could, toiled with shovels. Others lifted the dirt in buckets. At the end of half an hour Cap'n Sproul, who was deepest in the hole, uttered a sharp exclamation.

"By the mud-hoofed mackinaw!" he shouted, waving his shovel to command silence, "if he ain't alive again after bein' killed the fourth time!"

Below there was a muffled "tunk-tunk-tunk!" It was plainly the sound of two rocks clacking together. It was appealing signal.

Ten minutes later, furious digging brought the rescuers to a flat rock, part of the stoning of the caved-in well. In its fall it had lodged upon soil and rocks, and when it was raised, gingerly and slowly, they found that, below in the cavern it had preserved, there sat Mr. Crymble, up to his shoulders in dirt.

"If some gent will kindly pass me a chaw of tobacker," he said, wistfully, "it will kind of keep up my strength and courage till the rest of me is dug up."

When he had been lifted at last to the edge of the well he turned dull eyes of resentment on Mrs. Crymble.

"I wish there'd been a hole clear through to the Sandwich Isle or any other heathen country," he said, sourly. "I'd have crawled there through lakes of fire and seas of blood."

She lifted her voice to vituperate, but his last clinch with death seemed to have given Mr. Crymble a new sense of power and self-reliance. He hopped up, gathered a handful of rocks and made at his Xantippe. His aim was not too good and he did not hit her, but he stood for several minutes and soulfully bombarded the door that she slammed behind her in her flight.

Then he came back and gathered more rocks from the scene of his recent burial. He propped his thin legs apart, brandished a sizable missile, and squalled defiance.

"I've just died for the fourth time--killed by a well cavin' in on me. There ain't no hell where I've been. And if there's any man here that thinks he can shove me back into this hell on earth"--he shook his fist at the house and singled Cap'n Sproul with flaming eye--"now is the time for him to try to do it."

"There ain't nobody goin' to try to do it," said the Cap'n, coming up to him with frankly outstretched hand. He patted the rocks gently from the arms of the indignant Mr. Crymble. "As a gen'ral thing I stand up for matrimony and stand up for it firm--but I reckon I didn't understand your case, Crymble. I apologize, and we'll shake hands on it. You can have the school-house, and I'll do more'n that--I'll pay for fixin' it over. And in the mean time you come up to my house and make me a good long visit."

He shoved ingratiating hand into the hook of the other's bony elbow and led him away.

"But I want my valise," pleaded Mr. Crymble.

"You leave that coffin-plate and epitaph with her," said the Cap'n, firmly. "You're in for a good old age and don't need 'em. And they may cheer up Mis' Crymble from time to time. She needs cheerin' up."

Hiram Look, following them out of the yard, yanked up the trespass sign and advanced to Batson Reeves and brandished it over his head.

"Gimme it!" he rasped.

"What?" quavered Reeves.

"That paper I stood here and watched you makin' up. Gimme it, or I'll peg you like I peg tent-pegs for the big tent."

And Reeves, having excellent ideas of discretion, passed over the list of trespasses. He did not look up at the windows of the Crymble house as he rode away with his brother, the squire. And what was significant, he took away with him the neck-halter that, for convenience' sake on his frequent calls, he had left hanging to the hitching-post in the Crymble yard for many weeks.

XXVII

At last the Women's Temperance Workers' Union of Smyrna became thoroughly indignant, in addition to being somewhat mystified.

Twice they had "waited on" Landlord Ferd Parrott, of the Smyrna tavern--twelve of them in a stern delegation--and he had simply blinked at them out of his puckery eyes, and pawed nervously at his weazened face, and had given them no satisfaction.

Twice they had marched bravely into the town office and had faced Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman, and had complained that Ferd Parrott was running "a reg'lar rum-hole." Cap'n Sproul had nipped his bristly beard and gazed away from them at the ceiling, and said he would see what could be done about it.

Mrs. Aaron Sproul, a devoted member of the W.T.W.'s, was appointed a committee of one to sound him, and found him, even in the sweet privacy of home, so singularly embarrassed and uncommunicative that her affectionate heart was disturbed and grieved.

Then came Constable Zeburee Nute into the presence of the town's chief executive with a complaint.

"They're gittin' worse'n hornicks round me," he whined, "them Double-yer T. Double-yers. Want Ferd's place raided for licker. But I understood you to tell me--"

"I hain't told you northin' about it!" roared the Cap'n, with mighty clap of open palm on the town ledger.

"Well, you hain't give off orders to raid, seize and diskiver, libel and destroy," complained the officer.

"What be you, a 'tomatom that don't move till you pull a string, or be you an officer that's supposed to know his own duty clear, and follow it?" demanded the first selectman.

"Constables is supposed to take orders from them that's above 'em," declared Mr. Nute. "I'm lookin' to you, and the Double-yer T. Double-yers is lookin' to you."

"Well, if it's botherin' your eyesight, you'd better look t'other way," growled the Cap'n.

"Be I goin' to raid or ain't I goin' to raid?" demanded Constable Nute. "It's for you to say!"

"Look here, Nute," said the Cap'n, rising and aiming his forefinger at the constable's nose as he would have levelled a bulldog revolver, "if you and them wimmen think you're goin' to use me as a pie-fork to lift hot dishes out of an oven that they've heated, you'd better leave go--that's all I've got to say."

"You might just as well know it's makin' talk," ventured the constable, taking a safer position near the door. A queer sort of embarrassment that he noted in the Cap'n's visage emboldened him. "You know just as well as I do that Ferd Parrott has gone and took to sellin' licker. Old Branscomb is goin' home tea-ed up reg'lar, and Al Leavitt and Pud Follansby and a half a dozen others are settin' there all times of night, playin' cards and makin' a reg'lar ha'nt of it. If Ferd ain't shet up it will be said"--the constable looked into the snapping eyes of the first selectman and halted apprehensively.

"It ain't that I believe any such thing, Cap'n Sproul," he declared at last, breaking an embarrassing silence. "But here's them wimmen takin' up them San Francisco scandals to study in their Current Events Club, and when the officers here don't act when complaint is made about a hell-hole right here in town, talk starts, and it ain't complimentary talk, either. Pers'n'ly, I feel like a tiger strainin' at his chain, and I'd like orders to go ahead."

"Tiger, hey?" remarked the Cap'n, looking him up and down. "I knowed you reminded me of something, but I didn't know what, before. Now, if them wimmen--" he began with decision, but broke off to stare through the town-office window. Mr. Nute stepped from the door to take observation, too.

Twelve women in single file were picking their way across the mushy street piled with soft March snow.

"Reckon the Double-yer T. Double-yers is goin' to wait on Ferd ag'in to give him his final come-uppance," suggested the constable. "Heard some talk of it yistiddy."

The Smyrna tavern into which they disappeared was a huge hulk, relic of the old days when the stage-coaches made the village their headquarters. The storms of years had washed the paint from it; it had "hogged" in the roof where the great square chimney projected its nicked bulk from among loosened bricks scattered on the shingles; and from knife-gnawed "deacon-seat" on the porch to window-blind, dangling from one hinge on the broad gable, the old structure was seedy indeed.

"I kind of pity Ferd," mumbled the constable, his faded eyes on the cracked door that the last woman had slammed behind her. "Hain't averaged to put up one man a week for five years, and I reckon he's had to sell rum or starve."

Cap'n Sproul made no observation. He still maintained that air of not caring to discuss the affairs of the Smyrna tavern. He stared at the building as though he rather expected to see the sides tumble out or the roof fly up, or something of the sort.

He did not bestow any especial attention on his friend Hiram Look when the ex-circus man drove up to the hitching-post in front of the town house with a fine flourish, hitched and came in.

"Seems that your wife and mine have gone temperancin' again to-day with the bunch," remarked Hiram, relighting his cigar. "I don't know what difference it makes whether old Branscomb and the other soshes round here get their ruin in an express-package or help Ferd to a little business. They're bound to have it, anyway."

"That ain't the p'int," protested Constable Nute, stiffly, throwing back his coat to display his badge. "Ferd Parrott's breakin' the law, and it hurts my feelin's as an officer to hear town magnates and reprusentative citizens glossin' it over for him."

The Cap'n stared at him balefully but did not trust himself to retort. Hiram was not so cautious. He bridled instantly and insolently.

"There's always some folks in this world ready to stick their noses into the door-crack of a man's business when they know the man ain't got strength to slam the door shut on 'em. Wimmen's clubs is all right so long as they stick to readin' hist'ry and discussin' tattin', but when they flock like a lot of old hen turkeys and go to peckin' a man because he's down and can't help himself, it ain't anything but persecution--wolves turnin' on another one that's got his leg broke. I know animiles, and I know human critters. Them wimmen better be in other business, and I told my wife so this mornin'."

"So did I," said Cap'n Sproul, gloomily.

"And mine up at me like a settin' hen."

"So did mine," assented the Cap'n.

"Gave me a lecture on duties of man to feller man."

"Jest the same to my house."

"Have any idea who's been stuffin' their heads with them notions?" inquired Hiram, malevolently.

"Remember that square-cornered female with a face harder'n the physog of a wooden figurehead that was here last winter, and took 'em aloft and told 'em how to reef parli'ment'ry law, and all such?" asked the Cap'n. "Well, she was the one."

"You mind my word," cried Hiram, vibrating his cigar, "when a wife begins to take orders from an old maid in frosted specs instead of from her own husband, then the moths is gettin' ready to eat the worsted out of the cardboard in the motto 'God bless our home!'"

"Law is law," broke in the unabashed representative of it, "and if the men-folks of this town ain't got the gumption to stand behind an officer--"

"Look here, Nute," gritted the Cap'n, "I'll stand behind you in about two seconds, and I'll be standin' on one foot, at that! Don't you go to castin' slurs on your betters. Because I've stood some talk from you to-day isn't any sign that I'm goin' to stand any more."

Now the first selectman had the old familiar glint in his eyes, and Mr. Nute sat down meekly, returning no answer to the Cap'n's sarcastic inquiry why he wasn't over at the tavern acting as convoy for the Temperance Workers.

Two minutes later some one came stamping along the corridor of the town house. The office door was ajar, and this some one pushed it open with his foot.

It was Landlord Ferd Parrott. In one hand he carried an old glazed valise, in the other a canvas extension-case, this reduplication of baggage indicating a serious intention on the part of Mr. Parrott to travel far and remain long. His visage was sullen and the set of his jaws was ugly. Mr. Parrott had eyes that turned out from his nose, and though the Cap'n and Hiram were on opposite sides of the room it seemed as though his peculiar vision enabled him to fix an eye on each at the same time.

"I'm glad I found you here both together," he snarled. "I can tell you both at one whack. I ain't got northin' against you. You've used me like gents. I don't mean to dump you, nor northin' of the sort, but there ain't anything I can seem to do. You take what there is--this here is all that belongs to me." He shook the valises at them. "I'm goin' to git out of this God-forsaken town--I'm goin' now, and I'm goin' strong, and you're welcome to all I leave, just as I leave it. For the first time in my life I'm glad I'm a widderer."

After gazing at Mr. Parrott for a little time the Cap'n and Hiram searched each the other's face with much interest. It was apparent that perfect confidence did not exist between them on some matters that were to the fore just then.

"Yours," said Mr. Parrott, jerking a stiff nod to the Cap'n, "is a morgidge on house and stable and land. Yours," he continued, with another nod at Hiram, "is a bill o' sale of all the furniture, dishes, liv'ry critters and stable outfit. Take it all and git what you can out of it."

"This ain't no way to do--skip out like this," objected Hiram.

"Well, it's _my_ way," replied Mr. Parrott, stubbornly, "and, seein' that you've got security and all there is, I don't believe you can stop me."

Mr. Parrott dropped his valises and whacked his fists together.

"If the citizens of this place don't want a hotel they needn't have a hotel," he shrilled. "If they want to turn wimmen loose on me to run me up a tree, by hossomy! I'll pull the tree up after me."

"Look here, Ferd," said the Cap'n, eagerly, forgetting for the moment the presence of Constable Nute, "those wimmen might gabble a little at you and make threats and things like that--but--but--there isn't anything they can do, you understand!" He winked at Mr. Parrott. "You know what I told you!"

But Mr. Parrott was in no way swayed or mollified.

"They _can't'_ do anything, can't they?" he squealed. "They've been into my house and knocked in the head of a keg of Medford rum, and busted three demijohns of whiskey, and got old Branscomb to sign the pledge, and scared off the rest of the boys. Now they're goin' to hire a pung, and a delegation of three is goin' to meet every train with badges on and tell every arrivin' guest that the Smyrna tavern is a nasty, wicked place, and old Aunt Juliet Gifford and her two old-maid girls are goin' to put up all parties at half-price. They _can't_ do anything, hey! them wimmen can't? Well, that's what they've done to date--and if the married men of this place can't keep their wives to home and their noses out of my business, then Smyrna can get along without a tavern. I'm done, I say. It's all yours." Mr. Parrott tossed his open palms toward them in token of utter surrender, and picked up his valises.

"You can't shove that off onto us that way," roared Hiram.

"Well, your money is there, and you can go take it or leave it," retorted the desperate Mr. Parrott. "You'd better git your money where you can git it, seein' that you can't very well git it out of my hide." And the retiring landlord of Smyrna tavern stormed out and plodded away down the mushy highway.

Constable Nute gazed after him through the window, and then surveyed the first selectman and Hiram with fresh and constantly increasing interest. His tufty eyebrows crawled like caterpillars, indicating that the thoughts under them must be of a decidedly stirring nature.

"Huh! That's it, is it?" he muttered, and noting that Cap'n Sproul seemed to be recovering his self-possession, he preferred not to wait for the threats and extorted pledge that his natural craftiness scented. He dove out.

"Where be ye goin' to?" demanded Hiram, checking the savage rush of the Cap'n.

"Catch him and make him shet his chops about this, if I have to spike his old jaws together."

"It ain't no use," said Hiram, gloomily, setting his shoulders against the door. "You'd only be makin' a show and spectacle in front of the wimmen. And after that they'd squat the whole thing out of him, the same as you'd squat stewed punkin through a sieve." He bored the Cap'n with inquiring eye. "You wasn't tellin' me that you held a morgidge on that tavern real estate." There was reproach in his tones.

"No, and you wasn't tellin' me that you had a bill of sale of the fixin's and furniture," replied the Cap'n with acerbity. "How much did you let him have?"

"Fifteen hunderd," said Hiram, rather shamefacedly, but he perked up a bit when he added: "There's three pretty fair hoss-kind."

"If there's anything about that place that's spavined any worse'n them hosses it's the bedsteads," snorted the other capitalist. "He's beat you by five hundred dollars. If you should pile that furniture in the yard and hang up a sign, 'Help yourself,' folks wouldn't haul it off without pay for truckin'."

"Le's see!" said Hiram, fingering his nose, "was it real money or Confederate scrip that _you_ let him have on _your_ morgidge?"

"Thutty-five hunderd ain't much on the most central piece of real estate in this village," declared the Cap'n, in stout defence.

"It's central, all right, but so is the stomach-ache," remarked Hiram, calmly. "What good is that land when there ain't been a buildin' built in this town for fifteen years, and no call for any? As for the house, I'll bet ye a ten-cent cigar I can go over there and push it down--and I ain't braggin' of my strength none, either."

The Cap'n did not venture to defend his investment further. He stared despondently through the window at the seamed roof and weather-worn walls that looked particularly forlorn and dilapidated on that gray March day.

"I let him have money on it when the trees was leaved out, and things look different then," he sighed.