The Calico Cat Part 13

"Nossing! Nossing! Ah'll be work for heem more good as never was."

"If he treated you as unjustly as that," said Paige, with sympathy, "you cannot have a very high opinion of Mr. Edwards."

"Ah'll tol' you he was bad mans. He'll discharge me more as seexty mile off. Ah'll have for walk, me. Ah'll tol' you dat was mean treek for play on poor mans."

And Pete sought sympathy from the faces about him.

"That was too bad, certainly," said Paige. "Now about those wounds of yours. I have Doctor Brigham here, ready to make an examination.

I'll call him now," and the state's attorney started toward the door of the witness-room.

Pete jumped.

"_Hein!_" he exclaimed.

"You don't object to having an excellent doctor like Doctor Brigham look at your wounds, do you?" asked Paige.

Now Lamoury had no wounds to show. The smiling, well-dressed Paige, standing there and looking at him with amused comprehension, was more than he could bear. Pete suddenly lost his temper, never too secure. Out of his wheeled chair he jumped, and shaking his fist in Paige's face, he shouted:--

"T'ink you be smart, very smart mans! Well, Ah'll tol' you you ain't. Ah'll tol' you you be a great beeg peeg! Ah'll tol' you dat Edwards boy, he shoot at me. I see heem. 'T ain't my fault of it if he not hit me, _hein_? You be peeg! You be all peegs--every one!"

and Pete, making a wide, inclusive gesture, shouted, "I care not more as one cent for de whole keet and caboodle of it! Peeg, peeg, peeg!"

And turning on his heel, the wrathful Frenchman left the room. He left also a convulsed jury and a wheeled chair, for the hire of which Hibbard found himself later obliged to pay.

Mr. Peaslee, the thermometer of whose spirits had been rising steadily, joined in the laughter which followed the exit of the discomfited Pete.

"Terrible smart feller, Paige, ain't he?" said he to Albion Small.

"Did him up real slick, didn't he?" The delighted Solomon had quite forgotten his dislike for the citified Paige.

Of course the grand jury promptly abandoned the inquiry. The fact was now obvious that the vengeful Lamoury, aided by the unscrupulous Hibbard, had merely hoped to be bought off by Mr. Edwards, and had been disappointed.

"The case," said Paige, "would never have come to trial. If Edwards had persisted, and let his boy go to court, they'd have had to stop.

They must have been a good deal disappointed when he refused bail; they probably thought he'd never let the boy pa.s.s a night in Hotel Calkins."

Mr. Peaslee walked home sobered but relieved. The loss of public esteem which had come to him through his foolish adventure, the serious wrong which he had inflicted upon Jim Edwards, the disgust of his wife were all things to chasten a man's spirit; but on the other hand, Jim was now out of jail, Lamoury had not been hurt in the least, and he himself had not been complained of or arrested. If he should have to endure some chaffing from Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner, his cronies at the bank, he "guessed he could stand it."

On the whole, he was moderately happy.

The sun was low in the west, and the trees were casting long shadows across his yard, brightly spattered with the red and yellow of autumnal leaves. His house, white and neat and comfortable, seemed basking like some still, somnolent animal in the warm suns.h.i.+ne.

Solomon turned, and cast his eye down the road and over the Random River, flowing smooth and peaceful through its great ox-bow. He recognized Dannie Snow, scuffling through the dust with his bare feet, as he drove home his father's great, placid, full-uddered cow. The comfort of the scene, the cosy pleasantness of the place among the close-coming hills, struck him, in his relieved mood, as it had never done before. Even though disappointed in political ambition, a man might live there in some content.

After all, he had thirty thousand dollars, and it had been calmly drawing interest through all his tribulations.

Consoled by this reflection, he walked to the rear of his house and began pottering about the chicken yard. Then in the Edwards garden appeared Jim. Solomon gave a slight start, and took a hesitating step or two, as if minded to flee, but restrained by shame. He watched the boy come to the fence, and climb upon it. He said nothing; he could not think of anything to say.

"That harmonica was fine!" said Jim, grinning amiably.

Mr. Peaslee was immensely relieved. If there was a momentary twinge at the thought of the money it had cost him, it was quickly gone.

"Glad ye enjoyed it. Seem 's though I wanted to give ye a little suthin'--considerin'. I hope you and your father ain't ones to lay it up agin me."

"That's all right," said Jim, grandly. "I had a bully time at the jail. Mrs. Calkins is a splendid woman. You just ought to eat one of her doughnuts!"

"Didn't know they fed ye up much to the jail," commented Solomon, puzzled.

"Oh, I wasn't locked up," said Jim, and explained.

"Well, well, I'm beat! That was clever on 'em, wa'n't it now?" said Mr. Peaslee, much pleased.

"And father ain't holding any grudge, either," said Jim. "He says he's much obliged to you"--a remark which the reader will understand better than Mr. Peaslee ever did.

"You listen when you're eating your supper!" cried Jim, as he climbed down from the fence and ran toward the house. "I'm going to play on that harmonica!"

And Solomon rejoiced. Poor man, he did not know how the popularity of his gift was destined to endure; he did not know that he had let loose upon the circ.u.mambient air sounds worse than any ever emitted by the Calico Cat.

Filled with the pleasant sense of having "made it up" with the boy whom he thought he had so greatly injured, Solomon started along the path toward the kitchen door. He began to realize that he had an appet.i.te--something now long unfamiliar to him. As he drew near, an appetizing odor smote his nostrils.

"Eyesters, I swanny!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

It was unheard of! There was nothing which Solomon, who had a keen relish for good things to eat, and would even have been extravagant in this one particular had his firm-willed wife permitted, enjoyed more than an oyster stew, or which he had a chance to taste less often. Oysters could be had in town for sixty cents a quart, a sum that seems not large; but in Mrs. Peaslee's mind they were a.s.sociated with the elegance and luxury of church "sociables,"

and with the dissipation of supper after country dances. They were extravagant food. Solomon could not believe his nose.

He entered the door, and there upon the table stood the big tureen, with two soup plates at Mrs. Peaslee's place. There was nothing else but the stew, of course, but it lent a gala air to the whole kitchen.

"Why, Sarepty, Sarepty!" he said to his wife.

"You goin' to be arrested?" asked Mrs. Peaslee, sharply. She wanted no sentiment over her unwonted generosity; but, truth to tell, when she had seen Solomon depart that morning, and realized that he might be going to arrest, possibly to trial, perhaps to conviction and to jail, she had felt a sudden fright, a sudden sympathy for her husband, and she had bought half a pint of oysters for a stew--in spite of expense.

"No, I ain't going to be arrested," said Solomon, with satisfaction.

"The grand jury found there wa'n't anythin' to it; but--but, Sarepty--"

He paused helplessly, unable to express his complex feelings about the stew, and the att.i.tude on the part of his wife which it revealed.

"Oh, well," said his wife, "after all, 't ain't 's if you'd gone and lost money."

And after supper Mr. Peaslee carefully poured some skimmed milk into a saucer and went out to the barn.

"Kitty, kitty!" he called. "Kitty, come, kitty!"

The Calico Cat did not respond. But in the morning the saucer was empty.