At the Crossroads Part 18

"Old Sniff's popped, I hear." Larry, now that he chose to be friendly, endeavoured to fit his language to his hearer's level. "Have a cigar, Twombley?"

"I'll keep to my pipe." The old man's face was expressionless. "If you don't get a taste for what you can't afford you don't ruin it for what you can. Yes, looks as if Sniff was dead. They've buried him, at any rate."

"Who's got his place?"

"Peneluna Sniff."

"Was he married?" Floating in Rivers's mind was an old story, but it floated too fast for him to catch it.

"She went through the marriage service. That fixes it, don't it?"

Twombley puffed loudly.

"I suppose it does, but I kind of recall that there was a quarrel between them."

"Ain't that a proof that they was married?" Twombley's eyes twinkled through the slits of lids--he always squinted his eyes close when he wanted to go slow. Larry laughed.

"Didn't Peneluna Sniff, or whatever her name is, live in a house by herself?" he asked. He was puzzled.

"She sure did. Your old man was a powerful understander of human nater. A few feet 'twixt married folks, he uster say, often saves the day."

"Well, who's got her house?"

"She's got it."

"Empty?"

"I guess the same truck's in it that always was. I ain't seen any moving out."

"Is Mrs. Sniff at home?"

"How do you suppose I know, young man? These ain't calling hours on the Point."

"Well, they're business hours, all right, Twombley. See here, my friend, I'm going to hire that house of Mrs. Sniff if I can."

Twombley's slits came close together.

"Yes?" was all he vouchsafed.

"Yes. And I wish you'd pa.s.s the word along, my friend."

"I don't pa.s.s nothing!" Twombley interrupted. "I take all I kin git. I make use of what I can. The rest, I chuck."

"Well, have it your own way, but I'm your friend, Twombley, and the friend of your neighbours. I cannot say more now--but you'll all believe it some day."

"Maclin standing back of yer, young feller?"

"Yes. And that's where you've made another bad guess, Twombley.

Maclin's your friend, only he isn't free to speak out just now."

"Gos.h.!.+ we ain't eager for him to speak. The stiller he is the better we like it."

"He knows that. He's given up--he is going to see what I can make you feel--I'm one of you, you know that, Twombley."

"Never would have guessed it, son!" Twombley leered.

"Well, my wife's always been your friend--what's the difference? I've been on my job; she's been on hers--it's all the same, only now I'm going to prove it!"

"Gos.h.!.+ you'll be a shock to Maclin all right."

"No, I won't, Twombley. You're wrong about him. He's meant right, but not being one of us he's bungled, he knows it now. He's listened to me at last."

Larry could be a most important-appearing person when there was no one to p.r.i.c.k his little bubble. Twombley eyed his visitor calmly.

"Funny thing, life is," he ruminated, seeming to forget Larry's presence. "Yer get to thinking you're running down hill on a greased plank, and sudden--a nail catches yer breeches and yer stop in time to see where yer was going!"

"What then, Twombley?"

"Oh! nothing. Only as long as yer breeches hold and the nail don't come out, yer keep on looking!"

Again Twombley spat. Then, seeing his guest rising, he asked with great dignity:

"Going, young sir?"

"Yes, over to Mrs. Sniff's. And if we are neighbours, Twombley, let us be friends. My father had a liking for you, I remember."

"I'm not forgetting that, young sir."

When Larry reached Mrs. Sniff's, Jan-an was still riotously sweeping the memories of the funeral away. She turned and looked at Larry.

Then, leaning on her broom, she continued to stare.

"Well, what in all possessed got yer down here?" asked the girl, her face stiffening.

"Where's Mrs. Sniff?" Larry asked. He always resented Jan-an, on general principles. She got in his way too often. When she was out of sight he never thought of her, but her vacant stare and monotonous drawl were offensive to him.

He had once suggested that she be confined somewhere. "You never can tell about her kind," he had said; he had a superst.i.tious fear of her.

"What, shut the poor child from her freedom?" Aunt Polly had asked him, "just because we cannot tell? Lordy! Larry Rivers, there wouldn't be many people running around loose if we applied that rule to them."

There were some turns that conversation took that sent Larry into sudden silences--this had been one. He had never referred to Jan-an's treatment after that, but he always resented her.

Jan-an continued to stare at him.

"There ain't no Mrs. Sniff" she said finally. "What's ailin' folks around here?"

"Well, where's Miss Peneluna?" Larry ventured, thinking back to the old t.i.tle of his boyhood days.

"Setting!" Jan-an returned to her sweeping and Larry stepped aside.