O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 Part 9

"The white-whiskered skunk!" he said, and I knew he spoke of Hazen.

At a quarter of three I took myself to Hazen Kinch's office. It was not much of an office; not that Hazen could not have afforded a better. But it was up two flights--an attic room ill lighted. A small air-tight stove kept the room stifling hot. The room was also air-tight. Hazen had a table and two chairs, and an iron safe in the corner. He put a pathetic trust in that safe. I believe I could have opened it with a screwdriver. I met him as I climbed the stairs. He said harshly:

"I'm going to telephone. They say the road's impa.s.sable."

He had no telephone in his office; he used one in the store below. A small economy fairly typical of Hazen.

"I'll wait in the office," I told him.

"Go ahead," he agreed, halfway down the stairs.

I went up to his office and closed the drafts of the stove--it was red-hot--and tried to open the one window, but it was nailed fast. Then Hazen came back up the stairs grumbling.

"d.a.m.n the snow!" he said. "The wire is down."

"Where to?" I asked.

"My house, man! To my house!"

"You wanted to telephone home that you--"

"I can't get home to-night. You'll have to go to the hotel."

I nodded good-naturedly.

"All right. You, too, I suppose."

"I'll sleep here," he said.

I looked round. There was no bed, no cot, nothing but the two stiff chairs. He saw my glance and said angrily: "I've slept on the floor before."

I was always interested in the man's mental processes.

"You wanted to telephone Mrs. Kinch not to worry?" I suggested.

"Pshaw, let her fret!" said Hazen. "I wanted to ask after my boy." His eyes expanded, he rubbed his hands a little, cackling. "A fine boy, sir!

A fine boy!"

It was then we heard Doan Marshey coming up the stairs. We heard his stumbling steps as he began the last flight and Hazen seemed to c.o.c.k his ears as he listened. Then he sat still and watched the door. The steps climbed nearer; they stopped in the dim little hall outside the door and someone fumbled with the k.n.o.b. When the door opened we saw who it was. I knew Marshey. He lived a little beyond Hazen on the same road. Lived in a two-room cabin--it was little more--with his wife and his five children; lived meanly and pitiably, grovelling in the soil for daily bread, sweating life out of the earth--life and no more. A thin man, racking thin; a forward-thrusting neck and a bony face and a sad and drooping moustache about his mouth. His eyes were meek and weary.

He stood in the doorway blinking at us; and with his gloved hands--they were stiff and awkward with the cold--he unwound the ragged m.u.f.fler that was about his neck and he brushed weakly at the snow upon his head and his shoulders. Hazen said angrily:

"Come in! Do you want my stove to heat the town?"

Doan shuffled in and he shut the door behind him. He said: "Howdy, Mr.

Kinch." And he smiled in a humble and placating way.

Hazen said: "What's your business? Your interest is due."

Doan nodded.

"Yeah. I know, Mr. Kinch. I cain't pay it all."

Kinch exclaimed impatiently: "An old story! How much can you pay?"

"Eleven dollars and fifty cents," said Doan.

"You owe twenty."

"I aim to pay it when the hens begin to lay."

Hazen laughed scornfully.

"You aim to pay! d.a.m.n you, Marshey, if your old farm was worth taking I'd have you out in this snow, you old scamp!"

Doan pleaded dully: "Don't you do that, Mr Kinch! I aim to pay."

Hazen clapped his hands on the table.

"Rats! Come! Give me what you've got! And Marshey, you'll have to get the rest. I'm sick of waiting on you."

Marshey came shuffling toward the table. Hazen was sitting with the table between him and the man and I was a little behind Hazen at one side. Marshey blinked as he came nearer, and his weak nearsighted eyes turned from Hazen to me. I could see that the man was stiff with the cold.

When he came to the table in front of Hazen he took off his thick gloves. His hands were blue. He laid the gloves on the table and reached into an inner pocket of his torn coat and drew out a little cloth pouch and he fumbled into this and I heard the clink of coins. He drew out two quarters and laid them on the table before Hazen, and Hazen picked them up. I saw that Marshey's fingers moved stiffly; I could almost hear them creak with the cold. Then he reached into the pouch again.

Something dropped out of the mouth of the little cloth bag and fell soundlessly on the table. It looked to me like a bill, a piece of paper currency. I was about to speak, but Hazen, without an instant's hesitation, had dropped his hand on the thing and drawn it unostentatiously toward him. When he lifted his hand the money--if it was money--was gone.

Marshey drew out a little roll of worn bills. Hazen took them out of his hand and counted them swiftly.

"All right." he said. "Eleven-fifty. I'll give you a receipt. But you mind me, Doan Marshey, you get the rest before the month's out. I've been too slack with you."

Marshey, his dull eyes watching Hazen write the receipt, was folding the little pouch and putting it away. Hazen tore off the bit of paper and gave it to him. Doan took it and he said humbly: "Thank'e, sir."

Hazen nodded.

"Mind now," he exclaimed, and Marshey said: "I'll do my best, Mr.

Kinch."

Then he turned and shuffled across the room and out into the hall and we heard him descending the stairs.

When he was gone I asked Hazen casually: "What was it that he dropped upon the table?"

"A dollar," said Hazen promptly. "A dollar bill. The miserable fool!"

Hazen's mental processes were always of interest to me.

"You mean to give it back to him?" I asked.