CHAPTER V
SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS
"This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night inlate September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settledup their weekly accounts.
"Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter feryou and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it."
"It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, ashe pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man assold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thoughtthere was money in 'em."
"For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulledus on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right."
"But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy.
Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it beforehim, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine goodturns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I gotto git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all mylife."
"But don't you forget to remember?"
"Not me. I ain't that kind."
Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himselffrom the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made himsensitive to the changes in the weather.
"This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, tryingto bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them havethree loaves for a dime because they were old and hard.
Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed toremedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strictprinciples applied during his tender years made him hesitate.
"I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of amore cheerful companion.
"I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of thishere doin's."
"Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by thehour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had acceptedRicks's ambition as his own.
"Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks.
Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in thehay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed tocatch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep.
It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately throughvillage after village.
They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs weresoaked to the skin.
Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they couldlook directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook ofa river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, strugglingthrough the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself inevery curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, andin every pane of glass that faced the west.
"That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's thematter with the feller?"
A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, betweenthe horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried torise.
"He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandystopped.
"Get a fall?" he asked.
The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must haveridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his headagainst a tree and closed his eyes.
Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of hisriding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting.
"I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting thehorse, "can't we do somethin' for him?"
Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle.
"I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift tothe saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Rickshad returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I willtake a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and thenhanded a coin to Ricks.
"Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank youvery much."
"Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks.
"Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing.
"Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks.
"Circus, I believe."
"Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy."Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!"
Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before,Ricks?"
"Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yerlife he knowed how to hit the bottle."
"He was sick," urged Sandy.
"An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom.
The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that theydecided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the streetcorner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandystopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show hadbeen of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemedto be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his dampclothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head againstthe wall.
"What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, asshe tied up his small package.
"I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandythrough chattering teeth.
"Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You waithere, and I'll go git you some hot coffee."
She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with asmall coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and ahalf, then he asked the price.
"Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't knowwhich side of the Ohio River you're on!"
Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started onhis way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks,who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandyknelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket.
"Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimedruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks."
"You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," saidRicks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round."
As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and apurple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in theproper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently toenumerate the diverse uses of microscopes.
At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. Thelight fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson,black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy,who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad,straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was notthe light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and theflush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curioussense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the restof his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made itbuy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, untilonly a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy withsilver.
"Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to havea microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dimelook like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Stepright up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteenfor the microscope."
Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized twofaces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in featureand unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon wasimpatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind himwas a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outercorners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene.
"Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is thisKentucky?"
"Yep; we crossed the line to-day."
"I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'msick."
It
was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and makinghim bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. Itwas shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face ofthe girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big boxand fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept himup; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heardRicks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who wereleft. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he saidthe words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how hisrestless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fiercerepulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself.
"And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can'tever speak to a girl like that!"
Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow thecircus, which was to be in the next town on the following day.
"It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to openearly in the morning."
Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions.His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not rememberwhether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down bythe road.
"Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'."
"What you goin' to do?"
"I'm goin' to school."
If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes andbeing wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been moreastonished.
"What?" he asked in genuine doubt.
"'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately."This ain't the way you get to be the right sort."
Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' alongof me or not?"
"I can't," said Sandy, weakly.
Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backwardlook he left his business partner of three months lying by theroadside, and tramped away in the darkness.
Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had nostrength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew therewas nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking aboutmicroscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that hecouldn't ever speak to a girl like that.
After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must havegone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great blackwitch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grassfor the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. Hefound instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back interror.
"Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindlyvoice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him,her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders.
"Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously.
Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap andmicroscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he wastalking at random, but he could not say the things he thought.
"Where'd you come from, boy?"
"Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy.
"'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast."I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer AuntMelvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat'sright. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain'tfur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey callsit 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought ofputtin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem oldcunjers outen you."
Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, upa hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tinylog cabin, where he dropped exhausted.
Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room,and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queerand unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and thereal began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied tothe right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned onthe hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fallwith the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain inhis sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changedinto a soothing murmur:
"Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. Shegwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'llgit dem old cunjers out."