Scattergood Baines Part 2

"Keep your money," retorted Scattergood. "I'm satisfied the way things is at present."

Within the hour they were back with seven hundred and fifty dollars in bills, a lawyer, and an agreement, which Scattergood read with minute attention. It bound him not to sell, barter, trade, exchange, deal, or in any way to derive a profit from the handling of groceries, dry goods, notions, millinery, clothing, and gent's furnis.h.i.+ngs. It contained no hidden pitfalls, and Scattergood was satisfied. He signed his name and thrust the roll of bills into his pocket.... Then he picked up his mop and went to work as hard as ever.

"Say," Old Man Penny said, "what you goin' ahead for? You jest agreed not to."

"There wasn't nothin' said about moppin'," grinned Scattergood, "and there wasn't nothin' said about hardware and harness and farm implements, neither. If you don't b'lieve me, jest read the agreement.

What I'm doin', neighbors, is git this place cleaned out to put in the finest cash, cut-price, up-to-date hardware store in the state. And thank you, neighbors. You've done right kindly by a stranger...."

To this point the history of Scattergood Baines has been for the most part legendary; now we begin to encounter him in the public records, for deeds, mortgages, and the like begin to appear with his name upon them.

His history becomes authentic.

Seven hundred and fifty dollars is not much when put into hardware, but Scattergood had no intention of putting even that into a stock of goods.

He had a notion that the right kind of man, with five hundred dollars, could get credit to twice that amount, and as for farm machinery, he could sell by catalogue or on commission. His suspicion was proven to be fact.

But it was not in Scattergood to sit idle while he waited for his stock to arrive. Coldriver doubtless thought him idle, but he was studying the locality and the river with the eye of a commander who knew this was to be his battlefield. What Scattergood wanted now was to place himself astride Coldriver Valley, somewhere below the village, so that he could control the upper reaches of the stream. It was not difficult to find such a location. It lay three miles below town, at the junction of the north and south branches of Coldriver. The juncture was in a big, marshy, untillable flat, from which hills rose abruptly. From the easterly end of the flat the augmented river squeezed in a roaring rapids through a sort of bottle neck.

Scattergood stood on the hillside and looked upon this with satisfied eye.

"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy, maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build.

And," he scratched his head as a sort of congratulation to it for its efficiency, "I can't study out how anybody's agoin' to git logs past here without d.i.c.kerin' with the man who owns the dam...." Plenty of water twelve months a year to give free power; a flat made to order for reservoir or log pond; a complete and effective blockade of both branches of the river which came down from a country richly timbered! It was one of the spots Scattergood had dreamed of.

Scattergood knew perfectly well he could not stop a log from pa.s.sing his dam. Nor could he shut off the stream. Any dam he built must have a sluice which could be opened for the pa.s.sage of timber, and all timber was ent.i.tled to "natural water." But, as he well knew, "natural water"

was not always enough. A dam at this point would raise the level on the bars of the flat so that logs would not jam, and a log which used the high water caused by the dam must pay for it. What Scattergood had in mind was a dam and boom company. It was his project to improve the river, to boom backwaters, to dynamite ledges, to make the river pa.s.sable to logs in spring and fall. It was his idea that such a company, in addition to demanding pay for the use of "improvements,"

could contract with lumbermen up the river to drive their logs.... And a mill at this point! Scattergood fairly licked his lips as he thought of the millions upon millions of feet of spruce to be sawed into lumber.

The firm foundation that Scattergood's strategy rested upon was that lumbering had not really started in the valley. The valley had not opened up, but lay undeveloped, waiting to be stirred to life.

Scattergood's strength lay in that he could see ahead of to-day, and was patient to wait for the developments that to-morrow must bring. To-day his foresight could get for him what would be impossible to-morrow. If he stepped softly he could obtain a charter from the state to develop that river, which, when lumbering interests became actually engaged, would be fought by them to the last penny.... And he felt in his bones that day would not long be delayed.

The land Scattergood required was owned by three individuals. All of it was worthless--except to a man of vision--so, treading lightly, Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both sh.o.r.es of the river, he tried to sell the newest development in mowing machines, and his manner of doing so was to hitch to the newly arrived machine, haul it to Landers's meadow--where the owner was haying--drag it through the gate, and unhitch.

"Here," he said, "try this here machine. Won't cost you nothin' to try it, and I'm curious to see if it works as good as they say."

Landers was willing. It worked better. Landers regarded the machine longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it.

"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers.

"Might afford a swap?"

"Might. What you got in mind?"

"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good medder."

Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to you for this here mowin' machine."

"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers.

Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the hardware merchant of a machine.

One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with pitying scorn.

Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard of that charter they held their sides and roared.

Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley.

Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them took train to Coldriver.

Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling hardware in his own way--and selling a good deal of it. His store had a new front, his stock was augmented. It was his business to sell goods, and he sold them.

For instance, Lem Jones stopped and hitched his team before the store, one chilly day. His horses he covered with old burlap, lacking blankets.

While Lem was buying groceries, Scattergood selected two excellent blankets, carried them out, and put them on the horses. Then he went back into the store to attend to other matters. Presently Lem came in.

"Where'd them blankets come from?" he asked.

"Hosses looked a mite chilly," said Scattergood, without interest, "so I covered 'em."

"Bleeged," said Lem. Then, awkwardly, "I calc'late I need a pair of blankets, but I can't afford 'em this year. Wife's been sick--"

"Sure," said Scattergood, "I know. If you want them blankets take 'em along. Pay me when you kin.... Jest give me a sort of note for a memorandum. Glad to accommodate you."

So Scattergood marketed his blankets, taking in exchange a perfectly good, interest-bearing note. Also, he made a friend, for Lem could not be convinced but Scattergood had done him a notable favor.

Scattergood now had money in the bank. No longer did he have to stretch his credit for stock. He was established--and all in less than a year.

Hardware, it seemed, had been a commodity much needed in that locality, yet no one had handled it in sufficient stock because of the twenty-four-mile haul. That had been too costly. It cost Scattergood just as much, but his customers paid for it.... The difference between him and the other merchants was that he sold goods while they allowed folks to buy.

So, wisely, he kept on building up in a small way, while waiting for bigger things to develop. And as he waited he studied the valley until he could recite every inch of it, and he studied the future until he knew what the future would require of that valley. He knew it before the future knew it and before the valley knew it, and was laying his plans to be ready with pails to catch the sap when others, taken by surprise, would be running wildly about seeking for buckets.

Then Crane and Keith arrived in Coldriver.... That day marked Scattergood's emergence from the ranks of country merchants, though he retained his hardware store to the last. That day marked distinctly Scattergood's launching on a greater body of water. For forty years he sailed it with varying success, meeting failures sometimes, scoring victories; but interesting, characteristic in every phase--a genius in his way and a man who never took the commonplace course when the unusual was open to him.

"I suppose you've looked this man Baines up," said Crane to Keith when they met in the Coldriver tavern.

"I know how much he weighs and how many teeth he's had filled," Keith replied.

"He ought not to be so difficult to handle. He hasn't capital enough to put this company of his through and his business experience don't amount to much."

"For monkeying with our buzz saw," said Keith, "we ought to let him lose a couple of fingers."

"How's this for an idea, then?" Crane said, and for fifteen minutes he outlined his theory of how best to eliminate Scattergood Baines from being an obstruction to the free flowage of their schemes for Coldriver Valley.

"It's got others by the hundred, in one form or another," agreed Keith.

"This jayhawker'll welcome it with tears of joy."

Whereupon they went gladly on their way to Scattergood's store, not as enemies, but as business men who recognized his abilities and preferred to have him with them from the start, that they might profit by his canniness and energy, rather than to array themselves against him in an effort to take away from him what he had obtained.

Only by the exercise of notable will power could Crane keep his face straight as he shook hands with ungainly Scattergood and saw with his own eyes what a perfect b.u.mpkin he had to deal with.

"I suppose you thought we fellows would be sore," he said, genially.

"Dunno's I thought about you at all," said Scattergood. "I was thinkin'

mainly about me."