Scattergood Baines Part 43

"You'll go home and set down in the shade and cool off," said Scattergood, merrily, "and while you're a-coolin' you might sort of thank Gawd that there's sich things as human bein's with human feelin's, and that there's sich things as babies ...that sometimes gits themselves left on the right doorstep.... G'-by, Selectman. G'-by."

A week later Scattergood was pa.s.sing the Lewis home early in the evening. In the side yard was a hammock under the trees which had been unoccupied this year past, but to-night it was occupied again. Martha was there with the baby against her breast, and Jed was there, his arm tightly about his wife, and one of the baby's hands lying on his calloused palm.... As Scattergood watched he saw Jed bend clumsily and kiss the tiny fingers ... and Martha turned a trifle and smiled up into her husband's eyes.

Scattergood pa.s.sed on, blinking, perhaps because dust had gotten in his eyes. He stopped at the post office and spoke to Postmaster Pratt.

"Call to mind my speakin' of soothin' syrup and Jed Lewis and his wife?"

he asked.

"Seems like I mind it, Scattergood."

"Jest walk past their house, Postmaster. Calc'late you'll see I figgered clost to right.... Marthy's a-sittin' there with Jed in the hammick, and they're a-holdin' on their lap the doggondest best soothin' syrup f'r man and wife that any doctor c'u'd perscribe.... Calculate it's one of them nature's remedies.... Go take a look, Postmaster.... G'-by."

CHAPTER X

HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK

Scattergood Baines, as he sat with s.h.i.+rt open at the throat, his huge body sagged down in the chair that had been especially reinforced to sustain his weight, seemed to pa.s.sing Coldriver village to be drowsing.

Many people suspected Scattergood of drowsing when he was exceedingly wide awake and observant of events. It was part of his stock in trade.

At this moment he was looking across the square toward the post office.

A large, broad-shouldered young man, with hair sun-bleached to a ruddy yellow, had alighted from a buggy and entered the office. He was a fine, bulky, upstanding farmer, built for enduring much hard labor in times of peace and for performing feats of arms in time of war. He looked like a fighter; he was a fighter--a willing fighter, and folks up and down the valley stepped aside if it was noised about that Abner Levens had broken loose. It was not that Abner delighted in the fruit of the vine nor the essence of the maize; he was a teetotaler. But it did seem as if nature had overdone the matter of providing him with the machinery for creating energy and had overlooked the safety valve. Wherefore Abner, once or twice a year, lost his temper.

Now, losing his temper was not for Abner a matter of uttering a couple of oaths and of wrapping a hoe handle around a tree. He lost his temper thoroughly and seemed unable to locate it again for days. He rampaged.

He roared up and down the valley, inviting one and all to step up and be demolished, which the inhabitants were very reluctant to do, for Abner worked upon his victims with thoroughness and enthusiasm.

When Abner was in his normal humor he was a jovial, noisily jovial young man, who would dance with the girls until the c.o.c.k tired of crowing; who would give a day's work to a friend; who performed his civic and religious duties punctiliously, if gayly; who was honest to the fraction of a penny; and who would have been the most popular and admired youth in the valley among the maidens of the valley had it not been for their constant, uneasy fear that he might suddenly turn Berserk.

It was this young man whom Scattergood eyed thoughtfully, and, one might say, apprehensively, for Scattergood liked the youth and feared the germs of disaster that lay quiescent in his powerful body.

Pliny Pickett lounged past, stopped, eyed Scattergood, and seated himself on the step.

"Abner Levens 's in town," he said.

"Seen him," answered Scattergood.

"Calc'late Asa'll be in?"

"Bein' 's it's Sattidy night, 'most likely he'll come."

"Hope Abner's feelin' friendly, then," said Pliny with an antic.i.p.atory twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be wrastlin' all over town and pus.h.i.+n' down houses."

"They hain't never fit yet," said Scattergood.

"Nor won't if Asa has the say of it.... He's full as big as Abner, too.

Otherwise they don't resemble twins none."

"Hain't much brotherly feelin' betwixt 'em."

"I hain't clear as to the rights of the matter," said Pliny, "but they hain't nothin' like a will dispute to make bad blood betwixt relatives.... Asa got the best of _that_ argument, anyhow. Don't seem fair, exactly, is my opinion, that Old Man Levens should up and discriminate betwixt them boys like he did--givin' Asa a hog's share."

"Dunno's I'd worry sich a heap about that," said Scattergood, "if they hadn't both got het up about the same gal. Looks to me like one or tother of 'em took up with that gal jest to make mischief.... Seems like Abner was settin' out with her fust."

"Some says both ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate betwixt them boys."

"And trouble'll come of it.... Wonder which of 'em Mary Ware favors? If she favors either of 'em, and trouble comes, it'll mix her in."

"Hope Abner gits him. Better for her, says I, to take up with a man like Ab, that's a good feller fifty weeks out of the year, and goes on a tear two weeks, than to be married to a cuss like Asa that jest goes along sort of gloomy and _still_ and seekin'. I hain't never heard Asa laugh with no real enjoyment into it yet. He grins and shows his teeth. He's too dum quiet, and always acts like a feller that's afraid you'll find out what he's got in mind."

"Um!..." said Scattergood.

"Mary's about the pertiest girl in Coldriver," said Pliny. "Dunno but what she could handle Abner all right, too. Call to mind the firemen's picnic last year when she went with Abner, and he busted loose on that feller with the three sh.e.l.ls and the leetle ball?"

"When the feller had robbed Half-wit Stenens of nigh on to twenty dollars? I call to mind."

"Abner was jest on the p'int of separatin' that feller into chunks and dispersin' the chunks over the county when Mary she steps up and puts her hand en his arm, and says, 'Abner!' ... Jest like that she said it, quiet and gentle, but firm. Abner he let loose of the feller and turned to look at her, and in a minute all the fight went out of his face and his eyes like somebody had drained it off. He kind of blushed and hung his head, and walked away with her.... She didn't tongue-lash him, neither, jest kept a-touchin' his arm so's he wouldn't forgit she was there."

"Um!..." said Scattergood. "Here comes Asa." He lifted himself from his creaking chair and started across the bridge. "If it's a-comin' off," he said to Pliny, "I want to git where I kin git a good view."

In the post office the twin brothers came face to face. Scattergood saw Abner's thin lips twist in a provocative sneer. Abner halted suddenly, at arm's length from his brother, and eyed him from head to foot, and Asa returned an insolent stare.

"You sneakin' hound," said Abner, without heat, as was his way in the beginning, always. "You're lower'n I thought, and I thought you was low." Scattergood took in these words and pondered them. Did they mean some new cause for enmity between the brothers? Suddenly Abner's eyes began to kindle and to blaze. Asa crouched and his teeth showed in a saturnine, crooked smile. No man could look upon him and accuse him of being afraid of Abner or of avoiding the issue.

"I know what you've been up to, you slinkin' varmint ... I know where you was Tuesday." Scattergood took possession of this sentence and placed it in the safety-deposit box of his memory. Where had Asa been Tuesday, he wondered, and what had Asa been doing there?

"I've put up with a heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's n.o.body kin put you together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake."

With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm struck Asa across the mouth.

Asa licked his lips and continued to smile his crooked, saturnine smile.

"Hain't scarcely room in here," he said, softly.

"Git outside and take off your coat," said Abner, "for I'm goin' to fix you so's n.o.body kin ever accuse flesh and blood of mine of doin' agin what I've ketched you doin'."

"What's gnawin' you," said Asa, softly, "is that I got the best farm and that I'm a-goin' to git your girl."

There was a stark pause. Abner stiffened, grew tense, as one becomes at the moment of bursting into dynamic action, but he did not stir.

Scattergood was surprised, but he was more surprised by Abner's next words. "I hain't goin' to half kill you on account of your lyin' to father, nor on account of her--it's on account of _her_." The sentence seemed without sense or meaning, but Scattergood placed it with his other collected sentences; he did not perceive its meaning, but he did perceive that the first 'her' and the second 'her' were p.r.o.nounced so that they became different words, like names, indicating, identifying, different persons. That was Scattergood's notion.

Asa turned on his heel and walked into the square, removing his coat as he went; Abner followed. They faced each other, crouching. Abner's face depicting wrath, Asa's depicting hatred.... Before a blow was struck, a girl, tall, slender, deep-bosomed, fit mate for a man of might, pushed through the circle of spectators. Her face was pale and distressed, but very lovely. Her brown eyes were dark with the emotion of the moment, and a wisp of wavy brown hair lay unnoticed upon her broad forehead....

She walked to Abner's side and touched his arm.

"Abner!" she said, gently.

He turned his blazing eyes upon her. "Not this time" he said. "Go away, Mary." Even in his rage he spoke to her in a voice of reverence.