The Great Quest Part 6

Then Uncle Seth drew a long breath, mopped the sweat from his face and cried,--

"I'm ready for him, thank heaven! The boys can be finis.h.i.+ng up what little's left."

I looked, and saw a gentleman, just alighted from his chaise, tying a handsome black horse to the hitching-post before the door.

Turning his back upon us all, Uncle Seth rushed to the door, his hands extended, and cried, "Welcome, sir! Since c.o.c.k-crow this morning we have been hard at work upon the inventory, and it's this minute done--at least, all but adding a few columns. Sim, another chair by my desk. Quick! Mr. Gleazen, I wish to present you to Mr.

Brown. Come in, sir, come in."

The three shook hands, and all sat down together and talked for some time; then, at the stranger's remark,--"Now for figures. There's nothing like figures to tell a story, Mr. Upham. Eh, Mr. Gleazen? We can run over those columns you spoke of, here and now,"--they bestirred themselves.

"You're right, sir," Uncle Seth cried: and then he sharply called, "Arnold, bring me those lists you've just finished. That's right; is that all? Well, then you take the other boys and return those boxes in the back room to their shelves. That'll occupy you all of an hour."

No longer able to pick up an occasional sentence of their talk, we glumly retired out of earshot and were more than ever irritated when Gleazen, his cigar between his teeth, stamped up to the door between the front room and the back and firmly closed it.

"Why should they wish so much to be alone?" Arnold asked.

I ventured no reply; but Sim Muzzy, as if personally affronted, burst hotly forth:--

"You'd think Seth Upham would know enough to ask the advice of a man who's been working for him ever since Neil Gleazen ran away from home, now wouldn't you? Here I've toiled day in and out and done good work for him and learned the business, for all the many times he's said he never saw a thicker head, until there ain't a better hand at candling eggs, not this side of Boston, than I be. And does he ask my advice when he's got something up his sleeve? No, he don't! And yet I'll leave it to Arnold, here, if my nose ain't keener to scent sour milk than any nose in Topham--yes, sir."

The idea of Sim Muzzy's advice on any matter of greater importance than the condition of an egg or the sweetness of milk, in determining which, to do him justice, he was entirely competent, struck me as so funny that I almost sn.i.g.g.e.red. Nor could I have restrained myself, even so, when I perceived Arnold looking at me solemnly and as if reproachfully, had not Uncle Seth just then opened the door and called, "Sim, there's a lady here wants some calico and spices. Come and wait on her."

When, fifteen minutes later, Sim returned, closing the door smartly behind him, Arnold asked with a droll quirk, which I alone perceived, "Well, my friend, what did you gather during your stay in yonder?"

"Gather? Gather?" Sim spluttered. "I gathered nothing. There was talk of dollars and cents and pounds and pence, and stocks and oils, and s.h.i.+ps and horses, and though I listened till my head swam, all I could make out was when Neil Gleazen told me to shut the door behind my back. If they was to ask my advice, I'd tell 'em to talk sense, that's what I'd do."

"Ah, Sim," said Arnold, "if only they were to ask thy advice, what advice thee would give them!"

"Now you're talking like a Quaker," Sim replied hotly. "Why do Quakers talk that way, I'd like to know. Thee-ing and thou-ing till it is enough to fuddle a sober man's wits. I declare they are almost as bad as people in foreign parts who, I've heard tell, have such a queer way of talking that an honest man can't at all understand what they're saying until he's got used to it."

"Such, indeed, is the way of the inconsiderate world, Sim," Arnold dryly replied.

Then the three of us put our shoulders to a hogshead, and in the mighty effort of lifting it to the bulkhead sill ceased to talk.

As we finally raised it and shoved it into the yard, Sim stepped farther out than Arnold and I, and looking toward the street, whispered, "He's going."

I sprang over beside him and saw that the visitor, having already unhitched his horse, was shaking hands with Uncle Seth. Stepping into the chaise, he then drove off.

For a s.p.a.ce of time so long that the man must have come to the bend in the road, Uncle Seth and Cornelius Gleazen watched him as he went; then, to puzzle us still further, smiling broadly, they shook hands, and turning about, still entirely unaware that we were watching them, walked with oddly pleased expressions back into the store.

My uncle's face expressed such confidence and friendliness as even I had seldom seen on it.

"Now ain't that queer?" Sim began. "If Seth Upham was a little less set in his ways, I'd--"

With a shrug Arnold Lamont broke in upon what seemed likely to be a long harangue, and made a comment that was much more to the point.

"Now," said he, "we are going to hear what has happened."

Surely enough, we thought. No sooner were we back in the store, all three of us, than the door opened and in came Uncle Seth.

"Well," said he, brusquely, and yet with a certain pleased expression still lingering about his eyes, "I expected you to have done more. Hm! Well, work hard. We must have things in order come morning."

Arnold smiled as my uncle promptly returned to the front room, but Sim and I were keenly disappointed.

"How now, you who are so clever?" Sim cried when Uncle Seth again had closed the door. "How now, Arnold? We have heard nothing."

"Why," said Arnold, imperturbably, "not exactly 'nothing.' We have learned that the man is coming back to-morrow."

"Are you crazy?" Sim responded. "Seth Upham said nothing of the kind."

Arnold only smiled again. "Wait and see," he said.

So we worked until late at night, putting all once more to rights; and in the morning, true to Arnold's prophecy, the gentleman with the big black horse, accompanied now by a friend, made a second visit in the front room of the store.

This time he talked but briefly with Uncle Seth and Neil Gleazen, who had already waited an hour for his arrival. As if eager to see our business for himself, he then walked through the store, examining every little detail of the stock and fixtures, and asked a vast number of questions, which in themselves showed that he knew what he was about and that he was determined to get at the bottom of our affairs. There was talk of barrels of Alexandria superfine flour and hogsheads of Kentucky tobacco; of teas--Hyson, young Hyson, Hyson skin, Powchong and Souchong; of oil, summer and winter; of Isles of Shoals dun fish and Holland gin and preserved ginger, and one thing and another, until, with answering the questions they asked me, I was fairly dizzy.

Having examined store and stock to his satisfaction, he then went with Uncle Seth, to my growing wonder, up to our own house; and from what Sim reported when he came back from a trip to spy upon them, they examined the house with the same care. In due course they returned to the store and sat down at the desk, and then the friend who accompanied our first visitor wrote for some time on an official-looking doc.u.ment; Uncle Seth and the strange gentleman signed it; Arnold Lamont, whom they summoned for the purpose, and Cornelius Gleazen witnessed it; and all four drove away together, the gentleman and his friend in their chaise and Uncle Seth and Neil Gleazen in our own.

"When Seth Upham returns," said Arnold, "we shall be told all."

And it was so.

Coming back alone in the late afternoon, Uncle Seth and Gleazen left the chaise at the door, and entering, announced that we should close the store early that day. Gleazen was radiant with good-nature, and there was the odor of liquor on his breath. Uncle Seth, on the contrary, appeared not to have tasted a drop. He was, if anything, a little sharper than ever at one moment, a little more jovial at the next, excited always, and full of some mysterious news that seemed both to delight and to frighten him.

Obediently we fastened the shutters and drew the shades and made ready for the night.

"Now, lads," said Uncle Seth, "come in by my desk and take chairs. I have news for you."

Exchanging glances, we did so. Even Sim Muzzy was silent now.

We all sat down together, Uncle Seth and Neil Gleazen at the desk, Arnold Lamont and I a little at one side, and Sim Muzzy tilting back importantly at a point from which he could watch us all.

At the time I thought what an interesting study in character the others made; but since then I have come to think that by my own att.i.tude toward them I revealed more of the manner of youth I myself was, than by their bearing they revealed of the manner of men they were. There was Neil Gleazen, who held his cigar in his left hand and, with the finger on which his great diamond flashed, knocked each bit of ash on the floor so promptly after it formed, that the glowing coal of fire seemed to eat into the dark tobacco and leave no residue whatever. I was confident that he thought more of me both for my good fellows.h.i.+p and for my sound sense than he thought of any of the others present--or in town, for that matter! As for Uncle Seth, who was at once nervous and elated, I must confess, although it did not take me long to learn enough to be heartily ashamed of it, that I was just a little inclined in my own mind to patronize him; for although all my excellent prospects came entirely from his shrewd labors, I felt that he was essentially the big toad in the small puddle.

With the others, I smiled at Sim Muzzy. But with regard to Arnold Lamont I was less confident. There had been a world of philosophy in his brief remark that a man does not tell all he knows; and my fencing bout with him was still too fresh in my mind to permit me actually to patronize him. He sat now with his thoughtful eyes intent on my uncle, and of the five of us he was by long odds the most composed.

Although I have betrayed my vanity in a none too flattering light, it would be unjust, I truly think, not to add, at the risk of seeming to contradict myself, that I was instinctively kind-hearted, and that I did not lack for courage.

"I have news for you, boys," Uncle Seth began, with a manner at once abrupt and a little pompous, but with a warm smile at me. "I hope you'll be glad to hear it, although it means a radical change in the life we've lived together for so many years. First of all, I want to say that each of you will be well looked after."

Uncle Seth paused and glanced at Cornelius Gleazen, who nodded as if to encourage him to go on.

"Yes, you will be well looked after, however it may appear at first flush. I'll see that no faithful man suffers to my profit, even though I have sold the store."

"What's that? You've sold the store?" Sim wildly broke in. "If you've--you've gone and sold the store? What--what?"

"Be still, Sim," Uncle Seth interposed. "Yes, I have sold the store.

I know that Joe'll not be surprised to hear it; but even he has had only the vaguest hint of what's going forward. The gentleman who was here yesterday and to-day, has bought me out, store and house, lock, stock, and barrel."