3stalwarts (102 page)

She had him step over to the window to get the light. It did look well on him.

“I’d take it,” she said.

“All right,” said Dan, relieved that it was over. Through the door the tailor was focusing hard on the broadcloth. As soon as Dan spoke, the difficult pattern must have appeared to him, for he began to cut.

The clerk wrapped up the suit and took the money, and Dan and Molly went on to a haberdasher’s. She walked vigorously beside him, saying little, and whenever Dan glanced at her she was looking straight ahead. Now and then men turned to look at her as she passed, and he felt a glow of pride. It was a great credit to him to be walking with her.

They bought a couple of shirts, and Molly fussed over some ties until she found one that suited her taste, a dark green, flowing silk one.

“It’ll make your eyes bluer,” she said, holding it up to his chin. Dan flushed uncomfortably, and the clerk smiled.

“A woman always likes to buy her husband’s neckties,” he said.

This time they carried it off well; but once they were outside the store, they went nervously again, like conspirators. If Dan had asked her then to marry him, she probably would have said yes.

But, back on the Sarsey Sal once more, there seemed to be no point in the question. Dan said nothing.

Buying a Team

Dan and Molly had no more than finished clearing away breakfast than they heard the trotting of a light team coming along the dock. Then the horses stopped, and they heard Solomon calling to them to hurry; and all at once there was a burst of hearty laughter.

Dan slipped into his new coat while Molly pinned on her hat before the mirror; and they grabbed up the cake on a plate and ran up the steps, locking the door behind them.

Mrs. Gurget looked at their flushed faces and began laughing again good-naturedly. Hector, with his hands folded on his waistcoat and a new cigar upended in his mouth, said sententiously, “Spooning never made for spinning,” which made their faces even redder, at which Mrs. Gurget started laughing again on the rear seat, while Mrs. Berry sniffed and pointed her sharp nose in the direction of the horses.

Solomon had scrambled down over the wheel, after passing the reins to Hector, and he was now rearranging the luncheon baskets under Mrs. Gur-get’s seat.

“Molly,” he said, “seeing you’re thinnest, I guess you’d better set here with Lucy. I had to put her in the back to bring her as close over the rear ax’ as I could.”

“That’s a lie,” the fat woman said with a broad smile; “he didn’t want to talk to me. I made him shave.”

The buckboard was a light three-seater, and the team looked uncommonly well for livery horses.

“I thought I might as well get a decent pair,” Solomon said to Dan as they climbed into the front seat. He picked up the reins, took out the whip, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and looked over his shoulder at the others. Mrs. Berry was got up in a bombazine dress, beribboned and black, and Hector wore a pot hat on the back of his head. Behind them Molly, in her new hat, was talking to Mrs. Gurget. The fat woman felt Solomon’s eye.

“Go on, Sol,” she said.

The team, which had been lifting their forefeet nervously from time to time, started off with a lunge and broke into a smart trot.

“My gracious!” cried Mrs. Berry, clutching her bonnet. “Be they safe, Hector?”

“All right till we make the turn to the bridge,” said Hector, swinging his cigar across his lip.

She braced her feet and sat back rigidly, her tense mouth bringing her chin up towards the end of her nose.

“You persuaded me, Hector,” she said, and thereafter she preserved an ominous silence.

“It’s all right, Nell,” Solomon cried over his shoulder. “The hind wheels’ll stay down, I guess.”

“You shut up!” called Mrs. Gurget.

The rig rattled over the planks, and Solomon made a smart turn over the Genesee Street bridge. They turned west into Whitesboro Street, and the team settled into a flinging trot. There were several wagons on the road ahead of them.

“Getting out to see the execution,” Solomon said. “Not that they’ll see it; it’s coming off in jail. I remember the Peters case in 1810. I was just a boy, but I remember it real clear. They hanged him on the hill west of the town. The sun come up just when he stopped kicking. It was a high gallus, and there was a drunken man kept a-wondering and a-wondering if Peters had seen it come up. He was ten feet higher than what we were. It’s queer how people will go to see somebody hanged. But they do it in the jail now. It was a clever notion to have the fair there that day. A lot of folks that wouldn’t have come to a fair ‘11 stop to look at them horses; and looking at a horse is next to buying.”

As they swung past the last houses of the city and saw fields beginning to appear, they felt the sun warm on their necks. Mrs. Gurget wiggled the shawl looser and straightened up on the rear seat, so that Molly had to grab the rail to keep from being jogged off.

“Your hat’s real pretty,” she said to Molly. “And don’t Dan look nice?”

“I made him go out and get some clothes yesterday. He was getting ragged. I had an awful time arguing with him. He’s kind of close with money.”

Mrs. Gurget smiled, and let her eyes rove the road. She began comment-ing on the turnouts, on the women’s clothes, pungent words popping out of her plump mouth, her face warming with laughter. Molly laughed with her and watched Mrs. Berry wincing whenever they passed another wagon. Dan was silent, but, as they slowed down behind a string of five horses which a gypsyish-looking man was leading from the back of a wagon, she saw his eyes on a big black horse with a white blaze and muzzle. Even when they turned out to pass the string, Dan kept his eye on the black horse.

The gypsyish man, who wore a red shirt and a heavy sheepskin waistcoat and sat with his legs hanging over the tailboard, grunted something to the man who was driving the wagon— a seedy, thin man, who wore a high-crowned hat and chewed tobacco with a speculative swaying of his jaw. At the other’s grunt, he lifted a languid pair of eyes at Dan, nodded, spat, and went on chewing.

It became quite warm. By the time they entered the village of Whitesboro and turned out before the jail, Mrs. Gurget had taken off her shawl altogether. Molly herself felt warm, and even Mrs. Berry perked up and jerked her bonnet straight.

“I don’t see why we come so early,” she said to Hector, “and I don’t see why we had to stop here. The fair’s up behind the hill, ain’t it?”

“Yeanh,” said Hector, humbly. “But I ain’t driving this rig, Nelly.”

“What’s all these wagons here for, and people got up so for?”

“That’s right, Nelly. They do seem to be wearing Sunday clothes.”

“What for?”

“Well, it’s Mary Runkle,” said Hector, managing to tip a wink at Solomon with his off eye.

“What about her?” demanded the little woman angrily. She scented a conspiracy.

“Nelly talks so she ain’t had time to hear the news, I reckon,” explained the fat woman kindly. “You see, Nelly, it was whiles you was up to Westernville, Mary Runkle killed her husband.”

Berry produced his ponderous watch from his waistcoat pocket.

“That’s it, Nelly, and in five minutes they’re a-going to hang her. She had it coming, I guess. She used to bother her husband a lot, bossing him all the while, I’ve heard.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Gurget.

The wizened little woman suddenly drew herself up, slapped Hector’s face, jumped out of the wagon.

“You’re mean, you’re all nasty-mean, all of you!” she cried, and her voice choked and she ran away round the corner of the jail.

Berry stared after her with round eyes. He touched his cheek with the ends of his stubby fingers and drew in his breath.

“Well, damn me,” he said. “Who’d have guessed it? It was your idee, Sol.”

“Yeanh,” said Mrs. Gurget, hedging herself a trifle. “You got it up, Sol. You’d better go after her, Hector.”

But Hector had already jumped to the ground and run after his wife.

“Nell, Nell!” they heard him shout.

“I declare, Sol,” said Mrs. Gurget. “What did you have such a notion for is beyond me. Right here in all these people. Why I can’t hardly think how to look.”

Solomon was the most amazed of them all.

“Why, Lucy, I didn’t have no idee. I didn’t say to do this.”

He glanced at Dan for support, then pushed his hat over his eyes to scratch the back of his head. “I didn’t have no idee.”

Mrs. Gurget laughed suddenly.

“It got her sudden. And her nose was awful red to start with. I’ll bet she’s a sight. She’s a good body for such a measly woman.”

“I think she’s nice,” said Molly.

“Too nice,” said Solomon. “She makes it awkward, being that way.”

He switched round and leaned to the left to get his watch out.

“It ought to be going on now.”

The space in front of the jail was crowded with wagons. There must have been thirty or more, mostly farmers, who could take the morning off. They stared at the expressionless front of the jail with sombre eyes, talking now and then in low voices so that a breathing murmur seemed to hang under the bare branches of the elms. Some stood among the wagons, and a couple of old men sat with their backs to the trunk of a tree and drank out of a glass bottle and looked at their watches between drinks. Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. had been the judge’s sentence; and Sheriff Jones would put it through as soon as he could.

Tied to a hitching post, the doctor’s horse dozed in the shafts of his buggy, one hip slung for comfort. He looked like a fast trotter, but he had learned to take what rest he could when he could, no matter how fresh he was. A big farmer in a pepper-and-salt suit was driving a pair of colts in a surrey up and down the street. Every time they came opposite the old men sitting against the tree they shied and bolted, and it took the farmer two blocks to turn them and bring them back. He seemed to be afraid to take the time to unhitch them and leave them in a shed.

The bell in the schoolhouse clanked once to mark the end of an hour, and a complete hush fell upon the crowd. One of the old men against the tree untied the tobacco-pouch strings under his chin which held on his straw hat, so that he could take it off in an instant if it should prove to be the pro-per thing to do. And through the stillness they heard the farmer swearing at his colts when they started to bolt for the third time. He looked up as he passed and saw everyone’s eyes on him and flushed deeply. Glancing back, Dan saw Mrs. Gurget obviously holding her breath, a dazed, awe-struck expression sucking dimples into her fat cheeks, and Molly looking white, her eyes dark. He took out his new handkerchief and wiped a cold damp from his neck.

A bit of blue flashed over the heads of the people, and, lighting on a branch, a blue jay began to squawk profanely at them. Instantly a red squirrel answered him angrily. And the people watched them. All at once the noise ceased, the attention of both squirrel and jay being caught by the opening of the jail door. The doctor came out, dressed in black, carrying his bag in his hand. He paused a moment to talk to the sheriff, who had come out after him.

“Good-bye, Sheriff,” they heard him say. “I’ve got to get along. Man at Oriskany caught his hand in a loom belt.”

“Bad?”

“Probably lose a finger.”

“A thing like that’s apt to be serious,” said the sheriff.

He watched the doctor get into his buggy, wheel the horse, and go rattling up the valley. His jaw was set grimly. All at once he became aware of the people watching.

“Get out of here!” he shouted. “Get out! Do you think this’s a circus?”

They grinned at him shamefacedly. One of them called, “Morning, Mr. Jones.”

The sheriff raised his hand.

“Get out,” he said again, and wheeled and went into the jail, banging the door after him.

Solomon shook the reins.

“We’ll hurry to get a place in Finkel’s shed,” he said to Dan.

In the shed they found the Berrys waiting for them. Mrs. Berry looked very red about the nose and eyes, and Hector was wearing an embarrassed expression. For once he did not have a cigar in his mouth. Mrs. Berry gave Dan a conversational smile.

“So it’s done, is it?”

“I guess so,” Dan mumbled. A hearty man was lifting his daughter over the wheel of the buckboard next to theirs. He looked round.

“It’s the first execution I ever got close to,” he observed, “but for downright push and horror, give me the wind colic. Out there all you did was set and watch your watch.”

Mrs. Berry was straightening Mrs. Gurget’s shawl, while Molly was getting out the lunch basket.

“Coming to buy?” asked the hearty man.

“Yeanh,” said Solomon.

“Well,” he said, “it ain’t much of a fair. No fancy stock, anyway. But we might poke around together. Jed Johnson might have some good teams. He generally has. What are you looking for?”

“Me?” asked Solomon. “I ain’t looking for anything. It’s my friend here.” He pointed his thumb at Dan.

“Pleased to know you, gents,” said the hearty man, shaking hands with Dan. “My name’s Brackett— just Bill Brackett— a plain, honest man.”

He gave himself a light pat on the chest and nodded his head at his daughter, a little girl with two braided pigtails of yellow hair, blue ribbons in each, blue serious eyes, and a very freckled nose. “Daughter Nancy. Likes to set on the back of the buckboard and lead home pa’s horses. Can’t leave her home.”

The child dug her toe into the ground and stared upward from under her lids, blushing furiously. Suddenly she caught the fat woman’s eye and smiled.

“Why don’t we take her with us?” said Molly. “That will leave you men free.”

Brackett took off his hat.

“That’s downright kind of you. Since you offer, I accept. Maybe I can put you in the way of a good deal,” he said to Dan.

The girl bashfully joined the three women, but when they came out of the shed she was holding Mrs. Gurget’s hand.

“Me, I’m looking for a light horse,” said Brackett, fishing a stout stick from under the seat of his wagon. “What are you after?”

“I want a pair,” said Dan. “About thirty-three hundred.”