CHAPTER III
INVENTOR'S LUCK
The thought had been impressed upon Hiram Strong's mind from the very first that there was something altogether wrong with Yancey Battick. His wild eyes and excited manner now convinced the visitor that this suspicion was correct. Battick was not altogether sane. And when he reached for that rock-salt loaded shotgun the visitor prepared to defend himself.
The muzzle of the gun swung toward Hiram. The latter slid out of his chair and darted sideways just as Battick rose up with the butt of the gun at his shoulder. The muzzle seemed closely following Hiram's movements.
Then the man's finger pressed the trigger and the gun roared. It seemed that the wind of the charge passed over Hiram's head.
"What under the sun are you doing?" demanded the youth, leaping up and facing the householder.
"What did you move for?" retorted Battick. "I might have got you instead of the rat."
"The rat?" repeated Hiram in some doubt.
Battick returned the smoking shotgun to its rack and crossed the room to the workbench. Under it, deep in the shadow of the corner, he found his game—a fat, gray rat, still kicking.
"Great Scott!" murmured the boy from the East, "it really was a rat."
"What did you think I would be shooting in this old house?" growled Battick. "It's rat-ridden. They give me no peace. They have cost me more—well, no use going into that," said the man, and so concluded.
But Hiram Strong was now immensely interested in this strange individual. His fright because of Mr. Battick's reckless use of his shotgun was soon over. The rats about this ancient cottage certainly were very bold. But there must be—there was—a particular reason why the man was afraid of the rats. This fear of which Hiram had first heard from Jason Oakley, the stationmaster, was not merely some idiosyncrasy of Battick's.
"Have you tried poison for the vermin?" Hiram demanded.
"I've tried everything," replied the man gruffly.
"What makes them so bold?"
"The place was overrun with them when I came on it four years ago. I can't keep anything in the barn. Why, they have eaten a good buggy harness on me! I have to keep my harnesses in my bedroom. I've got an alarm clock in there and it ticks so loud that it scares them off, I guess. And, then, I snore. That must keep the creatures on the move."
Hiram did not know whether the man was all together in earnest, or not; but he had to laugh at this last statement.
"It ain't no laughing matter," Yancey Battick said, wagging his head. "My old horse got a nail in his hoof and I greased it well. Hanged if the rascals didn't near eat him up in one night. If he hadn't kicked and snorted so and woke me up, I guess they would have had the most of him eaten before morning."
"But what brings them into the house—and so bold? You must be on the watch for them continually."
"I am. Jase Oakley is right. I am afraid of the things. I scarcely dare leave the house because of them—"
He halted. Hiram knew instinctively that the man thought he had said too much. He had verged on some secret, the mystery of which the youth had felt to be in the very air of the house since he had entered it. He saw that Battick was eyeing him again in his suspicious, if not ugly, way, so he hastily asked:
"Did you learn to shoot on the fly like that by shooting rats?"
"Oh, I knew how to use a gun before I came to Pringleton."
"You've got good eyesight. I did not see that rat at all."
"I saw the glint of his eyes under the bench." Battick was again giving his attention to the preparations for supper. "I've got so I am continually on the watch for the rascals."
And he did not dare leave the house because of them! Then, decided Hiram Strong, there was something in the house that he feared the rats would destroy.
Hiram looked under the odd box in the middle of the room at the little heap of grain that lay there. Wheat! A special kind of wheat! The seed-boxes on the bench told something. Hiram could guess more. But he said nothing at the moment. In fact Yancey Battick was scarcely a man to whom one would address a personal remark or ask a direct question about himself or his affairs.
Yancey Battick brought a small stand from one corner of the room and set it before the fire. He spread a clean, if coarse, cloth upon it, and then the tableware, such as a camper would use. The smoking food, together with a pot of coffee, came on the table, and Battick beckoned Hiram to draw up his chair.
"This is mighty good of you, Mr. Battick," the visitor said, "especially when I know you do not make a practice of harboring wayfarers."
"I hope I shall not be sorry for having befriended you," the man said gloomily.
"I assure you—"
"You couldn't assure me of anything," interrupted Battick. "I have had sufficient experience to make me a thorough pessimist. You look like a nice young fellow; but I shall not be surprised if I am, in the end, very sorry that I took you in."
"Even to save me from the clutches of Miss Delia Pringle?" the visitor suggested slyly.
There came a sudden twinkle into Yancey Battick's eye. Whether or not he was a monomaniac on some subject (and Hiram Strong was tempted to believe he was) it was evident that the man appreciated a joke. He nodded his appreciation of Hiram's words.
"That woman is a pest!" Battick said with vigor. "But I guess she is honest—wouldn't steal anything but an unsophisticated and helpless man-critter, I mean."
So it was stealing that he was afraid of! Rats are great thieves. Hiram guessed again—and believed he had hit the fundamental trouble with his odd host. Battick had originated, or developed, a new seed-wheat. He feared somebody would steal it from him, and the rats were doing so.
The rats were so troublesome that he had to keep the wheat in his living room. This table-looking thing was a box full of wheat. And because the rats were so bold he dared not leave the house. Even with all these precautions the thieving creatures were getting some of the wheat, as note that little pile of grain under the box on the floor.
The young fellow from Scoville was interested in more than one way. First of all, Battick himself aroused his curiosity. But that single kernel of wheat he had picked up interested Hiram Strong much more.
He had examined many samples of seed-wheat, but nothing that had ever looked like this large, plump grain with the tiny crimson stripe upon it This was indeed a distinct variety, and if its culture was possible on all wheat lands, and it milled all right, Hiram knew the strange man had the basis of a fortune—if he could put it over.
This section around Pringleton, as Hiram had learned from Mr. Bronson, was not particularly a wheat-growing country. And yet every farmer of any importance grew some wheat. If this box was full of grain the man had about eight bushels, if Hiram was any judge of bulk and measure. Sown carefully, this would be enough for five or six acres. Five or six acres of wheat is a very small wheat crop, but an excellent seed crop.
If Battick really had a new and good wheat, the crop from this amount of seed would pay him a good penny, if he could sell it to an honest seedsman. There was thus reason why he should be so afraid of thieves—and especially of the rats.
Under fortunate conditions, the increase of these few bushels of wheat would yield Battick a small fortune. Perhaps the man was by no means as crazy as he at first appeared. And it might be that he knew his neighbors, and had reason to suspect them of desiring to rob him of the fruits of his discovery.
The two finished supper and pushed back from the table. There was a sink in one corner of the room, and at this Battick quickly washed the cooking utensils and tableware, while Hiram dried them. They spoke of inconsequential things while they did this work Then Battick said:
"I wouldn't have the heart to turn you out on a night like this, even if it cleared off—which it isn't likely to do. I'll let you sleep in my bed and I'll bunk down here before the fire."
"Oh, no, Mr. Battick! I could not think of taking your bed," Hiram urged, but with a smile. "You have proved to me that you are a much better neighbor than you were quoted at; but there is no use in carrying the demonstration too far. I will sleep here before the fire and be very glad of the chance."
Yancey Battick flashed him another of those hard, suspicious glances. It was not difficult to read the man's mind now that Hiram had discovered, as he thought, the key to the mystery. Battick was suspicious of him yet. He said gruffly:
"If you remain here to-night, young man, you will sleep in my bed. And see that you do sleep, too, for although I snore, I'm easily roused, and I keep that gun right beside me."
Hiram could not help being somewhat exasperated by all this suspicion. He was glad enough of the shelter; but he did not think he looked so dishonest that his host had to guard himself with a shotgun.
"Look here, Mr. Battick," he said, rather tartly. "You're one of those cows that give a good pail of milk and then step in it. You give me supper and a bed, but distrust me. How do you know but you are entertaining an angel unawares?" and he ended by laughing a little to cover his vexation.
"That's all right, too," Battick replied. "I know all about those 'angels unaware.' I've had my experience with them, and I've had to run 'em off the place with my shotgun. Besides, I don't see any wings sprouting on you, Mr. Strong. I'll treat you just as good as you treat me. But as I tell 'em all, when you come to my front gate, call out; and if I don't answer, keep off."
"If you are a pessimist, Mr. Battick," Hiram said shortly, "I hope I'll never get to be one."
Suddenly the man flashed him a more earnest glance than before. His countenance became suffused with red.
"I hope you never will, young man," Battick said. "And never be an inventor. Immediately a man starts out to help his fellows, everybody's hand is turned against him. He is pariah—and likewise the prey of all those with thieving instincts. Consider Goodyear, what he suffered; and Elias Howe, and a horde of others.
"I came to Pringleton to escape people who wanted to rob me. Some of them had. But it seems people are the same in all localities. I have to watch, and threaten, and live like an outlaw to keep what is my own, Mr. Strong. You are young and have faith. Keep that faith in people if you can. But never be an inventor; for that is a crime that should be punished by being boiled in oil, or sawn asunder, or drawn and quartered, or some other middle-age device for making capital criminals suffer."
"That is dreadful!" exclaimed Hiram.
"Sounds pretty rough, I admit," Battick said, in his usual tone. "But believe me, I know whereof I speak. Now, come this way, Mr. Strong. I think you will be comfortable."
He lit a candle at the blaze on the hearth and led the way into his bedroom. It was a comfortable room, and Battick insisted upon putting clean sheets on the bed, which he aired before the fire, and left his guest finally with the word:
"Don't be frightened if you hear the gun in the night, Strong. I shall probably be only shooting at a rat."
Hiram had never been entertained in just this way before. He peered through the crack of the door and saw Yancey Battick loading the barrel of the shotgun that had previously been emptied. The young fellow went to bed finally feeling that he was in the midst of alarms.