XXVII
At last the Women's Temperance Workers' Union of Smyrna became thoroughly indignant, in addition to being somewhat mystified.
Twice they had "waited on" Landlord Ferd Parrott, of the Smyrna tavern—twelve of them in a stern delegation—and he had simply blinked at them out of his puckery eyes, and pawed nervously at his weazened face, and had given them no satisfaction.
Twice they had marched bravely into the town office and had faced Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman, and had complained that Ferd Parrott was running "a reg'lar rum-hole." Cap'n Sproul had nipped his bristly beard and gazed away from them at the ceiling, and said he would see what could be done about it.
Mrs. Aaron Sproul, a devoted member of the W.T.W.'s, was appointed a committee of one to sound him, and found him, even in the sweet privacy of home, so singularly embarrassed and uncommunicative that her affectionate heart was disturbed and grieved.
Then came Constable Zeburee Nute into the presence of the town's chief executive with a complaint.
"They're gittin' worse'n hornicks round me," he whined, "them Double-yer T. Double-yers. Want Ferd's place raided for licker. But I understood you to tell me—"
"I hain't told you northin' about it!" roared the Cap'n, with mighty clap of open palm on the town ledger.
"Well, you hain't give off orders to raid, seize and diskiver, libel and destroy," complained the officer.
"What be you, a 'tomatom that don't move till you pull a string, or be you an officer that's supposed to know his own duty clear, and follow it?" demanded the first selectman.
"Constables is supposed to take orders from them that's above 'em," declared Mr. Nute. "I'm lookin' to you, and the Double-yer T. Double-yers is lookin' to you."
"Well, if it's botherin' your eyesight, you'd better look t'other way," growled the Cap'n.
"Be I goin' to raid or ain't I goin' to raid?" demanded Constable Nute. "It's for you to say!"
"Look here, Nute," said the Cap'n, rising and aiming his forefinger at the constable's nose as he would have levelled a bulldog revolver, "if you and them wimmen think you're goin' to use me as a pie-fork to lift hot dishes out of an oven that they've heated, you'd better leave go—that's all I've got to say."
"You might just as well know it's makin' talk," ventured the constable, taking a safer position near the door. A queer sort of embarrassment that he noted in the Cap'n's visage emboldened him. "You know just as well as I do that Ferd Parrott has gone and took to sellin' licker. Old Branscomb is goin' home tea-ed up reg'lar, and Al Leavitt and Pud Follansby and a half a dozen others are settin' there all times of night, playin' cards and makin' a reg'lar ha'nt of it. If Ferd ain't shet up it will be said"—the constable looked into the snapping eyes of the first selectman and halted apprehensively.
"It ain't that I believe any such thing, Cap'n Sproul," he declared at last, breaking an embarrassing silence. "But here's them wimmen takin' up them San Francisco scandals to study in their Current Events Club, and when the officers here don't act when complaint is made about a hell-hole right here in town, talk starts, and it ain't complimentary talk, either. Pers'n'ly, I feel like a tiger strainin' at his chain, and I'd like orders to go ahead."
"Tiger, hey?" remarked the Cap'n, looking him up and down. "I knowed you reminded me of something, but I didn't know what, before. Now, if them wimmen—" he began with decision, but broke off to stare through the town-office window. Mr. Nute stepped from the door to take observation, too.
Twelve women in single file were picking their way across the mushy street piled with soft March snow.
"Reckon the Double-yer T. Double-yers is goin' to wait on Ferd ag'in to give him his final come-uppance," suggested the constable. "Heard some talk of it yistiddy."
The Smyrna tavern into which they disappeared was a huge hulk, relic of the old days when the stage-coaches made the village their headquarters. The storms of years had washed the paint from it; it had "hogged" in the roof where the great square chimney projected its nicked bulk from among loosened bricks scattered on the shingles; and from knife-gnawed "deacon-seat" on the porch to window-blind, dangling from one hinge on the broad gable, the old structure was seedy indeed.
"I kind of pity Ferd," mumbled the constable, his faded eyes on the cracked door that the last woman had slammed behind her. "Hain't averaged to put up one man a week for five years, and I reckon he's had to sell rum or starve."
Cap'n Sproul made no observation. He still maintained that air of not caring to discuss the affairs of the Smyrna tavern. He stared at the building as though he rather expected to see the sides tumble out or the roof fly up, or something of the sort.
He did not bestow any especial attention on his friend Hiram Look when the ex-circus man drove up to the hitching-post in front of the town house with a fine flourish, hitched and came in.
"Seems that your wife and mine have gone temperancin' again to-day with the bunch," remarked Hiram, relighting his cigar. "I don't know what difference it makes whether old Branscomb and the other soshes round here get their ruin in an express-package or help Ferd to a little business. They're bound to have it, anyway."
"That ain't the p'int," protested Constable Nute, stiffly, throwing back his coat to display his badge. "Ferd Parrott's breakin' the law, and it hurts my feelin's as an officer to hear town magnates and reprusentative citizens glossin' it over for him."
The Cap'n stared at him balefully but did not trust himself to retort. Hiram was not so cautious. He bridled instantly and insolently.
"There's always some folks in this world ready to stick their noses into the door-crack of a man's business when they know the man ain't got strength to slam the door shut on 'em. Wimmen's clubs is all right so long as they stick to readin' hist'ry and discussin' tattin', but when they flock like a lot of old hen turkeys and go to peckin' a man because he's down and can't help himself, it ain't anything but persecution—wolves turnin' on another one that's got his leg broke. I know animiles, and I know human critters. Them wimmen better be in other business, and I told my wife so this mornin'."
"So did I," said Cap'n Sproul, gloomily.
"And mine up at me like a settin' hen."
"So did mine," assented the Cap'n.
"Gave me a lecture on duties of man to feller man."
"Jest the same to my house."
"Have any idea who's been stuffin' their heads with them notions?" inquired Hiram, malevolently.
"Remember that square-cornered female with a face harder'n the physog of a wooden figurehead that was here last winter, and took 'em aloft and told 'em how to reef parli'ment'ry law, and all such?" asked the Cap'n. "Well, she was the one."
"You mind my word," cried Hiram, vibrating his cigar, "when a wife begins to take orders from an old maid in frosted specs instead of from her own husband, then the moths is gettin' ready to eat the worsted out of the cardboard in the motto 'God bless our home!'"
"Law is law," broke in the unabashed representative of it, "and if the men-folks of this town ain't got the gumption to stand behind an officer—"
"Look here, Nute," gritted the Cap'n, "I'll stand behind you in about two seconds, and I'll be standin' on one foot, at that! Don't you go to castin' slurs on your betters. Because I've stood some talk from you to-day isn't any sign that I'm goin' to stand any more."
Now the first selectman had the old familiar glint in his eyes, and Mr. Nute sat down meekly, returning no answer to the Cap'n's sarcastic inquiry why he wasn't over at the tavern acting as convoy for the Temperance Workers.
Two minutes later some one came stamping along the corridor of the town house. The office door was ajar, and this some one pushed it open with his foot.
It was Landlord Ferd Parrott. In one hand he carried an old glazed valise, in the other a canvas extension-case, this reduplication of baggage indicating a serious intention on the part of Mr. Parrott to travel far and remain long. His visage was sullen and the set of his jaws was ugly. Mr. Parrott had eyes that turned out from his nose, and though the Cap'n and Hiram were on opposite sides of the room it seemed as though his peculiar vision enabled him to fix an eye on each at the same time.
"I'm glad I found you here both together," he snarled. "I can tell you both at one whack. I ain't got northin' against you. You've used me like gents. I don't mean to dump you, nor northin' of the sort, but there ain't anything I can seem to do. You take what there is—this here is all that belongs to me." He shook the valises at them. "I'm goin' to git out of this God-forsaken town—I'm goin' now, and I'm goin' strong, and you're welcome to all I leave, just as I leave it. For the first time in my life I'm glad I'm a widderer."
After gazing at Mr. Parrott for a little time the Cap'n and Hiram searched each the other's face with much interest. It was apparent that perfect confidence did not exist between them on some matters that were to the fore just then.
"Yours," said Mr. Parrott, jerking a stiff nod to the Cap'n, "is a morgidge on house and stable and land. Yours," he continued, with another nod at Hiram, "is a bill o' sale of all the furniture, dishes, liv'ry critters and stable outfit. Take it all and git what you can out of it."
"This ain't no way to do—skip out like this," objected Hiram.
"Well, it's my way," replied Mr. Parrott, stubbornly, "and, seein' that you've got security and all there is, I don't believe you can stop me."
Mr. Parrott dropped his valises and whacked his fists together.
"If the citizens of this place don't want a hotel they needn't have a hotel," he shrilled. "If they want to turn wimmen loose on me to run me up a tree, by hossomy! I'll pull the tree up after me."
"Look here, Ferd," said the Cap'n, eagerly, forgetting for the moment the presence of Constable Nute, "those wimmen might gabble a little at you and make threats and things like that—but—but—there isn't anything they can do, you understand!" He winked at Mr. Parrott. "You know what I told you!"
But Mr. Parrott was in no way swayed or mollified.
"They can't' do anything, can't they?" he squealed. "They've been into my house and knocked in the head of a keg of Medford rum, and busted three demijohns of whiskey, and got old Branscomb to sign the pledge, and scared off the rest of the boys. Now they're goin' to hire a pung, and a delegation of three is goin' to meet every train with badges on and tell every arrivin' guest that the Smyrna tavern is a nasty, wicked place, and old Aunt Juliet Gifford and her two old-maid girls are goin' to put up all parties at half-price. They can't do anything, hey! them wimmen can't? Well, that's what they've done to date—and if the married men of this place can't keep their wives to home and their noses out of my business, then Smyrna can get along without a tavern. I'm done, I say. It's all yours." Mr. Parrott tossed his open palms toward them in token of utter surrender, and picked up his valises.
"You can't shove that off onto us that way," roared Hiram.
"Well, your money is there, and you can go take it or leave it," retorted the desperate Mr. Parrott. "You'd better git your money where you can git it, seein' that you can't very well git it out of my hide." And the retiring landlord of Smyrna tavern stormed out and plodded away down the mushy highway.
Constable Nute gazed after him through the window, and then surveyed the first selectman and Hiram with fresh and constantly increasing interest. His tufty eyebrows crawled like caterpillars, indicating that the thoughts under them must be of a decidedly stirring nature.
"Huh! That's it, is it?" he muttered, and noting that Cap'n Sproul seemed to be recovering his self-possession, he preferred not to wait for the threats and extorted pledge that his natural craftiness scented. He dove out.
"Where be ye goin' to?" demanded Hiram, checking the savage rush of the Cap'n.
"Catch him and make him shet his chops about this, if I have to spike his old jaws together."
"It ain't no use," said Hiram, gloomily, setting his shoulders against the door. "You'd only be makin' a show and spectacle in front of the wimmen. And after that they'd squat the whole thing out of him, the same as you'd squat stewed punkin through a sieve." He bored the Cap'n with inquiring eye. "You wasn't tellin' me that you held a morgidge on that tavern real estate." There was reproach in his tones.
"No, and you wasn't tellin' me that you had a bill of sale of the fixin's and furniture," replied the Cap'n with acerbity. "How much did you let him have?"
"Fifteen hunderd," said Hiram, rather shamefacedly, but he perked up a bit when he added: "There's three pretty fair hoss-kind."
"If there's anything about that place that's spavined any worse'n them hosses it's the bedsteads," snorted the other capitalist. "He's beat you by five hundred dollars. If you should pile that furniture in the yard and hang up a sign, 'Help yourself,' folks wouldn't haul it off without pay for truckin'."
"Le's see!" said Hiram, fingering his nose, "was it real money or Confederate scrip that you let him have on your morgidge?"
"Thutty-five hunderd ain't much on the most central piece of real estate in this village," declared the Cap'n, in stout defence.
"It's central, all right, but so is the stomach-ache," remarked Hiram, calmly. "What good is that land when there ain't been a buildin' built in this town for fifteen years, and no call for any? As for the house, I'll bet ye a ten-cent cigar I can go over there and push it down—and I ain't braggin' of my strength none, either."
The Cap'n did not venture to defend his investment further. He stared despondently through the window at the seamed roof and weather-worn walls that looked particularly forlorn and dilapidated on that gray March day.
"I let him have money on it when the trees was leaved out, and things look different then," he sighed.
"And I must have let him have it when I was asleep and dreamin' that Standard Ile had died and left his money to me," snorted the showman. "I ain't blamin' you, Cap, and you needn't blame me, but the size of it is you and me has gone into partnership and bought a tavern, and didn't know it. If they had let Parrott alone he might have wiggled out of the hole after a while."
"It ain't wuth a hoorah in a hen-pen if it ain't run as a tavern," stated the Cap'n. "I ain't in favor of rum nor sellin' rum, and I knew that Ferd was sellin' a little suthin' on the sly, but he told me he was goin' to repair up and git in some summer boarders, and I was lettin' him work along. There ain't much business nor look-ahead to wimmen, is there?" he asked, sourly.
"Not when they bunch themselves in a flock and get to squawkin'," agreed his friend.
"I don't know what they are doin' over there now," averred the first selectman, "but before they set fire to it or tear the daylights out, and seein' as how it's our property accordin' to present outlook, I reckon we'd better go over and put an eye on things. They prob'ly think it belongs to Ferd."
"Not since that bean-pole with a tin badge onto it got acrost there with its mouth open," affirmed Hiram, with decision, "and if he ain't told 'em that we bought Ferd out and set him up in the rum business, he's lettin' us out easier than I figger on."
The concerted glare of eyes that fairly assailed them when they somewhat diffidently ventured into the office of the tavern indicated that Hiram was not far off in his "figgerin'." The embarrassed self-consciousness of Constable Nute, staring at the stained ceiling, told much. The indignant eyes of the women told more.
Mr. Parrott's brother was a sea-captain who had sent him "stuffed" natural-history curios from all parts of the world, and Mr. Parrott had arranged a rather picturesque interior. Miss Philamese Nile, president of the W.T.W.'s, stood beneath a dusty alligator that swung from the ceiling, and Cap'n Sproul, glancing from one to the other, confessed to himself that he didn't know which face looked the most savage.
She advanced on him, forefinger upraised.
"Before you go to spreadin' sail, marm," said the Cap'n, stoutly, "you'd better be sure that you ain't got holt of the down-haul instead of the toppin'-lift."
"Talk United States, Cap'n Sproul," snapped Miss Nile. "You've had your money in this pit of perdition here, you and Hiram Look, the two of you. As a town officer you've let Ferd Parrott fun a cheap, nasty rum-hole, corruptin' and ruinin' the manhood of Smyrna, and you've helped cover up this devilishness, though we, the wimmen of this town, have begged and implored on bended knee. Now, that's plain, straight Yankee language, and we want an answer in the same tongue."
Neither the Cap'n nor Hiram found any consolation at that moment in the countenances of their respective wives. Those faces were very red, but their owners looked away resolutely and were plainly animated by a stern sense of duty, bulwarked as they were by the Workers.
"We've risen for the honor of this town," continued Miss Nile.
"Well, stay up, then!" snorted the short-tempered Hiram. "Though as for me, I never could see anything very handsome in a hen tryin' to fly."
"Do you hear that?" shrilled Miss Nile. "Aren't you proud of your noble husband, Mis' Look? Isn't he a credit to the home and an ornament to his native land?"
But Hiram, when indignant, was never abashed.
"Wimmen," said he, "has their duties to perform and their place to fill—all except old maids that make a specialty of 'tending to other folks' business." He bent a withering look on Miss Nile. "Cap'n Sproul and me ain't rummies, and you can't make it out so, not even if you stand here and talk till you spit feathers. We've had business dealin's with Parrott, and business is business."
"And every grafter 'twixt here and kingdom come has had the same excuse," declared the valiant head of the Workers. "Business or no business, Ferd Parrott is done runnin' this tavern."
"There's a point I reckon you and me can agree on," said Hiram, sadly. He gazed out to where the tracks of Mr. Parrott led away through the slush.
"And it's the sense of the women of this place that such a dirty old ranch sha'n't disgrace Smyrna any longer."
"You mean—"
"I mean shut up these doors—nail 'em—and let decent and respectable women put up the folks who pass this way—put 'em up in a decent and respectable place. That's the sense of the women."
"And it's about as much sense as wimmen show when they get out of their trodden path," cried Hiram, angrily. "You and the rest of ye think, do ye, that me and Cap'n Sproul is goin' to make a present of five thousand dollars to have this tavern stand here as a Double-yer T. Double-yer monnyment? Well, as old Bassett said, skursely, and not even as much as that!"
"Then I'd like to see the man that can run it," declared the spokeswoman with fine spirit. "We're going to back Mis' Gifford. We're going to the train to get custom for her. We're going to warn every one against this tavern. There isn't a girl or woman in twenty towns around here who'll work in this hole after we've warned 'em what it is. Yes, sir, I'd like to see the man that can run it!"
"Well, you look at him!" shouted Hiram, slapping his breast. He noted a look of alarm on the Cap'n's face, and muttered to him under his breath: "You ain't goin' to let a pack of wimmen back ye down, be ye?"
"How be we goin' to work to run it?" whispered the Cap'n.
"That ain't the p'int now," growled Hiram. "The p'int is, we're goin' to run it. And you've got to back me up."
"Hiram!" called his wife, appealingly, but he had no ears for her.
"You've made your threats," he stormed, addressing the leader of the Workers. "You haven't talked to us as gents ought to be talked to. You haven't made any allowances. You haven't shown any charity. You've just got up and tried to jam us to the wall. Now, seein' that your business is done here, and that this tavern is under new management, you'll be excused to go over and start your own place."
He opened the door and bowed, and the women, noting determination in his eyes, began to murmur, to sniff spitefully, and to jostle slowly out. Mrs. Look and Mrs. Sproul showed some signs of lingering, but Hiram suggested dryly that they'd better stick with the band.
"We'll be man and wife up home," he said, "and no twits and no hard feelin's. But just now you are Double-yer T. Double-yers and we are tavern-keepers—and we don't hitch." They went.
"Now, Nute," barked Hiram, when the constable lingered as though rather ashamed to depart with the women, "you get out of here and you stay out, or I'll cook that stuffed alligator and a few others of these tangdoodiaps here and ram 'em down them old jaws of yours." Therefore, Constable Nute went, too.