VIII.
Naturally all the facts that have just been set down here were soon known to the inhabitants of Hillsborough. Naturally, too, something more than the facts was also known and talked about. There was the good old doctor ready to shake his head and look mysterious, and there were the negroes ready to give out an exaggerated version of the occurrences that followed Judge Bascom’s visit to his old home.
“Well,” said Major Jimmy Bass to his wife, with something like a snort, “ef the old Judge is gone there an’ took holt of things, like they say, it’s bekaze he’s out’n his mind. I wonder what in the round world could ’a’ possessed him?”
“I ’spec’ he’s done drapt back into his doltage,” said Farmer Joe-Bob Grissom, who had gone to the major’s for the purpose of discussing the matter. “An’ yit, they do say that he’s got a clean title to every bit of the prop’ty, ef you take into account all that talk about his wife’s brother, an’ sech like.”
“Well,” remarked the major grimly, “Sarah there ain’t got no brother, an’ I reckon I’m sorter pretected from them kind of gwines-on.”
“Why, tooby shore you are,” said his wife, who was the Sarah referred to; “but I ain’t so mighty certain that I wouldn’t be better off if I had a brother to follow you around where the wimmen folks can’t go. You’ve flung away many a bright dollar that he might have picked up.”
“Who, Sarah?” inquired the major, wincing a little.
“My brother,” returned Mrs. Bass.
“Why, you haven’t got a brother, Sarah,” said Major Bass.
“More’s the pity,” exclaimed the major’s wife. “I ought to have had one, a great big double-j’inted chap. But you needn’t tell me about the old Judge,” she went on. “He tried to out-Yankee the Yankees up yonder in Atlanty, an’ now he’s a-trying to out-Yankee them down here. Lord! You needn’t tell me a thing about old Judge Bascom. Show me a man that’s been wrapped up with the Radicals, and I’ll show you a man that ain’t got no better sense than to try to chousel somebody. I’d just as lief see Underwood have the Bascom Place as the old Judge, every bit and grain.”
“Well, I hadn’t,” said the major emphatically.
“No, ner me nuther,” said Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom. “Hit may be right, but hit don’t look right. Pap used to say he’d never be happy ontel the Bascoms come back inter the’r prop’ty.”
“Well, he’s dead, ain’t he?” inquired Mrs. Bass in a tone that showed she had the best of the argument.
“Yessum,” said Mr. Grissom, shifting about in his chair and crossing his legs, as if anxious to dispose of an unpleasant subject, “yessum, pap’s done dead.” To this statement, after a somewhat embarrassing silence, he added: “Pap took an’ died a long time ago.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bass in a gentler tone, “and I’ll warrant you that when he died he wasn’t pestered ’bout whether the Bascoms owned the Place or not. Did he make any complaints?”
“No’m,” replied Mr. Grissom in a reminiscent way, “I can’t say that he did. He jest didn’t bother about ’em. Hit looked like they jest natchally slipped outer his mind.”
“Why, certainly,” said Mrs. Bass, with a little shake of her head; “they slipped outer your pa’s mind, and now they say the old Judge has slipped out of his own mind.”
“Well, we needn’t boast of it, Sarah,” remarked the major, with a feeble attempt at severity. “Nobody knows the day when some of us may be twisted around. We’ve no room to brag.”
“No, we ain’t,” said his wife, bridling up. “I’ve trembled for you a many a day when you thought I was thinking about something else,—a many a day.”
“Now you know mighty well, Sarah, that no good-natured man like me ain’t a-gwine to up an’ lose their mind, jest dry so,” said the major earnestly. “They’ve got to have some mighty big trouble.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bass, grimly, “and they have to have mind too, I reckon. Nobody that never had a horse ever lost one.”
The major nodded his head at Joe-Bob Grissom, as much as to say that it was only a very able man who could afford to have such a sprightly wife. The mute suggestion, however, was lost on Grissom, who was accustomed to taking life seriously.
“I hear a mighty heap of talk,” he said, “but I ain’t never been so mighty certain an’ shore that the old Judge is lost his mind. There’d be lots of fun ef it should happen to be that he had the papers all made out in his pocket, an’ I’ve hearn some hints that-a-way.”
“Well,” said the more practical Mrs. Bass, “he ain’t got no papers. The minute I laid eyes on him after he came back here, I says to Mr. Bass there, ‘Mr. Bass,’ says I, ‘the old Judge has gone wrong in his upper story.’ Ah, you can’t fool me. I know a thing when I see it, more especially if I look at it close. I’ve seen folks that had to rub the silver off a thrip to tell whether it was passable or not. I might be fooled about the silver in a thrip, but you can’t fool me about a grown man.”
“Nobody ain’t tryin’ to fool you, Sarah,” said the major, with some show of spirit.
“Well, I reckon not,” exclaimed Mrs. Bass, somewhat contemptuously. “I’d like to see anybody try to fool me right here in my own house and right before my face.”
“There ain’t no tellin’,” said Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom, in his matter-of-fact way, ignoring everything that had been said,—“there ain’t no tellin’ whether the old Judge is got the papers or not. ’T would be hard on Frank Underwood an’ his sister, an’ they ain’t no better folks than them. They don’t make no fuss about it, an’ they don’t hang out no signs, but when you come to a narrer place in the road where you can’t go forrerd nor back’ards, an’ nuther can you turn ’roun’, you may jest count on them Underwoods. They’ll git you out ef you can be got out, an’ before you can say thanky-do, they’ll be away off yonder helpin’ some yuther poor creetur.”
“Well,” said Major Bass, with an air of independence, “I’m at the fust of it. It may be jest as you say, Joe-Bob; but ef so, I’ve never knowed it.”
“Hit’s jest like I tell you,” said Joe-Bob, emphatically.
“Well, the Lord love us!” exclaimed Mrs. Bass, “I hope it’s so, I do from the bottom of my heart. It would be a mighty queer world if it didn’t have some tender spots in it, but you needn’t be afraid that they’ll ever get as thick as the measles. I reckon you must be renting land on the old Bascom Place,” she went on, eyeing Mr. Grissom somewhat sharply.
“Yessum,” said Joe-Bob, moving about uneasily in his chair. “Yessum, I do.”
Whereupon Mrs. Bass smiled, and her smile was more significant than anything she could have said. It was disconcerting indeed, and it was not long before Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom made some excuse for depriving Major Jimmy and Mrs. Sarah Bass of his company.
As he was passing the Bascom Place on his way home he saw lights in the house and heard voices on the piazza.
“Ef it warn’t for that blamed dog,” he thought, “I’d go up there an’ see what they er talkin’ about so mighty peart.”