“Why?”
Tubal shifted the blame to Gibeon. “Seems like this hain’t much of a town.... It’s a dum funny town. I guess folks didn’t set much store by this paper on account of Abner Fownes.”
“Abner Fownes? Who is he, and what has he to do with it?”
“Abner,” said Tubal, “comes clost to bein’ a one-man band. Uh huh!... Owns the saw mills, owns half of Main Street, owns the Congo church and the circuit judge and the selectmen, and kind of claims to own all the folks that lives here.... Ol’ Man Nupley was a kind of errand boy of his’n.”
Carmel’s intuition carried her to the point. “And the people didn’t take this paper because they didn’t trust it. That was it, wasn’t it—because this Abner Fownes—owned Uncle Nupley.”
“I calc’late,” said Tubal, “you’re twittin’ on facts....” He chuckled. “Las’ fall the folks kind of riz ag’in’ Abner and dum nigh trompled on him at election time. Yes, sir. Made a fight fer it, but they didn’t elect nobody but one sheriff. Good man, too.... But Abner was too slick for ’em and he run off with all the other offices.... He holds a chattel mortgage onto this plant.”
“Is he a bad man?”
“Wa-al I dunno’s a feller could call him bad. Jest pig-headed, like, and got the idee nobody knows nothin’ but him. My notion is he gits bamboozled a lot. The Court House crowd tickles his ribs and makes him work for ’em. No, he hain’t bad. Deacon, and all that.”
“The local politicians flatter him and make use of the power his money gives him, is that it?”
“You hit the nail plumb on the head.”