"H'm!" Marvin cleared his throat and glanced up the street. "Seein's how it's you, I dunno but what I kin tell you suthin' you hain't heard, nor nobody else. Young Mavin sent that there money back to his father in a letter to be give to the church—and the ol' man burned it. That's what he up and done. Two hunderd good dollars went up in smoke. Said they was crimes that was beyond restitution or forgiveness, and robbin' the House of God was one of 'em."
"Um!... Now, Marvin, I'd be mighty curious to learn if the ol' man got that information from God himself or if it come out of his own head.... No matter, I calc'late. 'Twan't credit with the church young Mavin was after when he sent back the money, and the Lord he knows the money come, if the organ fund never did find it out."
"Guess I'll take a walk down to Spackles's and look over the steer. They tell me he dressed clost to nine hunderd. Hope they contrive to cook him through and through. Never see a barbecued critter yit that was done.... Folks is beginnin' to git here. Guess they won't be a spare bedroom in town that hain't full up."
Scattergood pulled on his shoes and, leaving his store to take care of itself, walked up the road, turned across the mowing which had been metamorphosed into an athletic field, trusted his weight to the temporary bridge across the brook, and scrambled up the bank to the great oven where the steer was to be baked, and where the potato hole was ready to receive twenty bushels of potatoes and the arch was ready to receive the sugar vat in which two thousand ears of corn were to be steamed. Pliny Pickett was in charge, with Ulysses Watts, sheriff, and Coroner Bogle as assistants. They had fired up already, and were sitting blissfully by in the blistering heat, bragging about the sort of meal they were going to purvey, and speculating on whether the imported band would play enough, and how the ball games would come out, and naming over the folks who were expected to arrive from distant parts.
"This here town team hain't what it was ten year ago," said the sheriff. "In them days the boys knowed how to play ball. There was me 'n' Will Pratt and Pliny here 'n' Avery Sutphin, that was sheriff 'fore I was...."
"What ever become of Avery?" Pliny asked.
"Went West. Heard suthin' about him a spell back, but don't call to mind what it was. Wonder if he'll be comin' back with the rest?"
"Dunno. Think there's anythin' in the rumor that Mavin Newton's comin'?" "Hope not," said the sheriff, assuming an official look and feeling of the suspender to which was affixed his badge of office. "Don't want to have no arrestin' to do durin' Old Home Week."
"Calc'late to take him in if he comes?"
"Duty," said Sheriff Watts, "is duty."