CHAPTER XIII
HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT
Jason Locker, who was Sam Kettleman's rival in Coldriver's grocery industry, was a trifle too amenable to modern ideas at times. He took notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two parades.
Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference was as to when and exactly how Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and pronounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered.
But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current fashions, made her appearance in a space cleared in the middle of the store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far.
It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country making coffee for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wearing a smile for everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from their midst.
But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst.
"Looks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' as well as proper follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be expected to ensue."
"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette—that way. Looks like French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask her."