“He’s a pretty boy,” she said, softly, “I—I like him.”
Tom scarcely heard her. He was looking at the boy himself, and his face wore a troubled and bewildered expression. His gaze was so steady that at length the object of it felt its magnetic influence and lifted his eyes. That his general air of discontent did not belie him, and that he was by no means an amiable boy, was at once proved. He did not bear the scrutiny patiently, his face darkened still more, and he scowled without any pretence of concealing the fact.
Tom turned away uneasily.
“He’d be a handsome fellow if he hadn’t such an evil look,” he said. “I must have seen him before; I wonder who he is?”
There were many strangers in the house, principally attenders upon the Court being held. Court week was a busy time for Brownsboro, which upon such occasions assumed a bustling and festive air, securing its friends from less important quarters, engaging in animated discussions of the cases in hand, and exhibiting an astonishing amount of legal knowledge, using the most mystical terms in ordinary conversation, and secretly feeling its importance a good deal.
“Sparkses” was the name of the establishment at which the travellers put up, and, being the better of the two taverns in which the town rejoiced, Sparkses presented indeed an enlivening spectacle. It was a large frame house with the usual long verandah at the front, upon which verandah there were always to be seen customers in rocking-chairs, their boots upon the balustrade, their hands clasped easily on the tops of their heads. During Court week these customers with their rocking-chairs and boots seemed to multiply themselves indefinitely, and, becoming exhilarated by the legal business transacted around them, bestirred themselves to jocularity and argument, thus adding to the liveliness of the occasion.
At such periods Mr. Sparkes was a prominent feature. Attired in an easy costume seemingly composed principally of suspenders, and bearing a pipe in his hand, he permeated the atmosphere with a business-like air which had long stamped him in the minds of his rural guests as a person of administrative abilities rarely equalled and not at all to be surpassed.
“He’s everywhar on the place, is Sparkes,” had been said of him. “He’s at dinner, ’n supper, ’n breakfast, ’n out on the porch, ’n in the bar, an’ kinder sashiatin’ through the whole thing. Thet thar tavern wouldn’t be nothin’ ef he wasn’t thar.”
It was not to be disputed that he appeared at dinner and breakfast and supper, and that on each appearance he disposed of a meal of such proportions as caused his countenance to deepen in colour and assume a swelled aspect, which was, no doubt, extremely desirable under the circumstances, and very good for the business, though it could scarcely be said to lighten the labour of Mrs. Sparkes and her daughters, who apparently existed without any more substantial sustenance than the pleasure of pouring out cups of coffee and tea and glasses of milk, and cutting slices of pie, of which they possibly partook through some process of absorption.
To the care of Mrs. Sparkes Tom confided his charge when, a short time after their arrival, he made his first pilgrimage for business purposes.