“And that’s just it,” shouted Hiram. “I stayed away and let the wickin’ be put to you and father. You’ve been ground into the dirt and mallywhacked and spit on, just on account of me. The Look fam’ly has been muck under foot for some folks. And even now, after all that’s past and gone, that old wolf would have my ha’slet out of me if he could get it. There’s a debt due to the Looks, compound int’rest piled on compound int’rest, and by the jumped-up Judas Is-carrot, I’m goin’ to collect it, Phin. You may as well stand out of the way.”
He strode about the little yard before the porch.
“And besides all that, he’s stealin’ from this town, and you know it,” cried Hiram, stopping in his march for a moment.
“There’s other redress for that besides persecution,” replied the Squire. “It isn’t our business as Seth Look’s boys.”
“It is our bus’ness. And it’s more yours than it is mine. You’re the agent of this town. You’re the man the people trust to see that Palermo gets what’s her just dues. You know she is bein’ robbed. Now, Phin, you either go to work and find out why old Coll Willard is borrowin’ money secretly on town’s notes, and you put it before the people in the right and proper way as you know how to do, or, by mighty, I’ll do it my way and then you’ll see how you stand before the people—you that’s hidin’ a note that you know is crooked.”
Hiram stopped before his brother and breathed hard in his passion. And now the Squire’s repression began to give way. The obstinacy of this stormy petrel of the Look family was maddening.
But, fortunately for both, the unhappy quarrel was interrupted. For some moments there had been approaching behind the alders at the turn of the highway a queer medley of sound—squeaking of whiffle-tree, yawling of dry axle and over all a peculiar moaning. Now a vehicle like a van came in sight. The brothers stood and watched it as it approached them. Avery came hobbling with brush in hand and gaped his surprise.
“Well, P’lermo’s took this time, sartin sure,” he gasped.
’Twas almost a little house on wheels. An elbow of stove funnel stuck out of one side. An old chaise-top was fastened by strings and wire over a seat in front. Dust and mud covered everything with striated coatings, a mask eloquent of wanderings over many soils.
A bony horse, knee-sprung and wheezy, dragged the van at the gait of a caterpillar.