“It’s been a hard blow for Squire Phin, it all has,” observed Uncle Buck. “Just finishing college when it happened, and havin’ the record of bein’ the smartest critter there! He had the chance to go into a big city law-office, but there was poor old Seth knocked flat’s a flounder, his name on notes to wholesalers who’d sold to Hime, and feelin’ holden for all the other debts.
“Phin done what few boys would do. He come home, put his shoulder to the wheel and taught school and studied law between-whiles—and, well, we all know how he’s worked it out.”
“There was more than the money side of it, too, that he had to face,” broke in Amazeen.
“Seems as if I’ve heard hints that he was pretty fierce took in a certain quarter,” observed Brickett, with a sly look.
“Lord, I guess there was hints and more, too,” snapped Amazeen. “Why, he lugged Sylveny Willard’s dinner pail to and from school when they was so young that neither noticed there was any diff’rence between Seth Look and Coll Willard. Kind of one of those cases where two young ones nat’rally took to each other. I was postmaster for a spell and they wrote reg’lar when he was away to college, till all to once old Coll knowed about it and realised that Sylveny had got out of the ABC age. He up and howled blue murder and right on top came the Hime part. Gad, no, he wouldn’t consider Phin Look for a son-in-law—wa’n’t pedigree enough to him.”
Amazeen’s tone was scornful.
“That’s why he f’it off Klebe marryin’ Myry Austin year after year till it looked as though they never would git married—and from all I hear about the way they git along now, I reckon ’twould have been better all around if the old Judge had f’it harder. Klebe had to break loose and git a vessel for himself before he dared to buck the old man and marry her. I don’t believe he really ever wanted her, anyway, but she’s one o’ them women that’s like a sheet of fly paper—git it on your fingers and try to pull it off and it keeps stickin’ in a new place. She’s too pretty to have much head. Ain’t ever had anything to steady her down, and that keeps Klebe guessin’ and mad a good part of the time when he’s home.”
“If I’d have been Phin Look I’d have run away with Sylvena Willard years ago,” grunted Uncle Lysimachus. “I’ll bet she’d have gone. A dummed old hog like Coll Willard ain’t got no right to keep two people like them apart. And more’n that, he’s torchin’ her all the time to marry King. There ain’t a woman in this village that women-folks in trouble run to as they do to her, and we all know what Squire Phin is to P’lermo! There ain’t hardly a family in this town that he ain’t settled a fuss for—not in courts and by runnin’ up bills of expense, but by kind words and common-sense and good advice and by gittin’ right inside a critter’s heart. A man ain’t goin’ to get rich by that way of practisin’ law, but, by jerro, he’s earnin’ the kind of currency that they say makes a millionnaire in eternity. He’s the husband Sylvena Willard ought to have, and, by gad, if I was her I’d have him!”
“Did you ever stop to think, Lys,” drawled Ama-zeen, “that people who have things pretty much their own way, without carin’ what other people want, who tromp over commands, disobey parents, bust into fam’lies and all that, are pretty apt to be scaly critters? Bein’ as they are, Sylveny Willard and Phin Look deserve to have each other; but bein’ as they are, it’s almighty likely they never will. Cuts both ways, you see! A woman that forgets all her father has done for her and leaves him alone in his old age and goes away to a man that he is dead ag’inst, has got the disposition to treat a husband as bad as she has a father. May not do it, understand—but the disposition is there. Marryin’ and givin’ in marriage is all right, but fam’ly loyalty is something, too. You want to remember that Coll Willard probably don’t seem to her the same as he does to us. A man that busts into a family when he knows he ain’t wanted may be gritty and in love, and all that, but he’s puttin’ himself and his pleasure and in-t’rests first, and lettin’ others trail. Phin Look allus has practised what he preaches to his clients. But it has sartinly happened bad for him—Hime’s cuttin’ up and all the rest, and it ain’t lookin’ much better just now.”
“I had an idea they’d git married sometime,” said Brickett. “You’ll find that Squire Phin has had some partic’lar mighty good reason for stayin’ in this little place. He don’t belong here and he never has. A drummer told me that outside of here he’s called one of the best-read men in the State. Judges all say that, the drummer told me. He don’t have to stay here, not by a long shot. Yes, I thought they’d git married some day when old Coll got through, but I guess this Hime matter comin’ up agin will bust things forever. Klebe will take it up.”