Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy

by L. Frank Baum

The promise was fulfilled during the several meetings of the committee that were quietly held on back porches. Colonel Kerry was the one tower of strength; but a man used to managing thousands of miners and keeping them in order was not likely to be easily managed himself. Kerry was odd as Dick's hat band and had little to say at the meetings. He read Jarrod's purpose clearly, and endorsed it; but the old fellow couldn't stand the arguments and wandering suggestions of his fellow members on the committee. While he listened he tore a fragment from an old letter or newspaper and rolled it with infinite care and skill into the inevitable spiral, shaping the thing between his fingers as carefully as if it were something precious. But if anything occurred to annoy him he promptly destroyed the spiral, put on his hat, and walked home without a word. Then Jarrod had to go after him and urge and explain until Kerry consented to come back to the meeting.

The members of the committee were all prominent men. If Kerry could have cursed them freely everything would have been harmonious—as far as he was concerned. As he couldn't swear his only recourse was to quit and go home.

The author fellow, Mr. Wright, was another hard proposition. He was stubborn, loud-mouthed and pig-headed, and wanted to carry everything with a high hand, the way they do in novels. He had about as much diplomacy as a cannon-ball, and his fellow members had to sit on him twice a minute to keep him from spoiling everything. Judge Toodles knew a heap of law but was sure to get tangled in its intricacies, and when he tried to unravel himself was nearly as lucid and logical as a straw in a cocktail. Teekey was an unknown quantity. He owned a fine cottage built on public property, and although he had originally been an "innocent purchaser" his doubtful title so worried him that he was accustomed to obtain from Wilder and Easton a new deed about once a year, and each deed he filed gave him a little more public land. He was reputed a wealthy and eminently respectable gentleman, and the chances of his fighting on the side of the cottagers and jeopardizing his own property to assert the principles of right and justice were considered good—but not gilt-edged.

With this ill-assorted material Jarrod labored until he molded it into shape. For it must be admitted that in the end the members of the committee stood shoulder to shoulder and did their full duty by the cottagers who had appointed them. By these five Tamawaca was redeemed and its incubi unseated.

Meantime Jarrod had reluctantly indulged in several interviews with old Easton. This man was a most peculiar character. He loved to sing hymns and made an excellent exhortation at any religious gathering. Indeed, one milk-fed preacher who lived on the hill was openly jealous of his evangelistic abilities. But the miserly instinct was predominant in Easton's nature and, as Wilder expressed it, he could "squeeze a cent till it hollered." It was this characteristic that subverted all the good in his nature and made him universally detested. Wilder, his partner, pursued his system of graft with the grace and cheeriness of a modern Dick Turpin. Wilder was open-handed and charitable, generous on occasion, always hospitable, and more crafty than roguish. Easton was deliberate and calculating in his extortions and, like the ostrich who hides his head in the sand to escape observation, fondly imagined that no one suspected his persistent brigandage. He derived a fat income from the necessities of the cottagers but pleaded poverty as an excuse for not doing his duty by them. His methods were sly and stealthy and he looked grieved and hurt if any exasperated cottager frankly called him a damned scoundrel.

Jarrod forced himself to cultivate Easton's society in order to study the man, for the elder partner's mild blue eyes and innocent expression puzzled him at first. Easton, for his part, considered Jarrod an impertinent meddler, but resolved to use him as an instrument to carry out a pet scheme he had for dispossessing Wilder.

"With Wilder's interest out of the way," he would observe, "everything would be well at lovely Tamawaca. If I were the sole proprietor here the cottagers would soon find out how dearly I love them. Wilder obstructs all my generous plans to improve conditions, and I'd like to buy him out."

"Why don't you?" enquired Jarrod.

"He won't sell to me," was the reply. "But perhaps we can fool him."

"How?"