The Open Window: Tales of the Months

by Mabel Osgood Wright

That he was a man of some means, was evinced by the fact that he owned his home, paid as he went, contributed freely to local charities, had three or four good horses, kept and bred dogs, farmed his land for pleasure rather than profit, and displayed a love of sport by his interest in the county and local fairs and horse shows. At the same time he had evidently retired from active business life, as he only went to the city one day in the week, as any man of leisure might, who, though loving an out-of-door life, did not wish to cut entirely loose from old associations.

For the rest, though he was referred to familiarly as Tom Scott by all the men of his own age, and a good many of the younger ones, and considered by all a square fellow, not one, if they had been questioned about the matter, could have told from whence he came, or that his previous occupation had in any way been mentioned.

When a new family comes to Oaklands, the natives have three tests by which the strangers are graded and accorded citizenship in one of several degrees, the first being financial, the second, moral, and the third, social. Have they paid for their house in full, or is it held on mortgage? Will they take a church pew, and if so, in which one of the four churches? Does the man of the family wear a collar, tie, and coat when at rest in the bosom of his family?—appearing in shirtsleeves upon the front porch, even of a hot summer evening, no longer being permitted by the rising generation of daughters trained at the Bridgeton High School.

The Scotts had passed the tests in a manner satisfactory to all, immediately taking a pew, neither aggressively toward the front, nor yet economically in the rear, in our equivalent of the Established Church, of which, it seemed, they were all members. Thus the only questioning murmurs that had ever arisen about the head of the family came from a few discontented people who had considered Tom Scott an inexperienced city man of money, and therefore had tried, but tried in vain, to sell him either an unsound horse, badly cured hay, or other farm produce of poor quality, but at a price above the market rates. To these Scott quickly showed so much horse lore, and such a shrewd and experienced side to his character in general, that they voiced the opinion between themselves that he wasn’t, in their judgment, what he seemed to be, and that if it were known how and where he made his money—“well, gambling and horse-racing had made many a fortune, and the ’Piscopals should go slow before they committed themselves to his iniquities and asked him to pass the plate.”

Few guests from outside ever went to the Queen Anne villa, and though Mrs. Scott and her daughters joined in the milder social diversions of the village, it was suddenly announced, the fall after they graduated from the high school and something in the nature of a party was expected of them, that mother and daughters were going to the old country to spend Christmas, but that Tom Scott himself would stay behind and keep bachelor’s hall. Then again the murmurers said: “Why doesn’t he go with them? Has he done anything that prevents his going home?”

It was a little after this time that Scott, an inveterate home lover, and now lonely and hungering for companionship, appeared at the Pharmacy, his mantle of reserve replaced by an almost garrulous familiarity. His first act was to buy a box of really fine cigars, which he passed about freely among his fellows, only frowning at the one outsider, a drummer, who, pushing his way into the group, prepared to take a fistful at once. “Slow, young man, go slow,” Scott said deliberately, measuring the fellow with a single sweep of the eye; “when you ask a gentleman to drink, he doesn’t fill five glasses before he empties the first, does he?”

The drummer slunk back with an exclamation half impertinent, half apologetic, and at that moment the door was flung open, and Martin Cortright entered, agitation written on every feature of his usually calm student face; going directly to the proprietor, who was leaning over the soda-water counter, he called in a voice very unlike his usual quiet tones:—

“Give me some rough-on-rats, and any other poison you have; if they die in the house, and we have to leave, so be it. My patience is exhausted. To-day, while we were out driving, the rats, or a rat, actually got into my little book room, though it has a hardwood floor and high wainscot, and gnawed the corner off the antique leather binding of my ‘Denton’s History of New York’; if this continues, imagine the condition of my library!”

“Why don’t you cover all the food in the house and try traps, Mr. Cortright?” asked Tom Scott, turning abruptly from the group who were discussing the merits of a litter of bull pups that were asleep in a box behind the candy counter.

“Traps!” ejaculated Martin. “We have tried five different kinds, and rats managed to take the bait from four, without snapping the springs, and the fifth, the wire-cage variety, they must have rolled about the kitchen like a toy, for we found it in a corner standing on end. My belief is, Mr. Scott, that intelligence in rats varies, as it does in human beings, and that these particular specimens are what might be called intellectual, and are only to be circumvented and trapped, if at all, by some one who understands their own methods. How do they get into the house? The foundations are solid, the cellar plastered, and with a cement floor that shows no holes, and yet in the space of a month there is hardly a door in the house that does not show the marks of their teeth.”