[VII]
One morning about the first of May, Virginia Hemingway went to Wilson's store to purchase some sewing-thread she needed. The long, narrow room was crowded with farmers and mountaineers, and Wilson had called in several neighbors to help him show and sell his wares. Langdon Chester was there, a fine double-barrelled shot-gun and fishing-rod under his arm, wearing a slouch hat and hunter's suit, his handsome face well tanned by exposure to the sun in the field and on the banks of the mountain streams. He was buying a reel and a metallic fly that worked with a spring and was set like a trap. Fred Masters was there, lounging about behind the counters, and now and then "making a sale" of some small article from the shelves or show-cases. He had opened his big sample trunks at the hotel in Springtown, half a mile distant, and a buggy and pair of horses were at the door, with which he intended to transport the store-keeper to his sample-room as soon as business became quieter. Seeing the store so crowded, Virginia only looked in at the door and walked across the street and sat down in Mrs. Wilson's sitting-room to rest and wait for a better opportunity to get what she had come for.
Langdon Chester had recognized an old school-mate in the drummer, but he seemed not to care to show marked cordiality. However, the travelling man was no stickler for formality. He came from behind the counter and cordially slapped Langdon on the shoulder. "How are you, old chap?" he asked; "still rusticating on the old man's bounty, eh? When you left college you were going into the law, and soar like an eagle with the worm of Liberty in its beak skyward through the balmy air of politics, by the aid of all the 'pulls' of influential kin and money, but here you are as easy-going as of old."
"It was the only thing open to me," Chester said, with a flush of vexation. "You see, my father's getting old, Masters, and the management of our big place here was rather too much for him, and so—"
"Oh, I see!" And the drummer gave his old friend a playful thumb-thrust in the ribs. "And so you are helping him out with that gun and rod? Well, that's one way of doing business, but it is far from my method—the method that is forced on me, my boy. When you get to a town on the four-o'clock afternoon train and have to get five sample trunks from the train to a hotel, scrap like the devil over who gets to use the best sample-room, finally buy your way in through porters as rascally as you are, then unpack, see the best man in town, sell him, or lose your job, pack again, trunks to excess-baggage scales—more cash and tips, and lies as to weight—and you roll away at midnight and try to nap sitting bolt-upright in the smoker—well, I say, you won't find that sort of thing in the gun-and-fishing-pole line. It's the sort of work, Chester, that will make you wish you were dead. Good Lord, I don't blame you one bit. In England they would call you one of the gentry, and, being an only son, you could tie up with an heiress and so on to a green old age of high respectability; but as for me, well, I had to dig, and I went in for it."
"I had no idea you would ever become a drummer," Langdon said, as he admired his friend's attire. Such tasty ties, shirts, and bits of jewelry that Masters wore, and such well brushed and pressed clothes were rarely seen in the country, and Langdon still had the good ideas of dress he had brought from college, and this was one extravagance his father cheerfully allowed him.
"It seemed the best thing for me," smiled the drummer. "I have a cousin who is a big stockholder in my house, and he got the job for me. I've been told several times by other members of the firm that I'd have been fired long ago but for that family pull. I've made several mistakes, sold men who were rotten to the core, and caused the house to lose money in several instances, and, well—poker, old man. Do you still play?"
"Not often, out here," said Langdon; "this is about the narrowest, church-going community you ever struck. I suppose you have a good deal of fun travelling about."
"Oh yes, fun enough, of its kind." Masters laughed. "Like a sailor in every port, a drummer tries to have a sweetheart in every town. It makes life endurable; sometimes the dear little things meet you at the train with sweet-smelling flowers and embroidered neckties so long that you have to cut off the ends or double them. Have a cigar—they don't cost me a red cent; expense account stretches like elastic, you know. My house kicked once against my drinking and cigar entries, and I said, all right, I'd sign the pledge and they could tie a blue ribbon on me, if they said the word, but that half my trade, I'd discovered, never could see prices right except through smoke and over a bottle. Then, what do you think? Old man Creighton, head of the firm, deacon in a swell joss-house in Atlanta, winked, drew a long face, and said: 'You'll have to give the boy some freedom, I reckon. We are in this thing to pull it through, boys, and sometimes we may have to fight fire with fire or be left stranded.'"
"He's an up-to-date old fellow," Chester laughed. "I've seen him. He owns some fine horses. When a man does that he's apt to be progressive, no matter how many times he says his prayers a day."