“Go ahead with yore rat-killin',” Hoag was fond of saying. “You've got the right idea. I'm not such a old dog that I can't learn new tricks. Them fellows out West know a good many twists and turns that we ain't onto, an' I'm willin' to back you up with the cash on anything you propose.”
His niece was with him on the lawn one morning as he was opening his mail.
“Just look at that letter,” he said, with a low, pleased laugh, as he offered it for inspection. “I'm in a cool thousand dollars on this one deal. My scrub of a white-trash manager told me last week that the man in Atlanta who has been handlin' my leather was buncoin' me good an' strong. I didn't think he knowed what he was talkin' about then, but it seems he'd been readin' market reports an' freight rates, an' now I know he was right. He asked me to write to Nashville for prices. I did, an' here is an offer that is away ahead of any my Atlanta agent ever got, an' I save his commission to boot. Who'd 'a' thought, Eth', that such a puny no-account skunk as Ralph Rundel could be the daddy o' sech an up-to-date chap as Paul?”
Ethel's sweet face took on a serious cast. “I don't think we ought to judge our mountain people by their present unfortunate condition,” she said. “I was reading in history the other day that many of them are really the descendants of good English, Scotch, and Irish families. I have an idea, from his name alone, that Paul came from some family of worth.”
“You may be right,” Hoag admitted. “I know my daddy used to tell us boys that the Hoag stock away back in early times was big fighters, not afraid o' man, Indian, or beast. One of 'em was a pirate of the high seas, who had his own way purty much, and died with his boots on. Pa was proud o' that. He used to set an' tell about it. He learnt us boys to fight when we wasn't more'n knee high. The hardest lickin' Pa ever give me was for comin' home from school cryin' once because another chap had got the best of me. I never shall forget it. Pa was as mad as a wildcat at me, an' t'other fellow too. An' the next mornin', as I started to school, he tuck me out in the yard an' picked up a sharp rock, he did, an' showed me how to cup my hand over it and sorter hide it like. He told me to keep it in my pocket, an' if the fellow said another word to me to use it on 'im like a pair o' brass knucks.”
“Oh,” Ethel cried, “that wasn't right! It was a shame!”
“That's what the fellow thought.” Hoag burst out laughing. “He was standin' in a gang braggin' about our fight when I got to school an' I went up to 'im, I did, an' spit on him. He drawed back to hit me, but I let 'im have a swipe with my rock that laid his jaw open to the bone. He bled like a stuck pig, an' had to git a doctor to sew the crack up. After that you bet he let me alone, an' folks in general knowed I wouldn't do to fool with, either. The teacher o' that school—it was jest a log shack in the country—used to use the hickory on the boys, an' I've seen 'im even tap the bare legs o' the gals; but he never dared touch me. He knowed better. He drawed me up before 'im one day for stickin' a pin in a little runt of a boy, and axed me what I done it for. I looked 'im straight in the eyes, an' told 'im I did it because it would make the boy grow. I axed 'im what he expected to do about it. He had a switch in his hand, but he turned red an' hummed an' hawed while the whole school was laughin', an' then he backed down—crawfished on the spot—said he'd see me about it after school; but I didn't stay, an' that was the end of it. The man on the farm whar he boarded told Pa that the fellow was afraid to go out at night, thinkin' I'd throw rocks at 'im. Say, Eth', not changin' the subject, how are you an' Ed Peterson gittin' on?”
“Oh, about the same,” Ethel answered, with a slight shrug. “I got a letter from him yesterday. He had been to the hospital to inquire about Jennie, and he thought I'd like to hear she wasn't any worse.”
“Well, it ain't no business o' mine,” Hoag smiled knowingly, “but I hope you won't keep the fellow in torment any longer than you can help. He sorter confides in me, you know, an' every time I'm in Atlanta he throws out hints like he is in the dark an' can hardly see his way clear. He is a man with a long business head on 'im, an' he certainly knows what he wants in the woman line. He's powerfully well thought of in bankin' circles, an', as you know, his folks are among the best in the South.”
Ethel, frowning slightly, was avoiding her uncle's curious gaze. “I shall not marry any man,” she said, quite firmly, “until I know that I really love him.”