Teeftallow/Chapter 41

IT TRANSPIRED, when the motor reached the Sandage bungalow in Lanesburg, that the coloured maid, Aline, was the only member of the household who knew precisely what to do under the untoward circumstance of Mr. Sandage being clapped in jail. On Mrs. Sandage's return she found a note from Aline in the crack of the front door saying that her mother was sick and she would not be able to come back any more. She would send her little brother for the money due her on the week's work. This note, correctly interpreted, meant that at last the Sandages had sunk to a social level to which Aline could not descend.

Mrs. Sandage read the perfectly clear writing with difficulty. It was always hard for her to understand what she read, owing to the length of time she had to devote to spelling out each word. At last she said in a lifeless tone, "Aline's quit us."

"Well, I'm glad of that," said Abner.

"Ever'thing'll go fin'ly," said Mrs. Sandage, staring at the bungalow as they entered it. "I know Jim'll lose his job after this."

"I don't think so," said Mr. Pratt helpfully. "Jim's awful popular."

"If we could git him out right away," wavered Mrs. Sandage. "A man's popularity goes down awful fast in jail. You must drive right over there, Abner, Jim wants to see you. He wants you to git Railroad Jones to git him out. You've got influence with Adelaide an' she's got it with her daddy." Here the good woman began sobbing again and holding in her spectral teeth. As she went weeping down the hall to her own room, she gasped, "I—I knowed I was ​goin' to lose this purty house—c-come easy, g-g-go easy . . ." and she disappeared, sobbing broken-heartedly.

Beatrice Belle drove Abner immediately to the jail, and its heavy walls and narrow barred windows struck Abner with dismay. It seemed impossible that his foster-father, the trustee of the county, could have come to this sinister place. Tears trickled slowly from Beatrice Belle's lashes to her cheeks. Mr. Pratt, who sat on the rear seat, leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder.

"That's all right, Belle, it's unjust. Everybody knows your father is honest—it's all owing to Perry Northcutt's trying to cripple Jones. . . ."

Abner got out and went in.

The first floor of the jail was given over to Sheriff Bascom and his family for housekeeping. Inside the door sounded the noise of shouting and wailing children. Abner's repeated knock finally brought a tow-headed boy to open it. Abner said he wanted to see Mr. Sandage. The youngster shouted, "Mammy, here's a man wants to see somebody . . ." and a thin hillwoman presently appeared wiping her hands on her apron.

"Oh, you want to see Mr. Sandage," said the woman; "he's upstairs. You can go on up." She pointed to a flight of dirty stairs in the hallway. They were box stairs without banisters. At the top Abner found a trap door which let into the second story. This place was floored with iron sheeting and was divided into compartments by eight steel cages, four on a side. An aisle divided these dolorous cages, and the shadows of their bars lay across the aisle in the light from the narrow windows. The air smelled of unbathed persons and unemptied slops.

In one of the forward cells a Negro droned a "blue." In another cage two moonshiners were rehearsing obscene catch questions.

In the middle cell on the right side Abner found Mr. Sandage. The county trustee sat on his iron bunk in the corner of his cell. When he saw Abner he got up and came ​to the bars with both hands outstretched toward his foster-son.

"Thank God, Abner, it's you!" He reached through to grip the youth's hands. "I want you to go to Railroad Jones and tell him to git me out o' here quick. Unless that debt is fixed up right now, I'll shore lose my job, Abner. You tell him how urgent it is. And tell him how I'm fixed. Why, them damn niggers is runnin' me crazy. Have you got any licker with you?"

This was the first time Jim had ever mentioned whisky to Abner. It flattered the youth. He searched his pockets and found his pint bottle with a last swallow in it. Jim drank it, blinked his eyes, then noticed the bandages around Abner's head and around his chewed thumb. He asked what was the matter, and Abner told the story of his fight.

"I declare! The damn skunk! Railroad will shorely have to lissen to you after you nearly got killed helpin' him out. Git Adelaide to go to her daddy. Ever'thing depends on it, Abner. Why, me an' Haly will be right back where we was—tell Railroad to make any sort of sacrifice to git me out."

"I will, I will," nodded Abner, deeply moved.

"I wouldn't say anything against Railroad, but—er—Abner, seems like he's mighty keerless of his frien's when they're in trouble."

"I'll shore tell him," repeated Abner earnestly.

"You know it was Railroad who let yore daddy die right in this place of pneumony, Abner."

Abner knew that his father had died of pneumonia in jail. Now the thought of his sick father dying in this cold terrible upper story filled him with horror.

"But I ain't goin' to die here, Abner," nodded Mr. Sandage grimly. "I made up my min' to that. I shore ain't goin' to stay here tull I die. But of course Railroad'll git me out. My job, my good name, my fambly, ever'thing I got in the worl' depen's on his payin' back what I loaned him an' gittin me out honour free."

​"I'll shore tell him," trembled Abner, trying to keep back his tears.

They gripped hands again and Abner went back down the trap door.

Beatrice Belle and Mr. Pratt had driven away, so the hill youth walked rather weakly around to the Jones residence. His nerves twitched and his chewed thumb throbbed. He entered the mansion through a wide piazza and knocked at a solemn oaken door. After waiting some minutes he saw a pearl button and pressed it. Presently he heard a woman's skirt rustle and Adelaide opened the door. The girl went pale at his bandaged head.

"Abner!" she cried, putting an arm around him and lifting a hand to his face, "I just heard about your terrible experience—come in, it's cold out here—you look as if you were shivering to death."

Abner kissed the uplifted lips as mechanically as a brother.

"Where's your daddy?"

"Down at the courthouse at the trial, I suppose."

"I must see him right away—you know Jim's in jail?"

Adelaide clenched her hands. "Oh, isn't it awful! Poor Beatrice! Poor Mrs. Sandage! It's all that Perry Northcutt's work!"

"Adelaide, your daddy must get up that money an' git Jim out. Why, it's awful up there in jail. It—it's just—I kain't tell you, it's so bad!" Abner's face and tone carried his idea of horror more potently than his words.

"Poor Mr. Sandage—and he got in there for accommodating Papa—you know there was nothing wrong about that! Papa simply must get him out!"

"That's what I say—and he's so blue—he's afraid he'll lose his office and be pore again."

"Oh, well, Papa couldn't allow that after Jim's got into this trouble accommodating him."

This whole conversation was a rush of words, of condolements; in the midst of it, the two heard a side door open ​and there followed the peculiar padded footfalls of Railroad Jones. Both young persons turned at the same time.

"Papa," called Adelaide, "here's Abner to see you."

Came a pause, then the heavy footsteps padded on and the magnate's buzzing voice said, "Tell him to come in the liberry. I'm come after them little vouchers for the trile, Addy."

Adelaide started forward impulsively with Abner, then said, "No, maybe you'd better see him by yourself. I'll wait here," and she squeezed his hand sympathetically and patted his back before she loosed him.

Teeftallow hurried through two rooms into the library with its bookcases, cabinet of minerals, and electric spray. The fat man was stooping over a drawer of the library table stuffing an endless number of papers in a stout meal sack. He lifted his great face as the youth entered.

"Hello, Abner. I hear you got hurt. I shore am sorry. Did it fracture yore skull any?"

"No, I'm all right, Mr. Jones. I've come about Jim. He's over there in jail goin' through hell before he's dead. How much do you owe him?"

The ponderous man paused in his work and reflected with an expressionless face.

"Aroun' thirty thousan', Abner."

"Well, if you paid that off at once, wouldn't that git him out of his trouble?"

"Nachelly, Abner."

"Fuh God's sake, do it, then, Mr. Jones. If you don't he's goin' to lose his office an' his home, an pore Miss Haly is jest heartbroken. Have you ever been in that jail, why it smells like a backhouse and looks like an animal cage."

The fat man twisted up the end of his sack and set it on the thick carpet.

"Abner," he said in his stewing voice, "do you think I don't appreciate you gettin' shot in the head fer me an' my railroad?"

"Why—I don't know—I suppose you do."

​"Well, I do, an' it's the same way with Jim. I might be able to git up that thirty thousan' now, if I'd give up my suit an' go to work with nothin' but that in view, but if I hang on an' beat this suit, like I mean to, it'll be worth a quarter of a million to me, an it'll increase my real estate another quarter of a million. Now, you're goin' to marry Addy. You can see how you're goin' to git paid back for all you done. Do you think I'd let Jim Sandage ruin his political career for me an' not put him on easy street? Now, take a business view of it. Which is the most sense, for Jim to stay in jail a few days longer an' all of us get a independent future, or for me to git him out, and all of us, me an' you, an' Addy, an' Jim, be as pore as dust monkeys agin? They ain't no sense to that!

"He's been sendin' for me to come to the jail an' talk to him. What's the use? I know what he wants and I also know that ain't the best for none of us. So why go down to that stinkin' jail an' talk? Now, Abner, if you hadn't struck me as a young man o' brains I never would have picked you up like I done. Jest help me git this sack o' papers over to the courthouse, then you can go back an' tell Jim jest hol' tight an' play shut-mouth, an' he'll come out with thirty thousan' dollars of his own money, 'stid o' the county's."

Under the influence of Mr. Jones's buzz, trouble, financial difficulties, and even life itself had a way of straightening themselves out, of becoming simple, clear, and easily managed. It was on such simple, sensible advice as this that Jim Sandage had ridden triumphantly into office, and eventually into the county jail. However, his emergence from the jail was just as clear and simple as his entrance, and all of Abner's objections to the status quo were cut away under his feet.

The youth made one last effort.

"But, Mr. Jones, the dishonour of the thing—and his office will be gone . . ."

"Abner, if Jim ever puts the money back in the courthouse vaults, the people will say he's the honestest man they ever ​see; an' if he fin'ly gits away with the money, the people will say he's one of the smartest men they ever see—an' they won't know which to admire the most."

"Well," admitted Abner, "they's something to that."

"There you air!" cried Railroad. "No matter what happens he'll be more thought of than he ever was before by the voters. You jest go explain that to him. An' tell him, too, the suit'll be over in a few days, an I'll pay off the county the first thing, an' he'll be out an' in office same as ever. So now, gimme a hand at this sack."

Abner went forward, swung the sack up on his shoulder, and started for a delivery wagon which he could see through the library window standing outside the Jones lawn. As he did so, he recalled that the fat man, with his clear, hard reasoning, had allowed his father, Linsey Teeftallow, to die in the county jail.

However, that personal aura about Railroad Jones, which made all the magnate did and said more arresting and dramatic than the commonplaces of ordinary mortals, drew Abner after the great man on to the delivery cart, and thence to the courthouse with the precious bag of papers. Abner reflected, as they jolted along, that he could tell Railroad's message to Jim later.

Railroad himself rode in the delivery van in deep thought, his body jostling about like a tub of jelly. Abner wondered what he was thinking about; certainly not Jim Sandage; his lawsuit probably. Abner suddenly felt sure the fat man would win the suit. It was impossible to sit near Railroad Jones and not feel that he would win.

As they approached the courthouse square Abner saw crowds of country folk moving about in the cold sunshine, attracted by the million-dollar railroad suit. As the delivery wagon passed the groups, Abner could hear, "There goes Railroad now!" "Well, he's met his match at last!" "He's been a good ol' dawg, but he's about run down . . ."

These gloomy predictions angered Abner, and he mentally ​cursed these bad prophets, "Damn fools!" "Bunch o' jack asses!" but they were not sitting near Railroad Jones. . . .

The van drew up at the courthouse gate. Abner took the sack on his shoulder and started patiently working his way among the stream of men up the steps to the second story. The dark stairway, the jammed crowd, recalled to Abner how he had once climbed these same stairs filled with fear lest he had lost Nessie Sutton; and now he had lost her indeed, mother and baby. . . .

The Chancery Court of Lane County seldom has a large attendance, owing to the prevailing practice of conducting its suits with written depositions. However, in the matter of the Irontown Bank versus David M. Jones et al., the courtroom was jammed from door to chancellor's dais.

When the attending constable at last observed Railroad Jones trying to press his bulk through the aisle, he was forced to shout at individuals in the passage to let the defendant into court. He threatened the men at the door to stop crowding or he would shut the doors in their faces.

The chancellor, a thin old man with a long face, a large nose, and a black skullcap, ordered the windows opened somewhat from the top.

Abner, with the bag, followed the course of the fat man and eventually came to a table where the defendant's lawyer was seated with some documentary evidence piled before him. Railroad Jones had only one lawyer, an attorney by the name of Norton, but across on the opposite side of the enclosed space, at the plaintiff's table, were stationed a veritable battery of the bar: Buckingham Sharp, Judge John A. Stone, Turley M. Johnstone, and a swarthy, rather picturesque man with curly black hair, who, somebody eventually whispered to Abner, was a Mr. Swikerd who came from Nashville.

Half of the plaintiff's desk was covered high with leather-backed law books. When Abner saw this array, his heart began to sink again; at his own desk were only himself ​with the meal bag, Norton with two books, and Railroad Jones empty-handed. An added discouragement was that Norton could never make much of a speech. He stuttered slightly. As a jury lawyer he was impossible, but a counsellor in chancery has little to say, and the chancellor will always wait patiently for that little no matter how retarded may be its utterance. However, the situation was not reassuring.

As Abner came up to the desk, the chancery judge looked down from his elevated seat and said to Norton, "Mr. Norton, does this young man's burden appertain to the cause you represent?"

"Your Honour," returned Norton, rising, "I—I th-think that is my client's b-b-burden of proof."

"It's to be hoped he can shift it to the plaintiff," said the chancellor with a serious smile.

The lawyers smiled, and the crowd followed their lead by tittering emptily at a jest which few comprehended and none would have considered humorous.

Railroad Jones whispered to Abner, "Set it down an' take a cheer," pointing at several unoccupied chairs at his table.

For several minutes Abner's bandaged head and hand drew more attention than the court preparations. His wounds were a sort of materialization of this suit; they were the result of the clash between bank and railroad. The youth sat with the meal sack leaning against his leg, looking about the crowded courthouse. The fact that so many persons were looking at him embarrassed him. He heard an old man saying in the flat voice of the deaf: "They say he flopped from his pap's side over to Railroad because he's gwinter marry his daughter."

Abner flushed. He saw his position might be interpreted thus and he wished he could explain to the audience how unavoidable was his course; but that was impossible.

The chancellor tapped on his desk, and as silence spread over the courtroom, he asked in a deliberate voice, "Is the case of the Irontown Bank versus David Jones ready for a hearing?"

​Judge Stone, the leading attorney for the plaintiff, nodded assent.

"The plaintiff is ready, your Honour."

"W-we're ready, t-too," stammered Mr. Norton from the other side of the magnate, and a titter ran through the crowd.

Judge Stone arose at the plaintiff's desk. He moved about on his table several packages of papers bound together with rubber bands.

"I have here, your Honour," he outlined briefly, "itemized accounts of the daily wages paid out by the Irontown Bank on the construction of the Lane County railroad. This bundle contains mortgages given by David Jones to the Irontown Bank covering said railroad holdings and also certain realty belonging to Mr. Jones. This is a simple action of foreclosing a number of mortgages for debt. It was necessary to bring it in chancery because the expenses of the railroad are still current and it would involve a loss to stop all proceedings to await ordinary legal action. The entire indebtedness of the Lane County railroad to the Irontown Bank totals, to date, one hundred and twenty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-six dollars and forty-two cents. We will deposit the papers and other inventories with the court."

Here Judge Stone made a faint gesture to Buckingham Sharp, who piled the bundles on his arm and transferred them to the judge's desk.

"Is there any denial of these mortgages and accounts?" inquired the chancellor in his deliberate tone.

Mr. Norton arose beside the magnate and tapped nervously on his desk. The whole house watched him intently, with a feeling that some sort of trap was about to be sprung. Norton bent his head over for a last consultation with his client.

"M-Mr. J-Jones, says, y-your Honour, that to the b-best of his r-r-recollection the total is a h-hundred and twenty-five thousand eight h-hundred and eighty-six dollars and s-seventeen cents. H-he says Mr. Northcutt must have left out ​the s-spur items p-purchased on the seventeenth of last July."

Even the chancellor came out of his mechanical manner at this. He leaned forward.

"Are you suggesting that your client remembers in detail all these accounts and can check off mentally where the bank is in error?"

"I—I don't know, your Honour." He leaned and consulted Railroad Jones, and Abner heard the magnate say impatiently, "Sure, sure, I want them to bring up their whole account. I want this settled here and now."

When Norton reported the result of his conference, the astonishment and admiration of the crowd grew so noisy the chancellor was forced to rap for order.

"Such a slight variation will not affect the substance of the bill, and the plaintiff will amend. So your client admits the bill as it stands?"

"He does," stammered Norton, "b-but he asks to be allowed to introduce a l-little off-s-s-set."

Judge Stone was on his feet at once.

"An off-set, your Honour; on what grounds is an off-set asked?"

"I-illegal interest," stammered Norton.

The little banker leaped to his feet. "That's an untruth, judge . . . " Buckingham Sharp pulled him down.

Judge Stone proceeded deliberately. "The interest charge on funding the railroad, your Honour, has been precisely six percentum per annum, the legal rate in Tennessee, as an inspection of the accounts will convince you."

"W-we acknowledge that," stuttered Norton.

"Then I don't understand your plea of off-set," said the chancellor.

"I-it's like this," stammered Norton. "Th-the Irontown B-bank normally charges eight p-per cent. I-it has b-been charing this i-i-illegal rate for y-years, f-for decades, your Honour. M-my client had b-bought up some of the old c-claims against th-the bank, and h-he has them here c-claim​ing off-set, your Honour." Here Mr. Norton motioned to Abner, who heaved the meal sack up on the table.

For a full half minute the peculiar dusty silence of the courtroom was complete. The trap was sprung, but for that length of time nobody understood it. Then the lawyer from Nashville apprehended the sort of pitfall into which his client had stumbled. He jumped to his feet.

"Your Honour!" he cried in a clipped urban voice. "You will not allow any such fantastic claim of off-set against an honest debt owing to the Irontown Bank. Why, this is ingenious, but it's outrageous! It's a tax of two per cent. upon the entire volume of business transacted by the bank throughout its career. It's against public policy!"

Mr. Perry Northcutt understood next, and his face went white to his lips. He leaped up from his chair again.

"Your Honour! Your Honour! There are not Railroad Jones's debts! It's impossible for a bank to do its—its short-time business at six per cent.—the paper work . . ."

"Why, y-y-yes, they are his debts, Mr. Northcutt," stammered Norton genially, "h-he bought 'em."

A realization of Railroad Jones's greatest coup spread slowly and marvellingly over the courthouse, and with it came an outburst of cheers, whoops, stamping of feet, and uproarious laughter. The exquisite delight of seeing the unpopular Northcutt bowled over with all his lawyers by the champion from Lanesburg shook the audience.

The chancellor hammered for order.

"Clear the courtroom, Mr. Sheriff!" he cried with a sweeping gesture.

The officers turned out of the chancel into the aisles and started trying to evict the whole crowd. Order was restored almost as rapidly as it had been lost, save for irrepressible explosions from some of the more convulsed.

At last the judge ceased turning his angry eyes about the room and looked at Mr. Norton.

"How much is the off-set, Mr. Norton?"

"Two-two hundred and eighty-five thousand d-dollars, ​your Honour, in r-round numbers. H-here are the s-sworn statements of the ac-accounts and the t-transfer of title to them. It is a v-vengeance, your Honour, you-you might say a d-divine v-vengeance on the b-b-bank's illegal b-business methods."

A burst of applause, quickly silenced by the officers, followed this.

The picturesque Nashville attorney began pleading against the off-set along lines of public policy. He said the admission of such an off-set would jeopardize every financial institution in the country; that eight per cent. was the recognized short-term banking rate, and to allow an off-set against a proper debt for all such claims a client could purchase would rock the finances of the nation.

Here Buckingham Stone drew down the Nashville attorney and whispered in his ear. Mr. Swikerd then continued, "Besides this point, your Honour, the greater part of these claims are out of date, and we plead the statute of limitations against them."

Norton interposed.

"N-no, your Honour, m-my client has a-arranged all th-that. H-he is going to p-pay his d-debt with the out-of-date claims, and c-c-collect the rest."

"Why, that's a damned outrage!" roared the Nashville attorney, quite beside himself.

"It r-redresses the wrongs of the p-people who have been v-victimized by t-that b-blood sucker there!" cried Norton, pointing at the banker.

"Redresses the people! The people!" sneered Swikerd in the height of irony. "This off-set will wipe out the entire capital stock of the Irontown Bank. It will hand it over in toto to that crooked trickster there!" He jabbed a finger at Railroad Jones. "Into the maw of that bloated toad of finance will fall the people's money! Redress the people! It will ruin hundreds of stockholders and thousands of depositors! Your Honour, it is impossible for you to allow such an iniquitous off-set!"

​Mr. Norton was on his feet again, very cool but still stuttering.

"I admit, your Honour, one m-man must r-redress the wrongs of m-many. It-it seems impossible f-for people to act in concert w-without a l-leader. I—I notice the honourable counsel f-for the p-plaintiff d-does not b-bewail the f-f-fate of the original victims who l-lost their m-money to the b-bank, but only the p-people, who will have to r-refund those losses. N-naturally, your Honour, the p-people finally p-pay everything and, I—I must admit, enjoy very l-little. They p-pay the original wrong. T-they p-pay for its b-being redressed. And it will always b-be like that, your Honour, a-as long as l-laws are m-made p-purely to p-protect p-property and n-never to p-protect the p-people. B-but that is a m-matter completely outside of the p-power of this court either to alter or d-destroy. That f-fault l-lies in the warp and w-woof of our s-social fabric. Our nation is a-aristocratic, n-not democratic. Our s-system of l-law was d-designed to p-protect the rights of the f-financiers, the overlords, the no-nobility, the old b-barons. Y-your Honour can never ch-change that. So the defendant asks a v-verdict of one h-hundred and s-sixty thousand, one h-hundred and thirteen d-dollars and eighty-th-three cents, and a w-writ of execution for the s-same."

The audience, the people who were to pay both for the ancient wrong and its present redress, broke into such wild cheering that the constables became busy again.

Mr. Perry Northcutt seemed to be unaware of his surroundings. He was standing up crying, "O God, spare me this cup! Blessed Redeemer, come to my aid! O Lord, save the Irontown Bank!"

Mr. Norton was pulling at the meal sack.

"I would like to file this evidence with the court, your Honour."

The chancellor considered the bag.

"It is such a bulky file, may I ask you to send it to my home address by express?"

​Mr. Norton acquiesced. "Certainly, your Honour."

On a sudden impulse Abner struggled through the crowd, out of the courthouse, and went flying to the county jail to tell Jim Sandage of Railroad Jones's glorious victory and of Jim's coming swift release.