Teeftallow/Chapter 42

ADELAIDE JONES brought to the Sandages first news of her father's amazing coup against the Irontown Bank. She flew over in her motor, embraced and kissed her neighbours.

"You see," she cried. "Dad was right—he's always right!"

Mrs. Sandage was so full of joy she could hardly speak. Tears stood in her eyes.

"A-Abner said Mr. Jones w-would fix ever'thing. . . ."

"Imagine," cried Beatrice shrilly, "the bank's his'n, the railroad's his'n, ever'thing's his'n."

"And he just thought of a way to do it all!" cried Adelaide with a wriggle of ecstasy, and she embraced her friends rapturously again.

"Jim shore won't lose his office now," blinked Mrs. Sandage.

"Oh, no-o," echoed Adelaide, squeezing her hand. "I drove by the—by the house where Mr. Sandage is staying. I thought I would bring him right over, but Mr. Bascom said there were some forms to go through with yet—it made me so mad!"

"Wouldn't he let him come!" cried Mrs. Sandage, amazed.

"No, he said everything wasn't settled yet," snapped Adelaide with a flirt of her head. "But I know it is. I left Abner to bring Jim right on over as soon as it's settled."

At this point the doorbell rang and the women rushed to welcome the released prisoner, but at the door stood Mr. Pratt, the drug clerk.

​"Sim Pratt!" cried Beatrice, who possessed him.

"Have you heard about it?" cried the clerk.

"Oh, yes, isn't it wonderful!" repeated Beatrice.

"I come over to tell you what they're doin' in Irontown," grinned Pratt.

"What?"

"Holding a community prayer meeting asking for their bank back from Railroad Jones!"

The women stared at the drug clerk.

"Imagine! Prayin' for their bank back!" "Ain't that Arntown!"

And suddenly everyone broke into irrepressible laughter.

"Tim Fraley told me about it," went on Pratt. "Bascom had Tim arrested for shootin' Abner. They brought him in the drug store for me to doctor his eye. Abner pretty near put one eye out. Tim was laughing about the prayer meetin'."

"Now, look here," sobered Mrs. Sandage, "it does sound funny, but I'd rather not have them people down there prayin' agin Jim an' Mr. Jones."

"They can't reverse a court decision by prayin'," laughed Mr. Pratt.

"They can't wriggle out of the debts I bought up against the bank," asserted Adelaide. "Goodness, I was running over there in my auto, twice a day sometimes, seeing anybody who ever owed the bank anything. Daddy got the list from one of the clerks there in the bank."

"Did you know what he was going to do with it?" laughed Pratt.

"Of course I did."

"Anyway, I don't like 'em prayin' against Jim and Mr. Jones," repeated Mrs. Sandage, troubled by the superstition of the hills.

After Pratt and the two girls went out in the car again, Mrs. Sandage's fears were redoubled by the news of the Irontown prayer meeting. She went about her housekeeping in Aline's absence with wrought-up nerves. At every sound ​in the bungalow she started with sharp expectancy that Jim had returned. Now and then she interrupted her own work by breaking into sobs. She had never trusted Railroad Jones, she had told Jim. . . .

A step in the doorway caused Mrs. Sandage to wheel about, but it was only Abner Teeftallow returned from the jail. She wiped her eyes.

"What did they say, Abner?" she asked heavily.

"Well—Railroad says it ain't quite time to make his move yet."

"His move—what kind of a move?" She looked at Abner with red-suspicious eyes. "Do you think he's goin' to make a move a-tall, Abner?"

"You know he won't let Jim stay in jail for as little as thirty thou—"

"I don't know nothin'!" cried the woman tremulously. "Sometimes I think he'd let Jim stay in there for thirty cents. Did you ever git him to talk to Jim?"

"No-o, I've ast him till I'm ashamed. He always says, 'What's the use? A jail ain't no place to talk reasonable in!"

"But it's a place to stay in." Mrs. Sandage suddenly burst into tears again. Presently she controlled herself and adjusted the ghastly teeth in her mouth. "Abner," she began carefully, "you're engaged to Adelaide, ain't you?"

The big fellow coloured and nodded.

"If you wanted to you could make Railroad pay Jim out of jail jest as easy as anything."

"Why, how?" inquired the youth curiously.

"Threaten to sue on your claim against ever' one of his places. That would jest about break him up, I reckon. You air somebody, Abner. You can make Railroad Jones treat Jim right if you want to."

A kind of nervous trickle went through Abner at the plan. He drew a long breath. "I'll tell you, Miss Haly, I'll see Adelaide an' talk this over. I—I'd hate to make Adelaide mad."

​"You see her, Ab, an' git her on our side. She can do more with her pappy than anybody else."

Abner agreed to this. Mrs. Sandage flung her arms about his neck, said he was a good boy, and sent him on his mission.

Filled with a kind of uncertain ardour, Abner set out for Adelaide's home when he heard a motor signal. He glanced behind him and saw the girl in her yellow roadster. She said she had been running around town looking for him, intent on a drive. A qualm went through Abner's heart as he climbed in beside his sweetheart. Suppose she should become angry at his interference in her father's affairs.

The girl glanced about at him in her driving.

"How's your head?" she asked gently.

Abner became aware of his bandages.

"It's getting easy." He touched her arm with his good hand. "Adelaide, I wonder if you'd he'p me git your pappy to do something for me?"

The girl looked around from her driving with soft eyes. "Oh, I will. What is it? Doesn't he want to?"

"I don't think he does—much."

"Of course, it's to get Jim out," she understood.

"Yes." Then Abner unfolded the whole of Mrs. Sandage's plan.

Adelaide pondered in silence with the cold wind beating their faces.

"I'll tell you this about Daddy, dear. You and I don't at all understand what he's doing. Neither does Jim nor anybody else. I wish we would all obey, like soldiers do their general. He reminds me of those old barons you read about in the Middle Ages. It seems to me Lanesburg is his city and the jail his donjon—lots of times he has niggers put in there if they try to run away from his places. That's exactly the way the old barons did the peasants. It's funny, isn't it—a nigger can work for Dad year after year, just as hard as he can hit it; then, if he finally gives up and wants to go away, he can't go—he owes Dad too much!" ​Adelaide laughed, then became thoughtful. "Of course, lots of men do that. But Daddy does the white folks the same way: banks, wholesale houses, Yankees, anybody. I just admire and love him more than I can ever say. I have loved one or two other men, but I have never really admired anybody but him."

Abner drew a long breath, tinged with jealousy. "Well, let's go to him and see what we can do, Adelaide. You know we want to do right."

"Ye-es—right—Abner, your feeling of what is right gets a little hazy sometimes when you live in the same house with a great man. Is it right to break a horse and ride it somewhere?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh—nothing," and she manœuvred her motor around in the narrow road and drove back to her father's office on the courthouse square.

When they climbed the high steps and entered the room they found the magnate with a great pile of empty cigar boxes packing his claims against the Irontown Bank.

"I'm doin' this so the mice won't cut 'em," he explained. "Mice don't like t-backer."

Abner offered his assistance, and Railroad Jones was about to accept it when Adelaide interrupted, "No, don't let's get side-tracked. Daddy, Abner has come over to see you about Mr. Sandage."

The magnate looked up in surprise. "Why, he's seen me about him ever' day, Addy, for more'n a week now."

"He wants you to go over and talk to Mr. Sandage."

"No use in that, Addy, I know what Jim'll say."

"It's this use, Mr. Jones," put in Abner. "I kain't make you two fellers understan' each other runnin' back an' forth. I wish you'd git together, talk it over, an' gimme a rest."

"Now that's right, Daddy," seconded Adelaide, taking her father by the arm.

The fat man seemed distressed. "I don't like this," he said with a shake of the head that swung his jowls, "explainin' ​my plans before I do 'em. Jim Sandage is a good man, but he ain't broad-gauge—no offence, Abner."

"None tuk, Mr. Jones."

"Besides, I know ever'thing he'll say, an' he won't see nothin' like I see it. I don't like it a-tall."

"At least he'll understand somethin'," pressed Abner.

"M-somethin'—maybe. I shore don't like this, Addy."

But he closed his boxes, waddled out of his office with the young folks, and heaved himself into the waiting car.

At the prison another of the sheriff's numerous brood admitted the trio. While the child went to call its mother, the railroad builder looked curiously around the bare interior of his "donjon." When Mrs. Bascom appeared in an inner doorway, she cried out, "Law, Miss Addy, you ain't goin' up where the prisoners air, I hope."

The girl insisted. Mrs. Bascom brought in an oil lamp, although it was still quite light in the lower story.

Abner took the lamp and led the way up the plain box stairs, through the trap door, and into the dark, noisome upper story. His light displayed the iron cages on both sides of the aisle. Adelaide held tightly to his arm but said nothing. Behind them toiled her ponderous father, his flat yellow face expressionless in the light. His little burnt-out eyes glanced over the melancholy corridor. As the group moved forward a voice called out, "Abner Teeftaller, thank God, I see you at last. Tell that damn sheriff I didn't shoot ye. You know I was fightin' you a fair fight when somebody come up the dump and shot into us twicet."

"That Tim Fraley?" asked Abner, looking in the direction of the voice.

"Shore God is, Anber, an' yore frien', too. I didn't mean to pick that fight, you jumped on me, Ab, you know you did."

Adelaide said, "Your partner hamstrung two of Papa's mules, Mr. Fraley."

"I didn't have no partner, Miss Addy. Shallburger sent ​me out to argue with a guard. I didn't know nobody followed me."

"How did you leave the strike, Tim?" asked Abner of his old enemy.

"Oh, it busted up when Perry lost his suit. Mr. Ditmas is gittin' ever'thing straightened out agin'. She'll go through with a bang now."

Adelaide pressed Abner's arm at this successful working of her father's complex plans. The trio walked on through the corridor to the trustee's cell. When they paused before the cage, they could faintly discern the prisoner who was standing beside his foul bunk.

"Jim," began Abner in a somewhat strained voice, "I never could git no understandin' betwixt you an' Mr. Jones, so I brung him to talk for hisse'f."

At this all minor noises from the other prisoners came to silence. The little group, illuminated by the oil lamp, stood beside the trustee's cell, the fat man peering through the bars with a frown puckering rolls between his brows. He cleared his throat.

"I b'lieve you wanted to see me, Jim?"

"Mr. Jones," said the shadow in the cage. "I want you to pay that money an' let me out of here."

The railroad builder smoothed his jowl.

"How much is it, Jim?"

"How much! You know how much better'n I do!" said the shadow bitterly.

"Yes, I wanted to call it to yore mind—not mine."

"Well—thirty thousan' then!"

"Thirty-two eight sixty-four," corrected the magnate. "How much do you git a year fer bein' trustee, Jim?"

"Eight hunderd, but I don't see as that's got anything to do with it."

"I didn't s'pose you would, Jim," said the magnate simply. "Eight hundered a year. It would take you a little over thirty-eight years, Jim, to save thirty-two thousan' dollars at that rate, with no fambly expense whatever; but of course ​yore fambly eats up more than that. So if we pay this debt accordin' to yore plan, you'll come out at the end of your office holdin' exactly where you started in, with nothin' a-tall, but if you don't pay it, nachelly you'll come out with thirty-two thousan' dollars."

"Come out! I won't come out a-tall!" cried the prisoner. "I'll stay here in jail."

"Oh, no, you won't, you'll come clear at yore trile. You lent the money to me honest—why, this here very talk with all these prisoners an' Addy an' Ab listenin' proves that."

"But what do you want me to do—steal it?"

The fat man went closer to the bars and dropped his voice. "No, Jim," he buzzed earnestly, "but I don't want you to pay it, neither. I kain't bear to see you throw away such a opportunity. It don't come to one man in a thousan'."

The man in the cage came a little closer to the magnate, bringing the odour of his confinement.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"It's jest this," buzzed the fat man in a barely audible whisper. "You stay in here a few weeks longer. I'll git out an' buy up enough county bonds and warrants to pay off that thirty-two thousan'—the county will haff to take 'em—they kain't go back on their own paper—an' I can buy it at thirty-five or forty cents on the dollar now. When ever'body hears about you loanin' the county money to me, the bonds'll drap to fifteen or twenty cents on the dollar. In fack, I can set my own price—I'll be the only person who wants 'em."

The magnate explained his plan in a buzz that held a faint excitement. Came a long silence in which Adelaide gave Abner's arm a triumphant squeeze. Abner did not quite follow the explanation, but he gathered it was a scheme to keep the county funds legally. Presently, in the midst of this silence, the railroad builder stweed out almost pettishly, "Well, what's the matter, Jim, ain't you satisfied?"

"What I am wantin'," said the shadow, "is to git out o' ​this jail now, Railroad, an' I want to step out jest as good a man as when I stepped in."

"Good as you stepped in!" echoed the magnate incredulously. "You'll be fifteen or twenty thousan' better off than when you stepped in!"

"That ain't what I mean," explained Jim sombrely. "When I loaned you that money, I didn't mean to beat the county out of a nickel. And I didn't mean for you to railroad me into jail neither. I thought I was lendin' it to the firmest frien' I had in this worl'."

"You wuz, Jim, you wuz," nodded the magnate.

"An' I made you promise before God," went on the shadow in an aggressive voice, "that you'd pay that money back any time I ast for it."

"But, damn it!" ejaculated the fat man, "kain't you see you're in a position to make money!"

"That don't make a damn bit o' diff'runce to me. I tol' the fellers who voted fer me that I'd take ker o' their int'rusts like they was my own. I come into this jail clean, Railroad Jones, an I'm goin' out clean if I git out a-tall. They ain't nobody goin' to say, 'Jim Sandage tricked the county out of its money.' So I want you to do what you promsied you would any time I ast ye—pay back what I loaned ye."

The magnate drew out his handkerchief and wiped his face in the clammy air of the jail.

"Look here, Jim," he argued desperately. "This is the plan I'd figgered out. Gimme two weeks to git up them bonds. It'll only take five or six thousan'. I'll subtrack that from thirty-two thousan', give you credit for the balance, an' pay you ten per cent. int'rust on it all the rest of your life."

"An' me give up politics fer one grab?"

"It's legal."

"An' cause all my frien's to lose confidence in me?"

The magnate plucked Jim's sleeve through the bars. "That's the point. Folks don't lose confidence in you when you beat 'em out of the public money. They admire you ​fer it. They'd 'a' done it theirse'ves, only they didn't know how."

"No, 'I God!" cried the shadow in sudden wrath. "You give me that money right now. I've been juberous about it ever sence I put the first check in yore han's. An' as fur as you dividin' with me after this swindle, you never divided with nobody."

"Jim, in two weeks—"

The shadow's voice shook. "I didn't say two weeks, I said now. I know you got it, you jest stole a bank!"

The magnate moistened his lips. "I'll haff to study about this—you're actin' the fool, Jim."

During this colloquy Abner's nerves had been gradually screwed up. The dim figure in the noisome cage moved him with compassion.

"Look here, Mr. Jones," he began uncertainly, glancing at Adelaide, "Jim here is tryin' to pertect his name, and if he don't want to sell it, I don't think you ort to shove the trade on him."

"Neither do I, Daddy," said Adelaide quite unexpectedly.

The magnate made a brusque gesture, "Uh, you two!" he grunted.

"Now, looky here," proceeded Abner more warmly, "I got a claim against nearly all yore farms. I'm fer Jim in this deal. If you don't pay him out to-night, I'll tell Buck Sharp to sue to-morrer."

The fat man glanced at Abner as if worried by a midge; then a half-humourous smile moulded his fat face.

"Yore time of action petered out two months ago, Abner. The statue of limitations begun to run against you an' yore claims the day the county court declared you twenty-one years old—that's why I had 'em do it."

Abner stared at the fat man and a trembling slowly set up in him which became so violent that the jail seemed to quiver and he had to steady himself by holding to the bars of Jim's cell.

​"You—you don't mean that all—all my gran'daddy's farms are—gone!" he asked in a dry, shaken whisper.

The magnate spread his hands in indifferent acquiescence.

"Father!" shrilled Adelaide, horrified. "Why didn't you tell him!"

"Tell him! Tell him!" wheezed the magnate disgustedly. "Ever' one of you—my daughter included—talks like a passel of fools. I wish I'd never come down to this fool place! I tol' Abner they wasn't no use me comin'. I knowed what you-all would say. I come aginst my better judgment, an' now I'm goin'!"

Adelaide suddenly flung her arms about her lover.

"You're not going to cheat Abner!" she shrieked. "I love him! I'm going to marry him! And if you try to cut me out of your will, I'll—I'll smash it!" She shook a firm little fist at her father. "You can smash a will—a smart lawyer can smash anybody's will!"

"Addy! Addy!" cried the fat man reproachfully, "how can you say that! Have I ever denied you a thing in the worl' you set yore heart on? They won't be but one name in my will, Addy, an' that'll be yores. But I do hope you'll recolleck that this boy's daddy, Linsey Teeftaller, run through with old man Coltrane's fortune, drove Lydy Coltrane crazy, and brought her to the pore farm to die, an' now it looks like you're fixin' to let Linsey Teeftaller's boy do the same thing with my money—an' my little gal. . . ."