Scattergood Baines. Clarence Budington Kelland
the valley's mouth. He saw sturdy, snorting little engines drawing logs to sawmills of a magnitude not dreamed of by any other man in the locality, and he saw other engines hauling out lumber to the southward. He saw villages where no villages existed that day, and villages meaning more traffic for his railroad, more trade for the stores he had it in his thought to establish. Something else he saw, but more dimly. This vision took the shape of a gigantic dam far back in the mountains, behind which should be stored the waters from the melting snows and from the spring rains, so that they might be released at will to insure a uniform flow throughout the year, wet months and dry months, as he desired. He saw this water pouring over other dams, turning water wheels, giving power to mills and factories. More than that, in the remotest and dimmest recess of his brain he saw not sharply, not with full comprehension, this tremendous water power converted into electricity and transported mile upon mile over far-reaching wires, to give light and energy to distant communities.
But all that was remote; it lay in the years to come. For the present smaller affairs must content him. Even the matter of the narrow-gauge railroad was beyond his grasp.
Scattergood reached down mechanically and removed his huge shoes; then, stretching out his fat legs gratefully, he twiddled his toes in the sunlight and gave himself up to practical thought. He controlled the tail of the valley with his dam and boom company; he must control its mouth. He must have command over the exit from the valley so that every individual, every log, every article of merchandise that entered or left the valley, should pass through his hands. That was to be the next step. He must straddle the mouth of the valley like the fat colossus he was.
Scattergood was placid and patient. He knew what he wanted to do with his valley, and had perfect confidence he should accomplish it. But he had no disposition to hasten matters unwisely. It was better, as he told Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "to let an apple fall in your lap instead of skinnin' your shins goin' up the tree after it—and then findin' it was green."
So, though he wanted the mouth of his river, and wanted it badly, he did not rush off, advertising his need, and try brashly to grab the forty or fifty acres of granite and scrub and steep mountain wall that his heart desired. Instead, he basked in the sunshine, twiddling his bare toes ecstatically, and let the huge bulk of him sink more contentedly into the well-reinforced armchair which creaked under his slightest motion.
Scattergood glanced across the dusty square to the post office. The mail was in, and possibly there were letters there for him. He thought it very likely, and he wanted to see them—but movement was repulsive to his bulging body. He sighed and closed his eyes. A shrill whistle attempting the national anthem, with certain liberties of variation, caused him to open them again, and he saw, passing him, a small boy, apparently without an object in life.
"A-hum!" said Scattergood.
The boy stopped and looked inquiringly.
"If I knew," said Scattergood to his bare feet, "where there was a boy that could find his way across to the post office and back without gittin' sunstroke or stone bruise, I dunno but I'd give him a penny to fetch my mail."
"It's worth a nickel," said the boy.
"Give you two cents," said Scattergood.
"Nickel or nothin'," said the boy.
Scattergood scrutinized the boy a moment, then surrendered.
"Bargain," said he, but as the boy hustled across the square Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight suddenly might have resulted in disaster.
The boy was returning. Scattergood placed the tin object to his lips and puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's existence, he applied himself again to the whistle.
"Say," said the boy, "what's that?"
"Patent whistle," said Scattergood, without interest.
"Is it your'n, or is it for sale?"
"Calculate I might sell."
"How much?"
"Nickel."
"Gimme it," said the boy, and Scattergood gravely received back his coin.
"Might tell the kids I got more," said Scattergood, and watched the boy trot down the street, entranced by the horrid sound he was fathering.
This transaction from beginning to end was eloquent of Scattergood Baines's character. He had been obliged to pay more than he regarded a service as worth, but had not protested vainly. Instead he had set about recouping himself as best he could. The whistle cost him two cents and a half. Therefore the boy had come closer to working for Scattergood's figure than for his own demanded price. In addition, Scattergood's wares were to receive free and valuable advertising, as was proven by the fact that before night he had sold ten more whistles at a profit of twenty-five cents! No deal was too small to receive Scattergood's best and most skillful attention.
Now he opened his letters, one of which was worthy of attention, for it was from a friend in the office of the Secretary of State for that commonwealth—a friend who owed his position there in great measure to Scattergood's influence. The letter gave the information that two gentlemen named Crane and Keith had pooled their timber holdings on the east and west branches of Coldriver, and had filed papers for the incorporation of the Coldriver Lumber Company.
This was important. First, the gentlemen named were no friends of Scattergood's by reason of having underestimated that fleshy individual to their financial detriment in the matter of a certain dam and boom company, of which Scattergood was now sole owner. Second, because it presaged active lumbering operations. Third, because, in Scattergood's safe were ironclad contracts with both of them whereby the said dam and boom company should receive sixty cents a thousand feet for driving their logs down the improved river.
And fourth—the fourth brought Scattergood's active toes to a rest. Fourth, it meant that Crane and Keith would be building the largest sawmill—the only sawmill of consequence—that the valley had seen.
It was an attribute of Scattergood's peculiar genius that even after you had encountered him once, and come out the worse for it, you still rated him as a fatuous, guileless mound of flesh. You did not credit his successes to astuteness, but to blundering luck. Another point also should be noted: If Scattergood were hunting bear he gave it out that his game was partridge. He would hunt partridge industriously and conspicuously until men's minds were turned quite away from the subject of bear. Then suddenly he would shift shotgun for rifle and come home with a bearskin in the wagon. Probably he would bring partridge, too, for he never neglected by-products.
"Them fellows," said he to himself, referring to Messrs. Crane and Keith, "hain't aimin' nor wishin' to pay me no sixty cents a thousand for drivin' their logs. … I figger they calculate to cut about ten million feet. That'll be six thousand dollars. Profit maybe two thousand. Don't see as I kin afford to lose it, seems as though."
On the river below Coldriver village were three hamlets each consisting of a general store, a church, and a few scattered dwellings. These villages were the supply centers for the mountain farms that lay behind them. Necessity had located them, for nowhere else along the valley was there flat land upon which even the tiniest village could find a resting place. These were Bailey, Tupper Falls, and Higgins's Bridge. In common with Coldriver village their communication with the world was by means of a stage line consisting of two so-called stages, one of which left Coldriver in the morning on the downward trip, the other of which left the mouth of the valley on the upward trip. There was also one freight wagon.
The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he boarded