Ma Pettengill. Harry Leon Wilson
might have a few dollars in it, and he hopes I won't lose my all, because so many things nowadays look good till they're tried. I was crafty. I said I might be going into a new line, then again it might be nothing but idle talk and he better not believe everything he hears.
He took up the jar of honey and fondled it, with his face looking like he was laying a loved one to rest, and said he wouldn't mind going into something new himself if he could be sure it was sound, because the stock business at present was a dog's life. He said the war was to be won by food, and every patriot should either go across or come across, and he was trying to stand by the flag and save all the food he could, but by the way his help acted at mealtime you'd think they was a gang of German spies. Watch 'em eat beans, he said, and you'd think they'd never heard that beans had gone from three cents a pound to sixteen; but they had heard it, because he'd told 'em so in plain English more than once. But it had no effect. The way they dished into 'em you'd think we'd been endowed with beans the same as with God's own sunlight.
He said it was discouraging to a staunch patriot. Here was the President trying to make democracy safe for the world, and he was now going to stand by the Administration even if he had voted the Republican ticket up to now; but three of his men had quit only yesterday and the war was certainly lost if the labouring classes kept on making gods of their stomachs that way. And as a matter of fact now, as between old friends and neighbours, if I had something that looked good, why not keep it all together just with us here in the valley, he, though a poor man, being able to scrape up a few thousand dollars in round numbers for any enterprise that was a cinch.
And the old hound being worth a good half million dollars at that instant! But I kept control of my face and looked still more worried and important and said I might have to take in a good man, and then again I might not. I couldn't tell till I got some odd lots of stock cleaned up. Then I looked at some more documents and, like I was talking unconsciously to myself, I muttered, though distinctly: "Now that there bunch of runt mules—they'll have to go; but, of course, not for any mere song."
Then I studied some more documents in a masterful manner and forgot my caller entirely till at last he pussyfooted out, having caught sight of Sandy down by the corral.
Pretty soon Sandy reports to me. He says Safety is hurt at my cold manner to an old friend and neighbour that's always running in with a jar of honey or some knickknack; and he had mentioned the runt mules, saying he might be induced to consider 'em though I probably won't let 'em go for any mere song, contemptible as they are. Sandy says he's right; that it's got to be a whole opera with words and music for them mules. He says I got a reason for acting firm about the price, the reason being that this new line I'm going to embark in is such a sure thing that I want only friends to come in, and I got to be convinced first that their heart is in the right place.
Safety says his heart is always getting the best of his head in stock deals, but just how foolish will I expect an old and tried friend to seem about these scrub mules that nobody in his right mind would touch at any price.
Sandy yawns like he was weary of it all and says a hundred dollars flat. He said Safety just stood still and looked at him forever without batting an eye, till he got rattled and said that mebbe ninety-five might be considered. That's a trick with this old robber when a party's got something to sell him. They tell their price and he just keeps still and looks at 'em—not indignant nor astonished, not even interested, but merely fishlike. Most people can't stand it long, it's that uncanny. They get fussed and nervous, and weaken before he's said a single word.
But it was certain now that the mystery was getting to Safety, because otherwise he'd have laughed his head off at the mention of a hundred dollars for these mules. Three months before he'd heard me himself offer 'em for forty a head. You see, when I bought bands of mules from time to time I'd made the sellers throw in the little ones to go free with the trade. I now had twenty-five or so, but it had begun to get to me that mebbe those sellers hadn't been so easy as I thought at the time. They was knotty-headed little runts that I'd never bothered to handle.
Last spring I had the boys chink up the cracks in the corral and put each one of the cunning little mites into the chute and roach it so as to put a bow in its neck; then I put the bunch on good green feed where they would fatten and shed off; but it was wasted effort. They looked so much like field mice I was afraid that cats would make a mistake. After they got fat the biggest one looked as if he'd weigh close up to seven hundred and fifty. It was when they had begun to buy mules too; that is to say, mules! But no such luck as a new West Pointer coming to inspect these; nothing but wise old cavalry captains that when they put an eye on the bunch would grin friendly at me and hesitate only long enough to put some water in the radiator. I bet there never was a bunch of three-year-old mules that stood so much condemning.
After offering 'em for forty a head one time to a party and having him answer very simply by asking how the road was on beyond and which turn did he take, I quit bothering. After that when buyers come along I told the truth and said I didn't have any mules. I had to keep my real ones, and it wasn't worth while showing those submules. And this was the bunch Sandy had told S.F. Timmins he could take away for a hundred a head—or even ninety-five. And Safety hadn't laughed!
And would you have wondered when he sifts in a couple days later and makes me a cold offer of sixty dollars a head for this choice livestock? Yes, sir! He says "Live and let live" is his motto, and he wants to prove that I have wronged him in the past if I ever had the faintest suspicion that he wasn't the ideal party to have in on a deal that was going to net everyone concerned a handsome fortune. He says the fact is money goes through his fingers like water if you come right down to it; and sixty or even sixty-five if I want to push him to extremes, because he's the last man on God's green earth to let five dollars split up old neighbours that ought to be hand and glove in any new deal that come up.
It like to of keeled me over, but I recovered and become busier than ever
and got out my bank book and begun to figure over that. I said Sandy
Sawtelle had the handling of this particular bunch of my assets and
I couldn't be bothered by it.
So he mooches down to the barn till Sandy come in with Buck Devine. They was chattering about three hundred thousand dollars in round numbers when they got near enough for him to overhear their private conversation. They wondered why they had wasted so much of their lives in the cattle business, but now them old hard-working days was over, or soon would be, with nothing to do but travel round in Pullman palace cars and see America first, and go to movies, and so forth. Safety wished to haggle some about the mules, but Sandy says he's already stated the price in clear, ringing tones, and he has no time to waste, being that I must send him down that night to get an order on the wire for two carloads of the Little Giant peanut. Safety just blinked at this, not even asking why the peanuts; and the boys left him cold.
When I told 'em about the offer to me of sixty or a possible sixty-five, they at once done a medicine dance.
"This here will be the richest coop ever pulled off west of Cheyenne," says Buck; and Sandy says he guesses anybody not blind can now see that well-known street in New York he ought to have his office on. He says he hopes Safety don't fall too easy, because he wants more chance to work it up.
But Sandy is doomed to disappointment. Safety holds off only two days more. Two days he loafs round at mealtimes, listening to their rich converse and saying he'd like to know who's a better friend of this outfit than he's been for twenty years. The boys tell him if he's such a good friend to go ahead and prove it with a little barter that would be sure to touch my heart. And the first day Safety offers seventy-five a head for these here jack rabbits, which they calmly ignore and go on talking about Liberty Bonds being a good safe investment; and the second day he just cries like a child that he'll pay eighty-five and trust to their honour that he's to have in on this new sure-thing deal.
That seemed enough, so they all shook hands with the spendthrift and slapped him on the back in good fellowship, and said they knew all the time he had a heart of gold and they feel free to say now that once the money has passed he won't be let to go off the place till he has heard all about the new enterprise and let in on the ground floor, and they hope he won't ever