When Egypt Went Broke, Holman Day [free ereaders .txt] 📗

gimlet, or let it out all at once with a pod auger, can they? That's what the law can do _to_ me, you say! What can it do _for_ me, Squire Hexter?"
"Well, Jared, they'll take your cows over to the shire and auction them off for what they'll bring. You can sue this town and recover the real value of the cows, along with interest at twelve per cent. That is to say, you can get judgment against the town for that amount."
"And then I can go over to my neighbor's and grab away any loose property I can find of his?"
"You can do it!"
"Look here, Squire, that makes it nothing except a game of 'tag, you're it,' and a case of 'I've got my fingers crossed'! The whole of us running around in circles, and the lawyers picking up all the loose change we drop from our pockets. Where do we wind up?"
The Squire shook his head slowly and reached down and stroked one of Eli's ears. "Eli was telling me that Jones thought he had invented perpetual motion when he tied a piece of liver to a pup's tail and set the pup to revolving; but the pup wore out."
Grant sat for some minutes and harkened to the bang of the hammers across the way. "I don't understand how a farseeing man like Tasp Britt dares to build a good house here," he growled.
"Oh, the pup may be worn out by the time it is finished--or those towers may mean that he intends to list it as a meetinghouse and have it exempted from taxation, Jared. We shall see!"
But whatever it was that the selectman saw, as he sat there and stared at the wall of Squire Hexter's office, it evidently was not serving in the way of comfort.
The Squire's prediction about other seekers for law was fulfilled before long. The deputy sheriff had proceeded on his travels. The afflicted parties came up the Squire's stairs. Arden Young reported that three of his best cows were driven away. George Jordan and his cousin J. O. Jordan each surrendered two faithful moolies. It was plain that Sheriff Dowd proposed to make sure that there was auction material enough to yield one hundred and ninety dollars, along with the costs.
"Jared," suggested the notary, "you'd better have an accounting and find out how many of those town orders were issued when the reckless spirit was on. Somebody has decided to milk the old town. It is being done scientifically, seeing that this first mess is so modest. But we need to know about how many messes we're expected to give down."
Inside of a fortnight there were two more milkings.
At about that time Tasper Britt started proceedings to foreclose a couple of mortgages. The debtors despondently declared that they would not attempt to redeem the property; they told Britt that he could have it for what he could get out of it. The usurer tried to show disinclination to take over real estate in Egypt, but he did not make a very good job of the pretense. He had the air of a man who expected to be obliged to tussle for something, but had had the something dropped into his grasp when he merely touched the holder's knuckles.
Britt had a map of the town in his office desk. He began to color sections with a red crayon. According to Mr. Britt's best judgment in the matter, he was in a fine way to own a whole town--a barony six miles square--at an extremely reasonable figure. From the selectman down, nobody seemed to feel that Egypt property was worth anything. As to beginning suits against the town, nobody felt like paying lawyers' fees and piling up costs. It was like tilting against a fog bank. And in a veritable fog bank of doubt and despair the unhappy Egyptians wandered around and around.


CHAPTER XXII
THE TAUT STRING SNAPS
Frank Vaniman's mother was allowed to visit him once a month at the prison. She was not present at his trial. She had respected his earnest wishes in that matter.
When she came to him she smiled--she did not weep. When she smiled he wanted to weep. He realized how much that display of calm courage was costing Martha Vaniman. He remembered how bravely and steadfastly she had brought that same heroine's quality to the support of his father when she had taken Frank with her to the prison; they used to walk in through the gloomy portal hand in hand, and, though her face was serene, her throbbing fingers told him what her heart was saying to her.
Her husband had thankfully accepted that little fiction of her fortitude; her son, under like circumstances, did the same. Between mother and son, as between husband and wife, was the bond of an implicit faith in the innocence of the accused. Love was not shamed, no matter how the outside world might view the matter.
The prison warden was a fat man, full of sympathy. He gave the mother and son the privileges of his office, and to those reassuring surroundings the mother brought Frank's sister on one of the regular visits.
After Mr. Wagg's guile gave Vaniman his outdoor job, the mother brought Anna each month, for the school vacation season was on. The sun was bright out there in the yard. One could look up into the fleecy clouds, over the walls, and forget the bars and the armed guards.
In fact, one day, Anna's ingenuous forgetfulness of the true situation provoked real merriment for the little party--Guard Wagg included. Anna surveyed apprehensively several particularly villainous-looking barrowmen who passed and expressed the devout hope that Frank always saw to it carefully that he locked his bedroom door nights.
Before all the zest of that joke had evaporated, Mrs. Vaniman departed; it was a part of her helpful tact in alleviating the grievous situation in which Frank was placed. She always came with the best little piece of news she could provide for the meeting; for the parting she reserved a bit of a joke.
Mr. Wagg chuckled for a long time after the visitors went away. Gradually his face became serious. "Of course, I have to sit here and listen to what's said, because that's my duty. But, as I have told you before, all family matters simply pass into one ear and out of the other."
"I'm mighty grateful for the way you have treated us," said Vaniman.
"The fact that we haven't done business as yet hasn't changed me--never will change me. That mother of yours is so fine a woman that she deserves every favor that I can grant her, for her own sake. And, she being so fine a woman, I was sorry to hear what you wormed out of her this day--that she has gone back to work in the store again."
"It was the one big happiness in my life in Egypt, Mr. Wagg, to feel that at last my mother was having the little rest and comfort that she deserved. I used to look ahead to the time when I could give her what I was able to give her while I was at work. I had a dreadful struggle with her, getting her to leave her work. The only way I ever did get around her was to complain that she was spoiling my prettiest dream by staying in the store. And now it's all to do over again. I haven't even the realization of the dream to help me here."
"It's tough--realizing what you could do if you had the chance, and not being able to do it," averred Mr. Wagg. He lighted his pipe and slid off his stool. "A woman earning her living these days has to do a terrible lot of hard work in seven years."
And having, after his usual custom, lighted a fire under the kettle, Mr. Wagg went to a distance and allowed the contents to boil.
The contents did boil that day, when Vaniman had an opportunity to do some concentrated thinking.
That morning he had received his weekly letter from Vona. She confessed to him that for some weeks she had refrained from telling him that Tasper Britt was a member of the household. She explained under what circumstances Britt was there and what her attitude was and would continue to be. She had not written anything about the matter, she said, on account of her anxiety to keep petty troubles and worries away from one who was suffering from such cruel injustice. But now that her father had gone away for an indefinite stay, leaving Britt as general guardian, she wrote to Vaniman to anticipate any rumors which might reach the young man from another quarter.
She did not state that this intrusion by Britt into her home was perpetual persecution where she was concerned; Vaniman felt that she did not need to say so. His imagination pictured the situation. He had become morbid. He admitted it, but he could not help himself. He had done his best to keep his judgments sane and his hopes untarnished. But he was judging Britt by what Britt had already done, and he was in a mood to believe that Britt would be able to go ahead and accomplish a lot more in the way of hideous deviltry. The thought of Britt in that house--a girl there with no other protection than the presence of a silly mother--made for agony of apprehension that was excruciating.
One of his most precious dreams had just melted into drab reality--his mother was compelled to go back to her toil.
His other dream--the one that was consoling him through the dreary wait of seven years behind bars--was threatened by the malevolence of a man who was showing himself to be a veritable fiend in his machinations.
Vaniman put some questions to himself. Who on God's green earth had a more imperious call to be out--to be free to fight for himself and the innocent? Would not a lie be holy if it should open prison doors and allow a guiltless man to go forth and battle with the guilty? Did not the end justify all the means? The state had declared that his liberty must be forfeited. Had the state the right to take away his reason? Vaniman told himself that he was on the straight road to lunacy.
He leaped up, in the frenzy of his determination forgetting that there were preliminaries yet to be attended to.
"Sit down there, Convict Two-Seven-Nine, or I'll bore ye!" bawled Guard Wagg, with a mighty volume of tone. A deputy warden was crossing the yard. He flourished a commendatory salute to the vigilant warder.
"Good stuff, Bart! Always on your job, eh?"
"Always!" agreed Mr. Wagg.
The warden went on his way and the guard marched to the convict with a manner which expressed a determination to give No. 279 an earful. He stood over Vaniman, who had dropped back to the chair, and the two of them swapped stares.
"I want to get out--I want to get out!" whimpered Vaniman.
Mr. Wagg nodded.
"What must I do?"
"Whack up with me--fifty-fifty. Haven't I told you times enough?"
"But, I mean, what must I do to help?"
"I don't need any of your help. I only want you to say that you'll lead me to that money."
Vaniman drew a deep breath. "I will lead you to that money."
"Some men would make you swear that you know just where the coin is," proceeded Wagg. "But I'm playing my own hunch in this thing on that point. Furthermore, I have talked with a chap named Bixby." He looked hard at the ex-cashier. "Bixby tied your little game into knots, didn't he?"
Vaniman admitted that fact by a rueful sag