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The melancholy of the deserted home oppressed me, as though I had wronged it; the sad little house seemed to be watching me out of its humble windows, like a patient dog awaiting another blow. Beacraft's worn coat and threadbare vest, limp and musty as the garments of a dead man, hung on a peg behind the door.
"If I was you I wouldn't be much scared who I met on the way down to the Mallory place if I didn't meet too many of 'em at once," he said with a smile. "I I couldn't wear it there," Rathburn faltered. "Well, leave it hangin' on a handy peg, boy," said the old man cheerfully. Rathburn jammed the gun back into its holster and walked around to his horse.
The only door was in the upper story, and was reached by a flight of rickety steps. There was no sign of life about the place except sight of ill omen a large black cat, sitting on the topmost step. We thought of Uncle Roger's gruesome hints. Could that black cat be Peg? Nonsense! But still it didn't look like an ordinary cat. It was so large and had such green, malicious eyes!
I had to plod on all morning and again all afternoon until the Academy closed, to look at every picture before I could be sure which was the right peg or whether there might not be a dozen pegs and more. And I had to collect elaborate notes, not daring to trust to my memory alone, and after that to re-write pages that did not satisfy me.
The cabman was staring at her curiously, and Peg came back to consciousness of her surroundings with a little gasping laugh. She looked at Farrow. "He can't have come, after all," she said faintly. Farrow shrugged his shoulders. He was beginning to feel rather foolish. Peg spoke to him sharply. "Pay the man, and tell him to go. What's he think he's staring at?"
We wretched occupants of the King pew were concerned only with our own outraged feelings. "And there's Melita Ross," went on Peg. "She's got the same bonnet on she had last time I was in Carlisle church six years ago. Some folks has the knack of making things last. But look at the style Mrs. Elmer Brewer wears, will yez? Yez wouldn't think her mother died in the poor-house, would yez, now?"
The crux of the communication, like that of a school-girl's letter, comes last. If it reads "general market closed 1-8th penny up," the planter has visions of happiness and affluence, and forthwith orders a "peg." But if the postscript says "1-8th down," the young planter foresees nothing but disaster, and may consider levanting with the bags of rupees by the next steamer from Colombo.
The lumberman and insurance agent were away early; Sergeant Schaefer and Milo Strong followed them to the newspaper office very shortly; and the others sat out in front, watching the long shadows contract toward the peg that June had driven in the ground the day before at the line of ten o'clock. "Well, this is the day," said William Bentley. "What will you take for your chance, Doctor?"
A rope might have skeered me; but say, I don't keer that for landslips," and Nick snapped his fingers contemptuously. But Frank, who knew the sly cow puncher so well, believed that more or less of his indifference was assumed. "Well, I do!" declared Peg, with emphasis; "and if I'd only known about that sort of thing before, blessed if I'd a come.
On one side of the room were pegs for fifty-two boys' hats and clothes, and there was a boy's coat, of peculiar cut, hanging on a peg, with the number "50" in brass upon it. The coat looked ragged and shabby. An old school-book was lying on one of the desks, much tattered, and without a title; but it seemed to treat wholly of Saints' days and festivals of the Church.
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