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It would have been to pay for stepping into Dick's place in the heart of a faithless girl. To hell with your job; I'm through with you!" And, leaping on his horse, Bud rode furiously back to rejoin Buck McKee in Florence. Jack Payson's purpose was now cinched to suppress Dick Lane's letter until Echo Allen was irrevocably joined to him in marriage.
"May it be long in coming!" uttered Tom devoutly. Then, as he turned about and saw scores of laborers coming in his direction, Reade remembered what he wished to do. "Mr. Hawkins," he continued, turning toward the superintendent, "I see that Mr. Payson's gang is coming in from work. As all our men are now idle, I wish you would direct the foremen to see that all hands assemble here.
I once know'd a boy just like you, an' he was put in jail for stealin'." "I ain't a-goin to stay and be jawed that way," said Sam. "You won't catch me pulling you out of a hole again. I wouldn't have you for a grandmother for all the world. Tom Baldwin told me, only yesterday, that you was always a-hectorin' him." Tom Baldwin was the son of Cynthy Ann, and consequently old Mrs. Payson's grandson.
Payson's umbrella and knocked it out of her hand. The old lady fancied herself hit, and fell backward, kicking energetically, and screaming "murder" at the top of her lungs. The musket had done double execution. It was too heavily loaded, and as it went off, 'kicked, leaving Pomp, about as scared as the old lady, sprawling on the ground.
"Another year, and I'll defy the unruliest animals in the settlement to steal an ear of corn or a potato from my lot." Summer had now faded into late autumn, and one day the farmer, who had charge of the field, called at Mr. Payson's, looking very dejected. "Elder," said he, "our farming this year is going to be losing business." "Why, what's the matter?" asked the clergyman.
Payson's father had bequeathed seventy-six hundred dollars to his three cousins and their children, and everything else he had left to his son. Payson rapidly computed that after settling the bills against the estate, including that of Tutt & Tutt, he would probably get at least sixty thousand out of it.
The corn grew to a prodigious height, crowded with mammoth ears, and the wheat emulated the corn; while the squash and pumpkin vines conducted as if on a race to see which would beat in the number and size of their fruit; and Mr. Payson's pet sorghum a species of sugar-cane shot up to a marvellous perfection.
These thoughts obtruded themselves upon Payson's attention when he least desired it, but they did not cause him to alter his intention to get his hooks into his father's whole residuary estate and keep it for himself. He had, you observe, a conscience, but it couldn't stand up against twenty-five thousand dollars reinforced by perfectly sound legal arguments.
"We hain't got to the scalpin'-part yet, but we're fixin' to dance off Payson's scalp to-night." Peering at him with near-sighted eyes, Mr. Price extended his hand, saying: "Ah, Mr. Hoover, our sheriff, is it not?" Slim wrung the parson's hand until the preacher winced. Hiding his discomfort, he slowly straightened out his fingers with a painful grin.
Red Payson's grip on Lane's arm told what that scene meant to him. How pitiful the vain effort of Blair's people to hide their horror! Presently mother and sister and women relatives fell aside to let the soldier boy meet his father. This was something that rang the bells in Lane's heart. Men were different, and Blair faced his father differently.