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And I ain't goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's school never, no more!" "Young man," commanded his father, angrily, "you hold that tongue o' yourn. And you be perlite to your cousin, or I'll dance the dust out o' your jacket with a hick'ry sprout, big as ye be." Janice hastened to change the subject and tune the conversation to a more pleasant key. "It is so pretty all over this hillside," she said.
The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he boarded the stage, occupying so much space therein that a single fare failed utterly to show a profit to the stage line, and alighted at Bailey. He went directly to the store, where no one was to be found save sharp-featured Mrs. Bailey, wife of the proprietor. "Mornin', ma'am," said Scattergood, politely.
"Well, I have. Figgered a heap." "Any results, Scattergood?" "Some some." "What be they?" Scattergood's eyes twinkled in the darkness. "I got it all figgered out," he said, "that them young folks needs a dose of soothin' syrup." "I want to know," said the postmaster, breathlessly and with bewilderment. "Soothin' syrup! I swan to man!... Hain't been out in the heat, have you, Scattergood?"
All he might not be able to get, but he must have more than half and that half distributed strategically. It will be seen that Scattergood was content to wait. His motto was, "Grab a dollar to-day but don't meddle with it if it interferes with a thousand dollars in ten years." Scattergood's maps had been the work of two years.
Johnnie didn't see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object in a great many things that Scattergood undertook. It was not his business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood's directions. The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood's right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead.
He leaned over the railing as he said it, and the boy, regarding Scattergood's face a moment, arose and whisked into the next room. Shortly there appeared a youngish man, constructed by nature to adorn wearing apparel. "Be you Mr. Castle?" asked Scattergood. "I'm his secretary. What do you want?" "Young man, I'm disapp'inted.
In five years that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years it will be worth fifteen to twenty.... But if you want to buy to-day you can have it for three dollars through and through." "We've got to have it," said Crane, and Keith nodded. "Cash," said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood's.
There was excellent reason for this, because no such family as the Packinses existed in Bailey or anywhere else, to Scattergood's knowledge. "Goin' to separate," said Scattergood. Jed looked up quickly, bit his lip, and looked down again. "What fur?" he asked. "Nobody kin figger out. Jest agreein' to disagree. Can't git along, nohow.
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.
"I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said. "You kin," Scattergood replied. "Where is he?" "Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him." The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the scrutiny stopped.
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