There Came a Check.
Lyman's book met with a favor that no one had ventured to forecast. It did not touch the public's fad-nerve; it was too close to the soil for that. It was so simple, with an art so sly, with a humor that, like an essence, so quietly stole the senses, that the reviewers did not arise in resentment against it. They had expected nothing and were surprised to find much. Worn out with heavy volumes from the pens of the learned and the pretentious, they seemed to find in this little book a rest, a refuge for reverie, cooled with running water and sheltered by leaves from the burning sun. And at night, when the author lay down to rest and to muse upon himself, his heart did not beat with the exultant throb of victory—it was full of a melancholy gratitude. One morning a letter startled him. It came from a great periodical and enclosed a check in payment for a serial story. It represented more money than he had ever hoped to possess; he called Warren, and handed him the piece of paper.
"I can hardly trust my eyes," he said. "What do you make of it?"
Warren flew into a fit of enthusiasm. "Five thousand dollars," he cried. "And it comes from the advertising the newspapers have been giving you. I want to tell you that advertising pays. Five thousand dollars, and it didn't take you more than six months to write the thing. Those fellows don't know whether it's good or not. All they know is that the newspapers have given your other story a send-off. Talk about newspapers; the first thing you know we'll have money enough to paper the town. But this is all yours. No matter, I'm as much interested as if it were mine. Say, let me have this check a minute. I want to go across the street and show it to a fellow and tell him to go to—He spoke of this office one day as Poverty's Nest. Let me take it over there."
"No," said Lyman, laughing, "but I'll tell you what you may do with it—take it over to the bank and deposit it in my name."
"But you'll have to come along and leave your signature."
"Is that the way they do? All right; but I don't want to see McElwin."
"That won't be necessary. But don't you think we'd better carry the check around town awhile before depositing it?"
"No, that would be silly."
"Silly! It would be business. You let me have it and I'll rake in fifty subscriptions before three o'clock. It's business."
"No, we'll go over and deposit it."
They went over to the bank, laughing like boys as they crossed the street. McElwin had not come down. The ceremony was conducted by the cashier, a humdrum performance to him, but to Lyman and Warren one of marked impressiveness. They returned to the office with the air of capitalists. At the threshold of the "sanctum" they met a man who wanted to subscribe for the paper. Warren took his name and his money, and when he was gone, turned to Lyman with a smile. "It has begun to work already. The news of the deposit has flashed around town and they are coming in for recognition. Oh, we're all right. Do you remember those cigars you brought from the moonlight picnic? I believe I'll go out and get some just like them. Why, helloa, here is our old friend."
Uncle Buckley was standing at the door. Lyman jumped up and seized the old fellow by the hand and led him to a chair. "Look out, Sammy," he said with an air of caution. "Don't shake me or you'll make me spill the things Mother has stuffed me with. These here are harvest apples," he went on, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his brown jeans coat and drawing forth yellow apples. "I'll jest put them here on the table. And here is an Indian peach or two, the earliest ones I ever saw. And look at this, a pone of cracklin' bread. Think of that, this time of year. The fact is we killed a shote the other day. Mother 'lowed you couldn't git any sich bread in town and a feller has to have somethin' to eat once in awhile. Now, I do wonder what this here is," he added, tugging at his pocket. "Well, if it ain't the thighs and the pully-bone of a fried chicken, I'm the biggest liar that ever walked a log. Oh, I'm full up. She got up before day, mother did, and stuffed me for an hour or more. Blamed if a peart youngster didn't yell, 'Hi, there, sausage,' as I come in town. Now, I'm blowed if I know what this is. Yes, sir, it's a pair of socks, knit under the light of a tallow candle without the drappin' of a stitch. Oh, it ain't no laughin' matter, boys; there ain't no fun in gettin' up at four o'clock of a mornin' to be stuffed, I tell you. Well, I reckon I'm reasonably empty now." He leaned back and looked at his cargo, arrayed upon the table.
"I'll hire a wagon and have these things taken over to the house," said Lyman. "You tell her, bless her old heart, that I'm coming out there pretty soon with enough stuff to smother both of you. Warren, get those cigars."
"Sure. Is there anything else we want? Uncle Buckley, don't you want something to drink?"
"Well, if you've got some right good buttermilk handy I mout take a glass. But I don't want no licker, young man. I never touched it but once, and then I swapped a fine young mare for an old mule, and I swore then that I'd never tech it again. Go on and get your segyars and I'll make a shift of burnin' one of 'em."
Warren went out. Lyman feasted his eyes on the old man. "How are they all, Uncle Buckley?"
"Jest about the same. Jimmy killed the biggest black snake yistidy—I think it was yistidy. Let me see. I know in reason it was yistidy, for I was a splittin' some wood when he fotch the thing along, draggin' it by the tail. Though that mout have been day before yistidy. I believe it was day before yistidy. Anyhow it was the biggist black snake ever killed out there since the war, but of course in my day they killed bigger ones. He found him out in a blackberry patch and mauled him to death. Oh, he was a snorter. That's about the biggest piece of news I've got. Let me see. Lige met a pole-cat somewhere in the woods and socity ain't been hankering after Lige since then. I seen him this mornin' as I was comin' in, and I yelled at him to keep his distance, and he did or I would have hit him. Yes, sir, I can't stand a pole-cat. You ricollect Mab Basey, I reckon. She run away with a feller that come to help cut wheat and they ain't seen her sense. Oh, he married her and all that, but they don't know where she is. Luke Brizentine didn't git over it."
"What, Mab's running away?"
"Oh, no, not that. Didn't I tell you? Why, Jeff Sarver filled him so full of shot that his hide looked like a nutmeg grater. Yes, sir. They got into a difficulty over a steer that had been jumpin' into a field, and he tried to stab Jeff and Jeff shot him. Made a good deal of a stir at the time and Luke didn't live but two days, but how he could live that long was more than we could see, and it caused a good deal of surprise. Now, wait a minit. It was day before yistidy that Jimmy killed the snake. Sammy, where is that man that was your partner?"
"He has an office on the other side of the square."
"Yes, but are you sure, Sammy, that he ain't your partner?"
"Absolutely certain, Uncle Buckley."
The old man scratched his head. "Sammy, that man ain't honest."
"I am quite sure of that."
"He has fotch it home to me that he ain't, Sammy. But I don't know that I ought to tell you about it; I reckon I ought to let it go. And still, it wouldn't be treatin' you exactly right. He is a forger, Sammy. Look at this."
He had taken out a pocket-book and from about it was unwinding a string, and when the string came off, he took out a piece of paper and handed it to Lyman. It was a note for one hundred dollars and appended were the names of John Caruthers and Samuel Lyman.
"Understand, Sammy, that I don't want you to pay it; I simply want you to know that the feller has used your name wrong."
"It is a forgery," said Lyman.
"Yes, that's what I have been believing for some time past, but I didn't say anything about it to mother. When you went out that day he comes to me and says, 'We must have a hundred dollars and though we don't like to do it we have to appeal to you. Lyman says that he hasn't the heart to ask, so he has put it off on me.' And so, I snatches out my wallet and lets him have the money. But I don't ask you to pay it, Sammy."
"Why, my dear old friend, do you suppose I would let you lose it? I can pay it without a flinch; more than that, if you are in need of money, I can let you have five times as much." He tucked the note into his pocket and took up his check-book.
"Why, Sammy, I don't know whuther to laugh or to cry or to holler when you talk like that. But I don't need no money, and especially none that you have raked together."
"But you must take this," said Lyman, handing him a check. "It's the first check I ever made out," he added, laughing.
"Then you ain't been rich very long, Sammy," said the old man, taking the piece of paper. "But you've writ this in jest like you are used to it. You can't write as well, however, as Blake Peel. I reckon he's the finest writer in this country. Why, he can make a bird with a pen, and it looks like it's jest ready to fly—he's teached writin' school all up and down the creek, and I reckon he's the best. But I'm sorry about this thing, and I don't feel like takin' it."
"You've got to take it."
"Then I must. But you know where it is any time you want it," he said, putting the check into his pocket. "And now, Sammy, what are you going to do with that feller? The note wasn't signed as a firm, but your names was put on individual, and as you didn't write your name he forged it. What are you goin' to do with him?"
"I don't know. Here comes Warren. Don't say anything more about it now."
Warren came in. "Uncle Buckley," said he, "here is a cigar that will make you forget your woes."
"Thank you, my son. I don't believe I've got time to smoke jest now. I'll take this thing home and crumble it up and mother and I will smoke it in our pipes."
Warren staggered. "Gracious alive, don't do that!" he cried.
"All right, my son, I'll set out on a stump and burn it in the moonlight, a thinkin' of you and Sammy. Well, I must be movin'. Good-bye, all han's, and ricollect that my latch-string hangs on the outside."
They shook hands affectionately, and then sat in silence, listening to his footsteps as he trod slowly down the stairs.
"Why don't you light your cigar?" Warren asked.
"I don't care to smoke just now," Lyman answered. "I have some business on the other side of the square."