Hustler Joe, and other stories

Prologue

A TOY horse or a raspberry-tart is not often responsible for the loss of a life, but a suc¬ cession of toy horses, raspberry-tarts, and whatever else the heart of a small boy craved, given in reckless abandonment of superfluity, was cer¬ tainly responsible for the wilfulness in the character of Paul Weston; and the wilfulness, in turn, was responsible for the quarrel.

At twenty he was a restless, impulsive, goodnatured, broad-chested, strong-limbed young fellow, the adored of his mother and the pride of his father. And yet it was over the prostrate form of this same father that he now stood—the crack of the revolver still ringing in his ears, the weapon still clutched in his hand.

Was the man dead? But a minute before he had been speaking; now there was a fast-growing pool of something dark and horrible on the floor at his side.

Paul Weston brushed the back of his left hand across his eyes and looked down at the still smoking revolver. Had his miserable temper brought him to this? His features worked convulsively and his eyes widened in horror. Throwing the revolver from him to the farthermost corner of the room, he turned and fled.

Out the door, through the gate, and down the long street of the little New England village he ran. It was dusk, but he stumbled as though it were the darkness of midnight.

The neighbors looked and wondered at the fleeing figure, but only their eyes spoke disapproval. If Paul Weston chose to use the main street of the village as a race-course, it was not for them to inter¬ fere—they knew him too well. The town fool alone ventured to accost him.

“Hi, there—go it! What’s after ye?” he shouted; but the jeering words and the vacant smile died on his lips at sight of the face Paul turned upon him.

Down the street, across the open field, and over the fence at a bound—surely the friendly shelter of the woods receded as he ran! But his pace did not slacken even in the dense shadows of the forest. On and on, stumbling, falling, tearing his flesh, and his clothing on the thorns and brambles until, ex¬ hausted, he dropped on a grassy mound, miles away from that dread thing he had left behind him.

The wind sighed and whispered over his head. Weston had always loved the sound, but tonight it was only an accusing moan in his ears. Even the stars that peeped through the leaves above were like menacing eyes seeking out his hiding-place.

An owl hooted; Weston raised his head and held his breath. Then through the forest came the bay¬ ing of a distant hound. The man was on his feet in an instant. Something tightened in his throat and his heart-beats came in slow, suffocating throbs. He knew that sound! They sought for—murderers with creatures like that! With a bound he was away on his wild race again. Hours later, the gray dawn and his nearness to a small village warned him to move more cautiously.

All that day he tramped, without rest, without food, reaching at night the seaport town that had been his goal. Skulking through the back streets he came to a cheap eating-house down by the wharves.

The odor of greasily fried meats and bad coffee floated out the open door, causing Weston to sniff hungrily. In a moment he had thrown caution to the winds, entered the restaurant and slunk into the nearest seat.

By his side lay a discarded newspaper. He reached for it with a shaking hand, then snatched his fingers back as though the printed sheet had scorched them. No, oh, no—he dared not look at it! His mind’s eye pictured the headlines, black with horror: murder! parricide! the fiend still at large!

He pushed back his chair and rushed from the room. An hour later he had shipped as a sailor on a vessel bound for San Francisco around Cape Horn.

Chapter I

T HE cracker-barrels and packing boxes that usually served for seats in Pedler Jim’s store were, strange to say, unoccupied. Bill Somers, sole representative of “the boys,” sat cross-legged on the end of the counter, meditatively eyeing a dozen flies that were buzzing happily around a drop of molasses nearby. Pedler Jim himself occupied his customary stool behind the counter.

It was ten years now since the little hunchback pedler first appeared in Skinner Valley. He came from no one knew where, driving a battered and worn horse attached to a yet more battered and worn pedler’s cart. The horse had promptly taken ad¬ vantage of the stop in the village, and by dying had made sure of never leaving the place for the weari¬ some trail again. The miners say that the night the old horse died, its master patted and stroked the poor dead head until it was cold and stiff, and that morning found him fondling the useless reins with his shriveled, misshapen fingers.

The next day he bartered for a tiny piece of land fronting the main street. When he had wheeled his old cart into proper position upon it, he busied him¬ self some time with a bit of board and a paint pot, finally producing a rough sign bearing the single word “Store.” This creation he nailed with much satisfaction upon the front of the dashboard, then sat down on one of the thills to wait for a customer. Perhaps it was the oddity of the thing; or perhaps 12 there was something in the deformed little body that appealed to the strong-limbed, straight-backed miners; or perhaps it was the wonderful knowledge of healing herbs and soothing lotions that Pedler Jim possessed—perhaps it was a little of all three. At all events, the new store prospered amazingly so that in a year its owner bought more land, trundled the old cart to the rear, and erected a small cabin on his lot. This, in turn, gave place to a good-sized frame building bearing the imposing gilt-lettered sign:

JAMES A. POWERS,

Skinner Valley Emporium.

The Hunchback rolled this high-sounding title under his tongue with keen relish, but it was still “the store” to the boys, and its owner was only “Pedler Jim.”

Bill Somers shifted his position on the end of the counter and poked a teasing finger at the agitated mass of wings and legs around the molasses drop. The storekeeper grinned appreciatively and broke the silence:

“Say, who’s yer new man?”

“Blest if I know.”

“Well, he’s got a name, hain’t he?”

“Mebbe he has—then again, mebbe he hadn’t.”

“But don’t ye call him nuthin’?”

“Oh, we call him 'Hustler Joe’; but that ain’t no name to hitch a grocery bill on to—eh, Jim?”

The little hunchback slid from his stool and brought his fist down hard on the counter.

“That’s jest the point! He don’t git much, but what he does git he pays fur—spot cash. An’ that’s more’n I can say of some of the rest of ye,” he added, with a reproachful look.

Bill laughed and stretched his long legs.

“I s’pose, now, that’s a dig at me, Jim.”

“I didn’t call no names.”

“I know yer lips didn’t, but yer eyes did. Say, how much do I owe, anyhow?”

With manifest alacrity Jim darted over to the pine box that served for a desk.

“There ain’t no hurry, Jim,” drawled Somers, with a slow smile. “I wouldn’t put ye out fur nothin’!”

The storekeeper did not hear. He was rapidly turning the greasy, well-thumbed pages of the account book before him.

“It’s jest twenty dollars and fourteen cents, now, Bill,” he said, his brown forefinger pausing after a run down one of the pages. “Ye hain’t paid nothin’ since Christmas, ye know,” he added significantly.

“Well,” sighed Bill, with another slow smile, “mebbe ’twouldn’t do no harm if I ponied up a bit!” And he plunged both hands into his trousers’ pockets.

Pedler Jim smiled and edged nearer, while Bill drew out a handful of change and laboriously picked out a dime and four pennies.

“There!” he said, slapping the fourteen cents on the counter, “now it’s even dollars!”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Pedler Jim, turning his back and walking over to the window.

Somers looked after the retreating figure, and a broad smile lighted up his round red face. Slipping his hand inside his coat he pulled out a roll of green¬ backs. In another minute the fourteen cents lay neatly piled on top of two ten-dollar bills. The man hastily slipped into his old position and coughed meaningly.

“Ye don’t seem pleased/’ he began.

The hunchback did not stir.

“Mebbe ye don’t want my money/’ hazarded the miner.

No answer.

“Oh, well, I can take it back,” and Somers shuffled noisily oft his seat.

Pedler Jim wheeled about and came down the store with his small black eyes blazing.

“Jiminy Christmas, man! If ye ain’t enough ter try out a saint! I’m blest if I can git mad at ye, though, fur all yer pesterin’ ways. Now what in

thunder-” The storekeeper’s jaw dropped, and

his mouth fell open idiotically as his eyes rested on the greenbacks. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he mur¬ mured again, and clutched the money in his claw¬ like fingers.

At that moment the outer door opened to admit a tall, broad-shouldered miner wearing a slouch hat well over his eyes. In a trice Pedler Jim was the obsequious merchant behind the counter.

The newcomer gave his order in a low voice and stood motionless while the hunchback busied himself in filling it.

“Anything else?” suggested Jim wistfully, as he pushed a small package toward him.

“Oh, I guess that’ll do for this time,” returned the man, picking up his purchase and motioning toward a dollar bill on the counter.

Pedler Jim looked up quickly and something like tenderness came into his eyes.

“I—guess you’re from Yankee-land, stranger; shake, won’t ye?” he said, thrusting his hand across i6 the counter. “Gorry! but it's prime good ter see a good old New Englander among all dagoes and Dutchmen and the Lord only knows what else here. Bill an’ me was gittin’ lonesome—I’m glad ye come!”

At Jim’s first words the stranger had stepped back, but the outstretched hand had brought him to the counter again, and he gave the brown fingers a grip that made the little hunchback wince with pain. But Pedler Jim’s welcome was scarcely spoken before the man had turned and disappeared through the door.

“Well, I snum! I should think he was ‘Hustler Joe’!” murmured Jim. “If he didn’t even hustle off and leave his change,” he added, looking help¬ lessly at the dollar bill on the counter.

Somer’s laughed.

“Hustle!—you’d oughter see him at the mines! why, that man works like all possessed. He don’t speak nor look at a soul of us ’nless he has to. If there’s a chance ter work extry—he gits it; an’ he acts abused ’cause he can’t work every night and Sundays to boot. Gosh! I can’t understand him,” finished Bill, with a yawn and a long stretch.

“That ain’t ter be wondered at—’tain’t ‘Hustler Bill’ that the boys call you,” replied Jim, a sly twinkle in his beady little eyes.

Somers sprang to his feet and towered over the little hunchback, his fist raised in pretended wrath

“Why don’t ye take a feller yer own size?” he demanded.

The hunchback chuckled, dove under the upraised arm, and skipped around the room like a boy. An encounter, like this was meat and drink to him^and the miners good-naturedly saw that he did not go hungry.

Somers shook his fist at the curious little creature perched on the farthermost cracker-barrel and slouched out the door.

Chapter II

S KINNER VALLEY did not know very much about Hustler Joe. Six weeks ago he had appeared at the Candria coal mine and asked for work. Since that time he had occupied an old shanty on the hillside—a shanty so helpless in its decrepitude that it had long been abandoned to bats and owls. Hustler Joe, however, had accomplished wonders in the short time he had lived there.

It was a popular belief in the town that the man never slept. Stray wanderers by the shanty had reported hearing the sound of the hammer and saw at all hours of the night. Outside the shanty loose timbers, tin cans, rags, and refuse had given way to a spaded, raked and seeded lawn. The cabin itself, no longer broken-roofed and windowless, straightened its back and held up its head as if aware of its new surroundings.

This much the villagers could see; but inside it was still a mystery, for Hustler Joe did not seem to be hospitably inclined, and even the children dared not venture too near the cabin door.

It was vaguely known that the man had come over the mountains from San Francisco, and with that the most were content. Keen eyes and ears like Pedler Jim’s were not common in the community, and the little hunchback’s welcome to the man be¬ cause he came from “Yankee-land” was not dup¬ licated.

Hustler Joe had not been in the habit of frequent- 18 ing the store. His dollar bill was in Pedler Jim’s hands a week before the disturbed storekeeper had an opportunity of handing back the change. The miner had forgotten all about the money and had wandered into the store simply because each stick and stone and dish and chair at home was in its place and there was absolutely nothing for his nervous fingers to put in order.

Joe pushed open the door of the “emporium,” then halted in evident indecision. A dozen miners were jabbering in half as many languages over by the stove, huddled around it as though the month were January instead of June, and the stove full of needed heat instead of last winter’s ashes. Bill Somers lolled on the counter, and Pedler Jim was bowing and scraping to a well-dressed stranger whose face Joe could not see.

The miner had half turned to go when Pedler Jim’s sharp eyes fell upon him. In another moment the hunchback was by his side thrusting some change into his fingers.

“You forgot it, ye know—when ye bought them nails,” he said hurriedly; then added, “why don’t ye come in and set down?”

For a second Joe hesitated; then he raised his head with a peculiarly defiant up-tilting of his chin, and strolled across the room to an unoccupied cracker-barrel behind the gesticulating miners. Pedler Jim went back to his customer.

“You won’t find a better smoke within fifty miles!” he said pompously, giving the box of cigars on the counter a suggestive push.

The well-dressed man gave a disagreeable laugh.

“Well, that’s hardly saying very much, is it?” he questioned.

At the stranger’s first words Hustler Joe glanced up sharply. His fingers twitched and a gray look crept around the corners of his mouth. The room, the miners, and Pedler Jim seemed to fade and change like the dissolving pictures he used to see when a boy. A new England village street drifted across his vision with this well-dressed stranger in the foreground. He could even see a yellow-lettered sign out one of the windows:

GEORGE L. MARTIN,

Counselor at Law

Then it all faded into nothingness again—all save the well-dressed stranger in the tall black hat. In another minute the jabbering miners, Bill Somers, and the obsequious hunchback were in their old places, and Pedler Jim was saying:

“Jest try ’em, an’ see fur yerself.”

“All right, I’ll take you at your word,” laughed the stranger, picking out a cigar and leisurely strik¬ ing a match. “It’s a pity you can’t have a few more languages going it here,” he added, throwing the dead match on the floor and glancing at the group around the stove. “I suppose Barrington employs mostly foreigners in the mines, eh?”

The hunchback thrust his brown fingers through his hair and made a wry face.

“Foreigners!” he exclaimed. “I was bom and raised in the state of Maine, an’ if it wa’n’t fur Bill Somers—he’s from York State—to talk God’s own language to me once in a while, I’d ’a’ gone daft long ago!”

“You hav’n’t anyone here at the works from New

England, then, I take it, eh?” he asked, with studied carelessness.

A smile crept up from Pedler Jim’s mouth and looked out of his twinkling eyes.

“Well, we have-” he began, then his eyes sud¬

denly lost their twinkle as they encountered the despairing appeal from beneath Hustler Joe’s slouch hat. “We have—been wishin’ there would be some,” he finished after the slightest of hesitations. “We’ve got everythin’ else under the sun!”

Bill Somer’s long legs came down from the counter abruptly.

“Why, Jim, there’s Hustler Joe—ain’t he from New England?”

The hunchback’s little beany eyes turned upon Somers and looked him through and through with¬ out winking.

“Hustler Joe came over the mountains from San Francisco, I have heard,” he said blandly.

“Oh, so he did—so he did!” murmured Somers, and sauntered out the door.

The man on the cracker-barrel over in the corner pulled his hat down over his eyes and sank back into the shadows.

“Well,” said the stranger, tossing a bill and a white card on the counter, “put me up a dozen of those cigars of yours, and there’s my card—if you l^tppen to know of any New Englanders coming to Wiese parts, just let me know at that address, will you? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Very good, sir, very good,” murmured Pedler Jim, making a neat package of the cigars. “Thank you, sir,” he said suavely, holding out the change and glancing down at the card; “thank you, Mr.— er—Martin.” And he bowed him out of the store.

One by one the miners went away; still the figure on the cracker-barrel remained motionless. When the last jabbering foreigner had passed through the door, Hustler Joe rose and walked across the room to the pine box where the storekeeper was bending over his account-book.

“See here, little chap,” he began huskily, “that was a mighty good turn you did me a bit ago—just how good it was, I hope to God you'll never know. What you did it for is a mystery to me ; but you did it—and that’s enough. I sha’n’t forget it!”

Something splashed down in front of Pedler Jim, then the outer door slammed. When the hunchback turned to his accounts again a blot and a blister dis¬ figured the page before him.

CHAPTER in

J OHN BARRINGTON, the principal owner of the Candria mine, did not spend much of his time in Skinner Valley. Still, such time as he did spend there he intended to be comfortable. Indeed, the comfort of John Barrington—and incidentally those nearest and dearest to him—was the one thing in life worth striving for in the eyes of John Bar¬ rington himself, and to this end all his energies were bent.

In pursuance of this physical comfort, John Bar¬ rington had built for his occasional use a large, richly fitted house just beyond the unpleasant smoke and sounds of the town. A tiny lake and a glorious view had added so materially to its charms that the great man’s wife and daughter had unconsciously fallen into the way of passing a week now and then through the summer at The Maples, as it came to be called in the family—“Skinner Valley” being a name to which Miss Ethel’s red lips did not take kindly.

Mr. Barrington’s factotum-in-chief at the mines, Mark Hemenway, lived at the house the year round. He was a man who took every possible responsibility from his chief’s shoulders, and was assiduous in respectful attentions and deferential homage when¬ ever the ladies graced the place with their presence.

To Ethel this w T as of little consequence, as she paid no more attention to him than she did to the obsequious servant behind her chair; but to Mrs. 23

Barrington he was the one drawback to complete enjoyment of the place.

Mark Hemenway was a man of limited means, but of unlimited ambitions. Every day saw him more and more indispensable to his comfort-loving em¬ ployer, and every day saw him more and more de¬ termined to attain to his latest desire—nothing less than the hand of this same employer’s daughter in marriage.

In a vague way Mrs. Barrington was aware of this, though Hemenway was, as yet, most circum¬ spect in his actions. Mrs. Barrington was greatly disturbed, otherwise she would not have ventured to remonstrate with her husband that Sunday after¬ noon.

“My dear,” she began timidly, “isn’t there any other—couldn’t Mr. Hemenway live somewhere else —rather than here?”

Her husband turned in his chair, and a frown that Mrs. Barrington always dreaded appeared between his eyebrows.

“Now, Bess, why can’t you leave things all com¬ fortable as they are? I like to have you and Ethel here first rate, but I don’t see why you think you must upset things when you stay only five minutes, so to speak.”

“I—I don’t mean to upset things, John, but—I don’t like him!” she finished in sudden asperity.

“Like him! My dear, who expected you to? No¬ body supposes he is one of your palavering, tea¬ drinking members of the upper ten! He isn’t polished, of course.”

“Polished! He’s polished enough, in a way, but —I don’t like the metal to begin with,” laughed Mrs. Barrington, timidly essaying the joke.

Her husband’s frown deepened.

“But, Bess, don’t you see? I must have him here —it’s easier for me, lots easier. Why can’t you let things be as they are, and not bother?” he urged in the tone of a fretful boy.

Mrs. Barrington knew the tone, and she knew, too, the meaning of the nervous twitching of her hus¬ band’s fingers.

“Well, well, John,” she said, hastily rising, “I won’t say anything more,” and the door closed softly behind her.

As she passed through the hall she caught a glimpse of Ethel and her friend starting for a walk, and the strange unlikeness of the two girls struck her anew. Just why Ethel should have chosen chosen Dorothy Fenno for a week’s visit to The Maples, Mrs. Barrington could not understand. Perhaps it would have puzzled Ethel herself to have given a satisfactory reason.

Ethel Barrington had met Dorothy Fenno the winter before on a committee connected with a fashionable charity, and had contrived to keep in touch with the girl ever since, though the paths of their daily lives lay wide apart.

“She is mixed up with ‘settlement work’ and ‘relief bands,’ and everything of that sort,” Ethel had told her mother; “but she’s wonderfully interesting and —I like her!” she had finished almost defiantly.

The girls leisurely followed a winding path that skirted the lake and lost itself in the woods beyond. They had walked half an hour when they came to the clearing that commanded the finest view in the vicinity.

Ethel dropped wearily to the ground and, with her chin resting in her hand, watched her friend curiously.

“Well, my dear girl, you-”

“Don't—don't speak to me!" interrupted Dorothy.

Ethel Barrington bit her lips; then she laughed softly and continued to watch the absorbed face of her companion—this time in the desired silence. By and bye Dorothy drew a long breath and turned to her.

“Isn't it beautiful!" she murmured reverently.

Miss Barrington gave a short laugh and sat up.

“Yes, very beautiful, I suppose; but, do you know, I've seen so much I'm spoiled—absolutely spoiled for a scene like that? I'd rather look at you—you are wonderfully refreshing. I don't know another girl that would have snapped me up as you did a minute ago."

“Indeed, I beg your pardon," began Dorothy in distress.

“Don't!" interrupted her friend with a petulant gesture; “you’ll be like all the rest if you do."

“But it was very rude," insisted Dorothy earn¬ estly. “A view like this always seems to me like a glorious piece of music, and I want everything quiet as I would if I were hearing a Beethoven symphony, you know. That is why I couldn't bear even the tones of your voice—but it was rude of me, very."

Ethel sighed, and fell to picking a daisy to pieces.

“I used to feel that way, once," she said; “I did, really."

“I haven’t a doubt of it," replied Dorothy, with a smile.

“But I don't any more!"—the daisy was tossed aside.

“No; I’m like a five-year-old that’s had too much candy, I suppose. I’ve seen the Alps and the Rockies, the Rhine and the St. Lawrence; and yet, the first time I looked at that view I felt just as you did. But now-!”

“You need something outside yourself to give zest to your life, my dear,” said Dorothy, her eyes on the town below.

Ethel looked at her narrowly.

“Now see here, my dear, I love you—and you know it, but I just can’t stand any of that old settlement talk!”

“I never said settlement,” laughed Dorothy, her eyes still on the straggling cottages.

“I know, but—well, I just simply can’t! How in the world you stand those dismal sounds and sights and—and smells,” she added, with a grimaee, “I don’t understand.”

“I suppose the miners live in those cottages,” mused Dorothy aloud, as though she had not heard.

“I suppose so,” acquiesced Ethel indifferently. “Others live over the hill in Westmont.”

“They don’t look as though they’d be very com¬ fortable,” continued Dorothy softly.

“Oh, I don’t know; people like that don’t mind such things, I fancy.”

“Did you ever ask them?”

Ethel looked up in quick suspicion, but Dorothy’s face was placid.

“Of course not! How silly!”

“Suppose you do, sometimes,” suggested Dorothy, quite as a matter of course.

“I thought that was what you were coming to!” flashed Ethel. “My dear girl, you have no idea what those miners are,” she continued in a superior tone. “In the first place, I don’t think there is one of them that understands a word of English, and I’d be afraid to trust my life anywhere near them.”

“But the women and the little children—they wouldn’t hurt you. Isn’t there something you could do for them, dear?” urged Dorothy.

A rumble of thunder brought the girls to their feet before Ethel could reply, and a big storm-cloud coming rapidly out of the west drove the whole thing from her mind.

“Quick—we must run! ” she exclaimed. “We can’t reach home, but there’s an old shanty just behind those trees over there. No one lives in it, but ’twill give us a little shelter, maybe,” and in another minute the girls were hurrying down the hill. Big drops of rain and a sharp gust of wind quickened their steps to a run.

Had Ethel not been running with her head bent to the wind she would have noticed the changed appearance of the shanty to which they were hasten¬ ing. But as it was, she rushed blindly forward, up the steps, and pushed open the door, Dorothy close to her side. Once across the threshold she stopped in amazement, while Dorothy dropped breathlessly into the nearest chair.

Chapter IV

T HE tiny room was exquisite in its orderly neat¬ ness. The furniture was of the plainest, but bore an air of individuality. On one side was a case of books, and the mantel above the fireplace was decorated with quaint curios and beautiful shells.

A shadow fell across the floor.

“A nearer view might the better satisfy your curiosity, madam,” said a voice from behind Ethel.

Ethel turned sharply to find herself face to face with a man in the rough garb of a miner. The man’s eyes looked straight into hers without flinching.

“I said that a nearer view might the better satisfy your curiosity in regard to my poor possessions,” he repeated.

“Yours?” she stammered, a look of repulsion com¬ ing into her eyes.

The look and the shrinking gesture were not lost on Hustler Joe. His eyes darkened. His broad shoulders bent in a mocking bow and his right hand made a sweeping flourish.

“Mine, madam; but consider them yours until the storm is over. I’ll not intrude”—and he was gone.

A flare of lightning and a deafening report made his exit wonderfully dramatic to Dorothy. The rain was falling in torrents, too—a fact which suddenly occurred to Ethel. For a moment she hesitated; then she sped through the door, overtook and con¬ fronted the miner

“Go back instantly!” she commanded. “If—if you don’t, I shall start for home in all this rain!”

The words were scarcely spoken before the man had turned and was hurrying her back to the house. Once inside there was an uncomfortable silence. Dorothy came to the rescue.

“I’m afraid you thought we were unpardonably rude,” she began pleasantly. “You see we were caught by the shower and my friend thought no one was living here; otherwise, we would not have so unceremoniously taken possession.”

“No, of course not,” murmured Miss Barrington constrainedly, going over to the window and looking out at the swaying trees.

Hustler Joe made a dissenting gesture.

“Say no more: you are quite welcome,” he replied, going over to the fireplace and touching a match to the light wood ready placed for a fire. “It will take the dampness out of the air, and—of your garments,” he added, with a furtive glance at the tall figure in the window.

“Thank you, you are very kind,” said Dorothy, drawing nearer. The movement brought her close to the mantel, and she picked up one of the shells. “Did you gather these yourself?” she asked, won¬ dering at the light that leaped into his eyes at the question.