“Mebbe he knows, Dave,” said Mrs. Cullom softly.
“Mebbe he does,” assented David in a low voice.
Neither spoke for a time, and then the widow said: “David, I can’t thank ye ’s I ought ter—I don’t know how—but I’ll pray for ye night an’ mornin’ ’s long ’s I got breath. An’, Dave,” she added humbly, “I want to take back what I said about the Lord’s providin’.”
She sat a moment, lost in her thoughts, and then exclaimed, “Oh, it don’t seem ’s if I c’d wait to write to Charley!”
“I’ve wrote to Charley,” said David, “an’ told him to sell out there an’ come home, an’ to draw on me fer any balance he needed to move him. I’ve got somethin’ in my eye that’ll be easier an’ better payin’ than fightin’ grasshoppers an’ drought in Kansas.”
“Dave Harum!” cried the widow, rising to her feet, “you ought to ’a’ ben a king!”
“Wa’al,” said David with a grin, “I don’t know much about the kingin’ bus’nis, but I guess a cloth cap ’n’ a hoss whip ’s more ’n my line than a crown an’ scepter. An’ now,” he added, “ ’s we’ve got through ’th our bus’nis, s’pose you step over to the house an’ see Polly. She’s expectin’ on ye to dinner. Oh, yes,” replying to the look of deprecation in her face as she viewed her shabby frock, “you an’ Polly c’n prink up some if you want to, but we can’t take ‘No’ fer an answer Chris’mus day, clo’es or no clo’es.”
“I’d really like ter,” said Mrs. Cullom.
“All right then,” said David cheerfully. “The path is swep’ by this time, I guess, an’ I’ll see ye later. Oh, by the way,” he exclaimed, “the’s somethin’ I fergot. I want to make you a proposition, ruther an onusual one, but seein’ ev’rythin’ is as ’tis, perhaps you’ll consider it.”
“Dave,” declared the widow, “if I could, an’ you ast for it, I’d give ye anythin’ on the face o’ this mortal globe!”
“Wa’al,” said David, nodding and smiling, “I thought that mebbe, long ’s you got the int’rist of that investment we ben talkin’ about, you’d let me keep what’s left of the princ’pal. Would ye like to see it?”
Mrs. Cullom looked at him with a puzzled expression without replying.
David took from his pocket a large wallet, secured by a strap, and, opening it, extracted something enveloped in much faded brown paper. Unfolding this, he displayed upon his broad fat palm an old silver dime black with age.
“There’s the cap’tal,” he said.
XXI
John walked to the front door with Mrs. Cullom, but she declined with such evident sincerity his offer to carry her bundle to the house that he let her out of the office and returned to the back room. David was sitting before the fire, leaning back in his chair with his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets. He looked up as John entered and said, “Draw up a chair.”
John brought a chair and stood by the side of it while he said, “I want to thank you for the Christmas remembrance, which pleased and touched me very deeply; and,” he added diffidently, “I want to say how mortified I am—in fact, I want to apologize for—”
“Regrettin’?” interrupted David with a motion of his hand toward the chair and a smile of great amusement. “Sho, sho! Se’ down, se’ down. I’m glad you found somethin’ in your stockin’ if it pleased ye, an’ as fur’s that regret o’ your’n was concerned—wa’al—wa’al, I liked ye all the better for’t, I did fer a fact. He, he, he! Appearances was ruther agin me, wasn’t they, the way I told it.”
“Nevertheless,” said John, seating himself, “I ought not to have—that is to say, I ought to have known—”
“How could ye,” David broke in, “When I as good as told ye I was cal’latin’ to rob the old lady? He, he, he, he! Scat my ⸻! Your face was a picture when I told ye to write that note, though I reckon you didn’t know I noticed it.”
John laughed and said, “You have been very generous all through, Mr. Harum.”
“Nothin’ to brag on,” he replied, “nothin’ to brag on. Fur ’s Mis’ Cullom’s matter was concerned, ’twas as I said, jes’ payin’ off an old score; an’ as fur ’s your stockin’, it’s really putty much the same. I’ll allow you’ve earned it, if it’ll set any easier on your stomach.”
“I can’t say that I have been overworked,” said John with a slight laugh.
“Mebbe not,” rejoined David, “but you hain’t ben overpaid neither, an’ I want ye to be satisfied. Fact is,” he continued, “my gettin’ you up here was putty consid’able of an experiment, but I ben watchin’ ye putty close, an’ I’m more’n satisfied. Mebbe Timson c’d beat ye at figurin’ an’ countin’ money when you fust come, an’ knowed more about the pertic’ler points of the office, but outside of that he was the biggist dumb-head I ever see, an’ you know how he left things. He hadn’t no tack, fer one thing. Outside of summin’ up figures an’ countin’ money he had a faculty fer gettin’ things t’other-end to that beat all. I’d tell him
