Here Mrs. Means stopped to rake a live coal out of the fire with her skinny finger, and then to carry it in her skinny palm to the bowl—or to the hole—of her cob pipe. When she got the smoke a-going, she proceeded:
“You see, this yere bottom land was all Congress land11 in them there days, and it sold for a dollar and a quarter, and I says to my ole man, ‘Jack,’ says I, ‘Jack, do you git a plenty while you’re a-gittin’. Git a plenty while you’re a-gittin’,’ says I, ‘fer ’twon’t never be no cheaper’n ’tis now,’ and it ha’n’t been; I knowed ’twouldn’t,” and Mrs. Means took the pipe from her mouth to indulge in a good chuckle at the thought of her financial shrewdness. “ ‘Git a plenty while you’re a-gittin’ says I. I could see, you know, they was a powerful sight of money in Congress land. That’s what made me say, ‘Git a plenty while you’re a-gittin’.’ And Jack, he’s wuth lots and gobs of money, all made out of Congress land. Jack didn’t git rich by hard work. Bless you, no! Not him. That a’n’t his way. Hard work a’n’t, you know. ’Twas that air six hundred dollars he got along of me, all salted down into Flat Crick bottoms at a dollar and a quarter a’ acre, and ’twas my sayin’ ‘Git a plenty while you’re a-gittin’ ’ as done it.” And here the old ogre laughed, or grinned horribly, at Ralph, showing her few straggling, discolored teeth.
Then she got up and knocked the ashes out of her pipe, and laid the pipe away and walked round in front of Ralph. After adjusting the chunks12 so that the fire would burn, she turned her yellow face toward Ralph, and scanning him closely came out with the climax of her speech in the remark: “You see as how, Mr. Hartsook, the man what gits my Mirandy’ll do well. Flat Crick land’s wuth nigh upon a hundred a’ acre.”
This gentle hint came near knocking Ralph down. Had Flat Creek land been worth a hundred times a hundred dollars an acre, and had he owned five hundred times Means’s five hundred acres, he would have given it all just at that moment to have annihilated the whole tribe of Meanses. Except Bud. Bud was a giant, but a good-natured one. He thought he would except Bud from the general destruction. As for the rest, he mentally pictured to himself the pleasure of attending their funerals. There was one thought, however, between him and despair. He felt confident that the cordiality, the intensity, and the persistency of his dislike of Sis Means were such that he should never inherit a foot of the Flat Creek bottoms.
But what about Bud? What if he joined the conspiracy to marry him to this weak-eyed, weak-headed wood-nymph, or backwoods nymph?
If Ralph felt it a misfortune to be loved by Mirandy Means, he found himself almost equally unfortunate in having incurred the hatred of the meanest boy in school. “Hank” Banta, low-browed, smirky, and crafty, was the first sufferer by Ralph’s determination to use corporal punishment, and so Henry Banta, who was a compound of deceit and resentment, never lost an opportunity to annoy the young schoolmaster, who was obliged to live perpetually on his guard against his tricks.
One morning, as Ralph walked toward the schoolhouse, he met little Shocky. What the boy’s first name or last name was the teacher did not know. He had given his name as Shocky, and all the teacher knew was that he was commonly called Shocky, that he was an orphan, that he lived with a family named Pearson over in Rocky Hollow, and that he was the most faithful and affectionate child in the school. On this morning that I speak of, Ralph had walked toward the school early to avoid the company of Mirandy. But not caring to sustain his dignity longer than was necessary, he loitered along the road, admiring the trunks of the maples, and picking up a beechnut now and then. Just as he was about to go on toward the school, he caught sight of little Shocky running swiftly toward him, but looking from side to side, as if afraid of being seen.
“Well, Shocky, what is it?” and Ralph put his hand kindly on the great bushy head of white hair from which came Shocky’s nickname. Shocky had to pant a minute.
“Why, Mr. Hartsook,” he gasped, scratching his head, “they’s a pond down under the schoolhouse,” and here Shocky’s breath gave out entirely for a minute.
“Yes, Shocky, I know that. What about it? The trustees haven’t come to fill it up, have they?”
“Oh! no, sir; but Hank Banta, you know—” and Shocky took another breathing spell, standing as dose to Ralph as he could, for poor Shocky got all his sunshine from the master’s presence.
“Has Henry fallen in and got a ducking, Shocky?”
“Oh! no, sir; he wants to git you in, you see.”
“Well, I won’t go in, though, Shocky.”
“But, you see, he’s been and gone and pulled back the board that you have to step on to git ahind your desk; he’s been and gone and pulled back the board so as you can’t help a-tippin’ it up, and a-sowsin’ right in ef you step there.”
“And so you came to tell me.” There was a huskiness in Ralph’s voice. He had, then, one friend in Flat Creek district—poor little Shocky. He put his arm around Shocky just a moment, and then told him to hasten across to the other road, so as to come back to the schoolhouse in a direction at right angles to the master’s approach. But the caution was not needed. Shocky had taken care to leave in that way, and was altogether too cunning to be
