In Pawn. Butler Ellis Parker
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chunk of lead. It was of a weight of some thirty pounds. Harvey knew it well. It had been his last purchase as a junkman, Lon bringing it to the yard in company with two boys known to Harvey only as Swatty and Bony. The chunk of lead should not have been at Moses Shuder’s feet; it should have been at the far end of the yard, where Lem had carried it.
“What you doin’ with that hunk o’ lead?” Harvey demanded.
“Misder Redink, please!” begged Shuder. “I want no trouble.”
“Then you take that chunk o’ lead back where you got it,” said Harvey, his face flushing. “I don’t sell you nothin’. I don’t sell nobody nothin’. I’m out o’ this junk business – ”
“Misder Redink, please!” begged Moses Shuder, more meekly than before. “I do not ask you to sell. Only my rights I ask it of any man. It is my lead. Misder Redink, please, I do not say you are a thief – ”
“Well, dod-baste you!” cried Harvey, swelling. “Zhust a minute, please, Misder Redink,” begged Shuder. “Mit my own money I bought this lead, I assure you, and put it in my junkyard, Misder Redink, but that I should get you arrested I never so much as gave it a thought, Misder Redink, believe me! Why should I, Misder Redink? Do I blame you? No! If your boy stoled it from me – ”
“What?” Harvey shouted, taking a step toward Shuder.
“Please, Misder Redink! Should I say it if I did not see it with my own two eyes? Climbing over my fence.”
“You’re a liar.”
Shuder shrugged his shoulders.
“No, Misder Redink; Rebecca could tell you the same story. I ain’t sore, Misder Redink. Boys would be boys, always. It is right I should watch my yard. But my lead is my lead, Misder Redink. That your boy Lemuel should steal it from me is nothing. But I should have my lead back, Misder Redink. Sure!”
Shuder put his hands on the chunk of lead. At that moment a vast and uncontrollable rage filled Harvey and he raised his fat hand and brought it down on Shuder’s hat, crushing it over his eyes. He grasped Shuder by the shoulders and ran him out of the yard, giving him a final push that sent him sprawling in the street.
Then, still raging, he turned while Shuder got to his feet. The spotted dog caught Harvey’s eye. He drew back his foot and kicked the dog, and the surprised animal yelped and leaped out of the yard and down the street.
“There, dod-baste you!” Harvey panted, shaking his fist at Shuder, who stood safely in the middle of the street. “That’ll show you! An’ don’t you or your dog ever come into this yard again or I ‘ll handle you worse, a big sight!”
Moses Shuder looked at his damaged hat. “Two dollars,” he said, and shook his head sadly. “But I should complain! What you do to me and my hat the law will take care of, and my lead the law will take care of, if you want it that way, Misder Redink, but that a man should kick a dog – ”
“An’ I ‘ll kick your dog out o’ this yard every time it comes in,” shouted Harvey.
Moses Shuder raised his hands.
“It is not my dog,” he said. “It is a stray dog.”
The saintly career of Saint Harvey, the “Little Brother to the Stray Dogs,” seemed to have begun inauspiciously.
CHAPTER IV
While Lorna Percy was in Susan Redding’s kitchen acting as a witness to the compact that placed Lem Redding in pawn to his aunt for a period that seemed likely to be extended indefinitely, another lady had come down the front stairs, and after greeting the young woman on the front porch, had occupied one of the chairs. This was Miss Henrietta Bates.
“I thought Lorna was here,” she said, as she seated herself. “Did n’t I hear her voice?”
“Miss Susan called her into the kitchen,” said the other. “I think she will be out in a moment.” Miss Henrietta held up an envelope.
“See what I’ve got?” she said, smiling.
“Not another letter from Bill?”
“Just that,” said Henrietta. “And the dearest letter! There’s a part I want to read to you and Lorna. I don’t bore you with my Bill, do I, Gay?”
“Bore? What an idea!”
“Sometimes I’m afraid I do. If it wasn’t that his letters are so intelligent. They don’t seem to me like ordinary love-letters. They don’t seem to you like the common wishy-washy stuff men write, do they?”
“Well, you know I have no experience in love-letters – ”
“Poor Gay!” said Miss Bates, and laughed. “But I do think I’m fortunate in having a man like Bill choose me, don’t you? I do wish he could come East this summer. I wish you and Lorna could meet him. He’s so – so different from the men here.”
The three, who had become close friends, were school teachers, and that was how two of them happened to be boarding at Miss Redding’s, which was an exceptionally pleasant boardinghouse. This was the third year Lorna Percy had boarded with Miss Redding. Miss Bates had a year more to her credit. Gay Loring lived at home, across the street, with her parents.
In their quiet, small-town lives the love-letters of Henrietta’s William Vane had been important events. William was the first and only man to propose to any one of the three, and although Gay and Lorna had never seen him they had seen his portrait and they had heard a vast amount about him. Henrietta spoke of her William Vane most frankly. She was evidently deeply in love with him.
Gay and Lorna were unequivocally glad on Henrietta’s account. Of Gay and Lorna it is enough to say here that they were still young and fresh and attractive. Of Henrietta it may be said that she was no longer quite young, but that she was still fresh and attractive. In many ways she was livelier than her two friends, and had as youthful manners. Although she was at least forty, she had never taken to the type of garb that a woman dons when she is willing to advertise the fact that her youth has fled. Nor had Henrietta Bates any great reason to advertise that. She was still vigorous and bright-eyed, not a gray hair was to be seen on her head, and her face was full and her complexion clear and pleasing.
When Lorna came from the kitchen, bringing young Lem, she noticed immediately the square envelope held by Henrietta.
“What, another?” she exclaimed eagerly. “Henrietta, you are the luckiest girl! What does Billy say this time?”
“I’m going to read part of the letter to you,” said Henrietta. “Sit down and be a good girl and listen. Who is the young man? Isn’t it Lemuel?”
“Yes, mam,” said Lem shyly. “I’m Lem.”
“He is going to live here now, too,” said Lorna gayly, “are n’t you, Lem?”
“Yes, mam.”
“So you see!” said Lorna, seating herself on the steps and drawing Lem down beside her. “You may not be the only one with a sweetheart, Henrietta. Lem is going to be mine, are n’t you, Lem?”
“I don’t know,” said Lem, with a boy’s diffidence.
“Oh, you must not say that. You must say, ‘I’d love to, Miss Percy.’ Only you must say, ‘I’d love to, Lorna.’ My name is Lorna. I’ll call you Lem and you ‘ll call me Lorna. Will you?”
“I don’t care.”
Gay erupted from her chair in a protesting billow of white and seated herself at Lem’s other side.
“Now, I’ll not stand for this at all, Lorna Percy!” she complained. “You shan’t kidnap him all for yourself. I have as much right to him as you have. You’ll be my sweetheart, too, won’t you, Lem?”
“Yes’m, I guess so.”
“There, you mean thing!” Gay laughed at Lorna. “You see! He’s as much mine as he is yours.”
It was pretty play and Lem did not mind