David Harum | Page 3

no such idee," he replied, with a slight smile, aware of what
was passing in her mind. "What put that in your head?"
"Wa'al," she answered, "you know the' ain't scarcely anybody in the
village that takes boarders in the winter, an' I was wonderin' what he
would do."
"I s'pose he'll go to the Eagle," said David. "I dunno where else, 'nless
it's to the Lake House."
"The Eagil!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "Land sakes! Comin' here
from New York! He won't stan' it there a week."
"Wa'al," replied David, "mebbe he will an' mebbe he won't, but I don't

see what else the' is for it, an' I guess 'twon't kill him for a spell The
fact is--" he was proceeding when Mrs. Bixbee interrupted him.
"I guess we'd better adjourn t' the settin'-room an' let Sairy clear off the
tea-things," she said, rising and going into the kitchen.
"What was you sayin'?" she asked, as she presently found her brother in
the apartment designated, and seated herself with her mending-basket
in her lap.
"The fact is, I was sayin'," he resumed, sitting with hand and forearm
resting on a round table, in the centre of which was a large kerosene
lamp, "that my notion was, fust off, to have him come here, but when I
come to think on't I changed my mind. In the fust place, except that he's
well recommended, I don't know nothin' about him; an' in the second,
you'n I are pretty well set in our ways, an' git along all right just as we
be. I may want the young feller to stay, an' then agin I may not--we'll
see. It's a good sight easier to git a fishhook in 'n 'tis to git it out. I
expect he'll find it putty tough at first, but if he's a feller that c'n be
drove out of bus'nis by a spell of the Eagle Tavern, he ain't the feller
I'm lookin' fer--though I will allow," he added with a grimace, "that it'll
be a putty hard test. But if I want to say to him, after tryin' him a spell,
that I guess me an' him don't seem likely to hitch, we'll both take it
easier if we ain't livin' in the same house. I guess I'll take a look at the
Trybune," said David, unfolding that paper.
Mrs. Bixbee went on with her needlework, with an occasional side
glance at her brother, who was immersed in the gospel of his politics.
Twice or thrice she opened her lips as if to address him, but apparently
some restraining thought interposed. Finally, the impulse to utter her
mind culminated. "Dave," she said, "d' you know what Deakin Perkins
is sayin' about ye?"
David opened his paper so as to hide his face, and the corners of his
mouth twitched as he asked in return, "Wa'al, what's the deakin sayin'
now?"
"He's sayin'," she replied, in a voice mixed of indignation and

apprehension, "thet you sold him a balky horse, an' he's goin' to hev the
law on ye." David's shoulders shook behind the sheltering page, and his
mouth expanded in a grin.
"Wa'al," he replied after a moment, lowering the paper and looking
gravely at his companion over his glasses, "next to the deakin's
religious experience, them of lawin' an' horse-tradin' air his strongest
p'ints, an' he works the hull on 'em to once sometimes."
The evasiveness of this generality was not lost on Mrs. Bixbee, and she
pressed the point with, "Did ye? an' will he?"
"Yes, an' no, an' mebbe, an' mebbe not," was the categorical reply.
"Wa'al," she answered with a snap, "mebbe you call that an answer. I
s'pose if you don't want to let on you won't, but I do believe you've ben
playin' some trick on the deakin, an' won't own up. I do wish," she
added, "that if you hed to git rid of a balky horse onto somebody you'd
hev picked out somebody else."
"When you got a balker to dispose of," said David gravely, "you can't
alwus pick an' choose. Fust come, fust served." Then he went on more
seriously: "Now I'll tell ye. Quite a while ago--in fact, not long after I
come to enjoy the priv'lidge of the deakin's acquaintance--we hed a
deal. I wasn't jest on my guard, knowin' him to be a deakin an' all that,
an' he lied to me so splendid that I was took in, clean over my head, he
done me so brown I was burnt in places, an' you c'd smell smoke 'round
me fer some time."
"Was it a horse?" asked Mrs. Bixbee gratuitously.
"Wa'al," David replied, "mebbe it had ben some time, but at that
partic'lar time the only thing to determine that fact was that it