Pulp - Argosy.18.03.16.His Unluckiest Wife - Raymond S. Spears (pdf) Read online

  Argosy, March 16th, 1918

  OLD Jeff Tavell had money. He had grubbed rabbit at least knows how to run away.

  for more than forty years. He had traded in Old Jeff’s first wife had been a plain, lands; had laughed at smart Alecks who sensible and ambitious woman who drudged offered him new boots and easy-chairs for him into the beginnings of his fortune and coal and iron and timber tracts; had bought then died; his second wife had been proud, fat and sold craftily, with an eye on the real and forty; his third wife came from almost values. Among his own people he played for quality folks; and then he turned to look at little profits.

  Tessile.

  The old skinflint pretended that he

  “It ’d be a shame to take her to his old couldn’t see well enough to read coarse print, shack,” people declared instantly. “Old Jeff’s and some people believed him, till they signed so mean he’s proud of living humble an’ poor written contracts with him and watched the an’ killin’ off his wives by poverty.”

  contracts developed. Drill Wister, the There was a sharp rivalry for a little storekeeper at the ford, dickered with him while between old Jeff and Arden Trense for once, and Wister received two hundred dollars the favor of Tessile. Old Jeff did not have a against old Jeff’s nine thousand dollars at the chance so far as the girl was concerned; but completion of a land bargain.

  with the girl’s father old Jeff was winner, with Every few years old Jeff’s wife would

  Arden nowhere. The only people who favored die, and he would marry again.

  Arden for Tessile were the several broods of After his third wife died, he rode down Tavell children, who hated to see a young wife to Quinn Nurming’s and saw that Tessile interposed between them and their hopes of Nurming was good to see—a pretty brown-fortune.

  eyed girl with a plump little body—who could Quinn Nurming could have no choice,

  have learned spunk from a rabbit because a in one way. He had two thousand acres of

  Argosy

  2

  land, grown to woods in one part, cropping That’s what I paid fo’ you, an’ you ain’ wuth coal in another part, running wild to a great nothin’—settin’ aroun’, not liftin’ yo’ hands.

  orchard in another section—all kinds of If yo’ was the kind of a wife my fust one was, wealth, but no market anywhere! The yo’d be woth yo’ keep, but yo’ ain’t a quality mortgage held by old Jeff was a dead load, woman. Yo’ ain’t as proud as a buziard, yo’

  and the interest piled up with all the ain’t.”

  relentlessness of a mathematical

  Tessile tried to make believe that his demonstration.

  way of talking was a fond kind of swearing, So old Jeff carried the girl out of the and she smiled under his taunting. She kept old home mansion, where it was comfortable the house the best she could, but she had at least, and put her down in the big barn of a neither the strength nor the knowledge to log-cabin up Tavell Run, in a clearing that was make an old, dusty log-cabin comfortable and surrounded on all sides by wilderness. The clean and attractive. The moment she mopped clearing was run to weeds and brush and the floor, old Jeff would come stumping in, pastured mules and horses which old Jeff his leather boots clotted with yellow clay, just traded—he was no farmer, just a trader of to let her know that in his own house he’d do anything.

  as he pleased.

  There he left her while he went away

  Old Jeff’s thin lips would break into a on long trading trips, swapping mules, horses, horizontal grin, his little slit-brown eyes land, timber, and anything that people would would glitter humorously, his voice would rise trade in. Commonly he made money—people in a shrill cackle, as he ordered her to pull his said he could trade a live mule for a dead one muddy boots off for him; and he took delight and make a profit on the boot.

  in letting the boot go so that she would tumble So he traded a good mortgage for a

  over backwards with her feet in the air at the pretty wife and good luck followed Quinn sudden release.

  Nurming’s release. Nurming had hardly made But Tessile was not unloved.

  the exchange when a railroad passed through Arden Trenae loved her, and he was

  his big land tract and developed a market for tall and slim and blue-eyed—shiftless, people all his fruit. He sent down a hundred tons of said, from the day he was born. He lived in the coal a month; coal that chemistry people had mountains, almost anywhere. He knew a

  to have, and paid double rates for.

  thousand caves in which to sleep; he would Thereafter, Nurming sneaked little oust rattlesnakes from their dens—he dwelt in comforts up to his daughter in the clearing abandoned cabins and swung his twine-cabin—shoes and dresses, jewelry and other hammock on the crests of mountains and by things—and old Jeff bragged around that he the side of pools in streams.

  had got a good wife for nothing and didn’t Yet, starting with nothing at all but his have to support her, either, which he said was shiftlessness, he learned all about birds, a big relief for a poor man. But to his wife he beasts, plants, rocks, and trees. He cluttered used the mean, slighting, stinging language of his mind up with all kinds of useless things, the bully that he was, his scraggly goatee and in spite of the blight upon him, he went jerking as he spoke.

  down to Richmond, Norfolk, Wheeling,

  “Yo’s shore a costly bit of baggage!”

  Lexington, Louisville, and got to know more he sneered. “Costin’ me a sight an’ a heap!

  quality people than ever entered the

  Hadn’t be’n fo’ you, I’d had that Nurming mountains! It was said that people actually place an’ made a hundred thousand dollars!

  paid to hear Arden Trense talk; could anything

  His Unluckiest Wife

  3

  be more ridiculous than that?

  look’t the money we’ll make? You sell it for He began to be a lucky “wild man,”

  fifty thousand dollars; you do that, thaw’s big too. He bought a little piece of land, all stone money into it!”

  and cliffs and without a timber-stick on it

  “What would you do about it?” Trense

  People were amazed when they learned that asked Mrs. Tavell before the fireplace one the stone was marble, and that it was worth noon.

  forty thousand dollars instead of the four

  “She’d do same’s I would!” old Jeff

  hundred dollars which Trense paid for it.

  exclaimed savagely, as the young woman With all that money, no one knew hesitated. “Wouldn’t you, Tessile?”

  what the man did with it. He still lived out in

  “Oh, yes,” she hastened to say.

  the mountains, still wandered around with a

  “Well, perhaps I’d better think about

  pack on his back, like a pedler, looking at it,” Arden hesitated.

  birds through glasses and taking photographs Old Jeff, with his evil scheme made

  of squirrels, and pheasant, and blue jays.

  up, saw how the land lay. He sent his wife out He swung far and wide through the

  into the smoke-house after a ham for dinner, mountains, but often he crossed the waters of and then followed immediately. A few

  Tavell Run. Old Jeff, hearing that he had forty minutes later Tessile returned alone. Old Jeff thousand dollars, tried to get acquainted with had gone up to corn his horses and mules.

  him, and suggested that they go into a deal

  “It would make it easier for me if

  together—buy a tract of land and then sel
l it to you’d go in with—him.” she said to the visitor some of those rich folks down in directly. “But I think he ’lows to skin you Piedmontaine country, or down the Ohio alive!”

  River.

  “I’ll do it—for your sake!” Trense

  “What do ye say?” old Jeff coaxed.

  exclaimed. “You know what I’d do for you.”

  “Look’t the money there’s in it? You know

  “Oh, I know. If I—if we could of

  the land I mean—the Cool Spring tract! known before!”

  There’s ten thousand acres into it, an’ me’n

  “He treats you mean?”

  you’ll take it at thirty thousand dollars, eh?

  “’Specially when he’s be’n down to

  You sell it at five an acre, eh?”

  the forks.”

  Arden shook his head. He would not

  “Noman’s

  cabin?”

  think of it, he said. He didn’t believe he could

  “Yes.”

  sell it; he admitted, though, that perhaps he Old Jeff entered, and a little later they could. For months Old Jeff coaxed and sat down to dinner. After dinner the old man persuaded. He argued the question in season asked:

  and out; he invited Arden to his cabin to talk it

  “You ’n’ me better go partners into

  over. The young man accepted the invitation that.”

  with alacrity. Old Jeff brought the question up

  “All right,” Arden assented. “I think

  at the ford store. He saw only the chance to it’s a good chance. Only I couldn’t sell it for make money.

  more than fifty thousand dollars, probably not Old Jeff had a mortgage on the land

  more than forty thousand dollars.”

  and a half-interest besides. The other half was

  “You’ll ’gree to sell hit fo’ forty-five owned by Mrs. Crume. He had an option on thousand dollars?” old Jeff asked casually.

  her share for five thousand dollars.

  “Not more’n forty thousand dollars.”

  “Y’ see, you put in fifteen thousand

  “All right; that’s ten thousand to split dollars for half-int’rest. an’ I’ll have half, an’

  between us.”

  Argosy

  4

  Then they sat down and drew up a

  you a lot of money to build down theh.”

  contract, by the terms of which Arden Trense This further evident of her

  bought a half-interest in the Cool Spring tract thoughtfulness awakened a keener

  for fifteen thousand dollars.

  appreciation in his mind.

  Old Jeff, for his part, agreed to sell I can afford to be plumb generous to

  Trense the half-interest and retain a half-any one that’s wuth forty thousand dollars into interest himself.

  one bargain to me. Hue-e! I bet young

  The contract further stipulated that Trense’ll sweat raisin’ taxes onto that land.”

  Arden Trense should find a purchaser of the Old Jeff went up and down, bragging

  land who would pay forty thousand dollars for about the dicker he had made and telling how it “or relieve party of the first part within six he had taken care of Arden Trense’s forty months of his holdings in same.” Old Jeff was thousand streak of luck. It was the most the party of the first part. They rode down to profitable deal old Jeff had ever put through; the ford to find a justice of the peace to act as and as the months went by without any sign of notary and witness the agreement.

  a prospective purchaser, though Trense went When the agreement had been made

  down into the valleys several limes, old Jeff and old Jeff and Arden had put their copies grew more and more contented.

  into their pockets, old Jeff grinned:

  “He shore takes that Cool Spring tract

  “Hit’s what I call a fust-class bargain, off’n my hands,” he declared.

  suh!”

  He went frequently down to Noman’s

  “So do I,” Arden admitted, and he rode cabin, in the forks of Tavell Run and the river.

  away.

  There he played poker and drank moonshine When the young man was up the road,

  with several cronies. While he was gone his old Jeff turned to the justice:

  wife would sit beside the fireplace and poke

  “Theh! I sold that danged ole Cool

  the coals and wood with her andirons.

  Spring tract fo’ forty thousand dollars, an’

  To the clearing, on such nights. Arthur hit’s wuth about ten—twelve thousand, sho.

  Trense would come and creep up to the cabin, No timber, an’ nothin’ but graze lands!”

  where he could lurk in the dark, as though he

  “Suppose he doesn’t find a buyer?”

  would guard the woman from any fear. A

  “He’s found one already. Look ’t that!

  strange fatality pursued the dogs that old Jeff

  ‘Or relieve party of first part within six liked to have around. Their stark figures months of his holdings in same.’ Plain’s day!

  would be found around the cabin.

  If he don’t sell hit, he buys hit hisse’f!”

  The noise of the falling run resounded Old Jeff cackled his delight. He rode

  through the silences of the little clearing in the away, and prepared all the papers and valley. Mrs. Tavell sat beside the fire-Place, in performed his end of the bargain to the last the shadow under the mantel. Just her knees, dot. Moreover, he was so pleased with his with her hands on them, and the drape of her wife’s persuading Arden to part with the forty skirt showed that she was there. It was a blue thousand-dollar marble-quarry money that he skirt, and it hung straight, clean and promised to build her a new house down at the unrumpled. It hung with style, and it was ford, on a school lot he owned.

  pretty.

  “Yo’ got a good business hand on

  If she knew that Arden Trense lurked

  yo’!” he declared proudly, for after all his wife without she did not show it. If she wondered was making money for him.

  in his presence what killed old Jeff’s favorite

  “Neveh mind!” she told him. “It’d cost dogs, she asked no questions.

  His Unluckiest Wife

  5

  Then one night three masked men rode

  briefly.

  down to the cabin and started toward it. They

  “Sho?” grinned old Jeff, “come in an’

  stopped to whisper half-way up to the cabin, set by the fiah to be warm.”

  near the spring-house.

  Old Jeff would talk no business till

  “Vassuh,” one said, “she knows where

  after they had eaten dinner, and Arden Trense that ole scoundrel keeps his money. We got to did not press the subject. Immediately after put her feet in the fiah if she don’t tell.”

  dinner, however, old Jeff took the matter up.

  At that moment three red flashes

  “So now yo’all’ve to beg aroun’ an’ git spurted from the spring-house, and the three out ’a’ hit?” he asked. “Yo’ ’low you made a robbers fell upon their faces. Old Jeff, riding po’r bargain an’ yo’ want to git out ’n’ hit?

  up in the small hours of the morning, heard Sho,yo’’ ’low to crawl an’ squirm; I ’low some one groaning, and found the three, two we’ll live by the contract, suh!”

  dead and one begging for a chance to tell what

  “I thought we might extend it.” Trense he knew. This one was Terry Temple, who suggested, a look of surprise and hidden anger had fallen into bad company.

  coming to his face.

  He told old Jeff just what had

  Old Jeff saw the anger.

  happened and admitted that they had planned

  “My boy, I ’lowed I’d git that forty

  to burn the woman’s feet to make her te
ll thousand, an’ ’cordin’ to the contract, I got where the money was.

  hit!”

  “But she didn’t know,” old Jeff

  “Yes, I suppose so; I suppose I’ll have exclaimed. “Who shot yo’?”

  to take the tract, if that’s what you figured

  “Hit were some feller stopped into the on,” Trense admitted.

  spring-house to take a drink,” Temple

  “Then yo’ll pay up that forty thousan’

  whimpered, and then choked to death.

  yo’ got fo’ yo’ marble tract?” old Jeff grinned Old Jeff’s neighbors had their eagerly.

  suspicions, but not old Jeff. The robber had

  “Oh, if you want it thataway.”

  told him how it happened, and he was

  “Then yo’ didn’t find anybody to buy

  satisfied. He boasted more than a little about hit?”

  the luck that saved him from having a crippled

  “No; not yet.”

  wife.

  “Time’s up to-morrow!” old Jeff

  “Course, she didn’t know where I had

  declared sharply.

  my loose money,” he declared. “I ain’ so

  “If that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll keerless as all that. Women is awful light-take it over to-morrow,” Trense remarked.

  fingered, when they knows where money is.”

  “Yo’ betteh!” Old Jell sniffed. “Hit’ll The incident taught him nothing. He

  teach yo’ a lesson about bargains, suh—an’

  went, if anything, more frequently to Noman’s contracts. If yo’ am’ got a buyer fo’ hit to-cabin in the forks to play cards and drink morrow yo’ take that land, suh, an’ I take the moonshine. It left his wife to face such terrors money—forty thousand dollars!”