The Mortgage Comes Due.

On the first of October—at least so they said back at The Gore—Nick Perkins was to take over as his own the Cameron farms at The Front.

Since the flight of Barbara early in September Perkins had patrolled the roadway almost daily, surveying from his wagon, as was his custom, the home of Laughing Donald. Then continuing his round of inspection, he would ride along past the farm at The Nole. There at the closed gate, mute but defiant, guarding the house like a faithful dumb animal in the absence of his master, Perkins found Andy’s Dan each time that he passed.

The cool evenings of the approaching Autumn had broken up the meetings of the Gossip Club before the smithy, but the depression weighing upon the sympathizers of their luckless neighbors at The Front was like the ominous quiet preceding a storm which leaves disaster and despair in its wake.

Angus Ferguson had frequently lent a helping hand in the putting away of the Winter’s supply up at Laughing Donald’s, and of late the silence existing between Davy the blacksmith and Bill Blakely, and their intense thoughtfulness whenever they met at the shop, was proof positive to the observer that they understood that the responsibility of averting the approaching trouble to their neighbor—which was also an indignity aimed at the clans at The Front—devolved wholly upon them. As the days passed the confident look on the face of Perkins so asserted itself that at length while passing the shop he stared into the blackness of the open door with the insinuating smile of the hypocrite. Davy watched him from the grimy window nearest the forge, and by one of his severe quieting looks he persuaded Bill Blakely to let him drive on unmolested. After Perkins and his cream-colored nag had disappeared up the roadway along The Front, Bill walked uneasily around the shop, kicking about the floor the loose horse-shoes and fire tongs lying at the foot of the anvil. Davy glanced at his friend over the steel rims of his spectacles, awaiting an expression on the subject each had silently argued for weeks, as he rounded the while on the anvil’s arm the curve of a shoe to fit the farm horse lazily resting in the corner. During the last minute before leaving Davy, the frowning wrinkles in the face and forehead of Old Bill had disappeared, and encountering the smith as he carried in the tongs, grasping by the red hot toe cork the shoe to fit to the mare in the corner, his lips were copiously moistened from the weed to which he was a pronounced slave. His goatee was moving rapidly up and down, and Davy halted, for he knew a decision had been reached.

“To-morrow is the last day, Davy,” said Bill. “I’ll be on my way to the town in the morning. If there’s no news from Andy Cameron it won’t take you long to tell it to me when I’m passing.” Then he looked Davy straight in the eye, winked his own blue eyes a few times, drew out from his trousers pocket the plug of chewing tobacco, and was gone in an instant. Davy made no remark to the neighbor who was the onlooker at this little episode, the termination of a month of silent conferences held between these two men, sturdy types of rural loyalty.

“I thought Bill would do it,” mused the smith to himself. “He’s got the heart, and a whole lot of other things that the people round here don’t know much about. But Bill knows I know it, and that’s why he’s been a-hanging around here a-wantin’ of me to say something. But I knowed he’d say it all right,” and in his pleasure Davy hammered the nail-clinches with double energy into the hoofs of the docile mare.

Next morning, before the rays of the Autumn sun had changed the whiteness of the hoar frost, shining like a coat of silver upon the shingled roofs of the buildings, and covering with a mantel of gray the green shrubbery and grass by the roadside, the smith unlocked the door to his place, and stepped within its darkness. At the same early hour, coming along by the cheese factory, down the side hill and through the hollow, then over the plank bridge which crossed the whey-tainted creek, the innocent cause of so much contention, now past the store at the four corners, steadily there sounded in the early morning quiet the echoing thump, thump, thump of the tread of Old Bill’s cowhide boots on the hard roadbed. Davy recognized the step as it came nearer. Now it was past the wheelwright’s place—he could see his old friend in the roadway.

“He’s not a-goin’ to stop,” thought Davy, but when nearly up to the rise of ground just to the west of the shop, Bill half turned, and with his hands deep into his trousers pockets, the peak of his faded cloth cap pushed to one side, he stood half listening, half looking for a sign from Davy. Anticipating the man, the smith had in his characteristic way upon critical moments thrust his head around the side of the open door, and with a nod motioned Bill onward. There was no word from Cameron.

Later in the day, driving along the road which turned at the four corners into that which passed the smithy, was the familiar sight of Nick Perkins and his bob-tailed horse. He sat as usual upon the edge of the seat, his disengaged arm grasping the brace which formed its back. He had put on his Sunday coat, and as he passed the door of the shop Davy could see from his window by the forge the insolent smile of triumph which Perkins cast in his direction.

“When he meets Bill Blakely up there at the lawyer’s,” thought Davy, “perhaps he’ll change that smile.”