PHILIP engaged a plumber from the nearest city and had one of his upper chambers transformed into a bath-room, and Caleb, by special permission, studied every detail of the work and went into so brown a study of the general subject that Philip informed Grace that either the malarial soaking, mentioned in Uncle Jethro's letter, had reached the point of saturation, or that the Confederate bullet had found a new byway in its meanderings.

But Caleb was not conscious of anything out of the usual—except the bath-room. By dint of curiosity and indirect questioning he learned that in New York Philip and his wife had bathed daily. Afterward he talked bathing with the occasional commercial travellers who reached Claybanks—men who seemed "well set up," despite some distinct signs of bad habits, and learned that men of affairs in the great city thought bathing quite as necessary as eating. He talked to Doctor Taggess on the subject, and was told in reply that, in the Doctor's opinion, cleanliness was not only next to godliness, but frequently an absolute prerequisite to cleanly longings and a clean life.

So one day, after a fortnight of self-abstraction, he announced to Philip that a bath-room ought to be regarded as a means of grace.

"Quite so," assented Philip, "but I wish it weren't so expensive at the start. Do you know what that bath-room, with its tank, pump, drain, etc., has cost? The bill amounts to about a hundred and fifty dollars, and it can't be charged to my account for six months, like most of our purchases for the store."

"That so?" drawled Caleb, carelessly, though in his heart he was delighted; for Philip had also engaged from the city a paper-hanger, and he had employed a local painter to do a lot of work; and Caleb, who knew the business ways of country stores, had trembled for the bills, yet doubted his right to speak of them. "Well, have you got the money to pay for it?"

"Yes, but not much more; and in the two weeks I've been here the store has taken in about forty dollars in cash."

"That's about it, I b'lieve. Well, realizin'-time is comin'; it's right at hand, in fact, an' I've wanted a chance to have a good long talk with you 'bout it. When I was a boy I used to lie on my back in the woods for hours at a time, catchin' backaches an' rheumatiz for the sake of watchin' the birds makin' their nests an' startin' their house-keepin'. Watchin' you an' your wife gettin' to rights has made me feel just like I did in them days—except for the backaches and rheumatiz. I wouldn't have pestered the birds for a hull farm, an' I hain't wanted to pester you, but the quicker you can give more 'tention to the business, the better 'twill be for your pocket."

"Why, Mr. Wright—"

"Call me Caleb, won't you? Ev'rybody else does, 'xcept you an' your wife, an' I can talk straighter when I ain't 'mistered.'"

"Thank you, good friend, for the permission. I'll take it, if you'll call me Philip."

"That's a bargain," said Caleb, with visible signs of relief. "Well, as I was sayin', the more time you can give the business, the better 'twill be for your pocket. Your uncle kept first place in this town an' county, an' you need to do the same, if you want to keep your mind easy about other things. I've said all sorts of good things about you to the customers, though I haven't stretched the truth an inch. They all think you bright, but you need to show 'em that you're sharp too, else they'll do their best to dull you. Business is business, you know; likewise, human nature's human nature."

"Correct! Go on."

"Well, I'm doin' my best to keep an eye on ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody, but I'm not boss. Besides, it took two of us to do it all when your uncle was alive, though he was about as smart as they make 'em. There's one thing you won't have no trouble about, an' that's beatin' down. This is the only strictly one-price store in the county, an' it saves lots o' time by keepin' away the slowest, naggiest traders. It might ha' kept away some good customers, too, if your uncle hadn't been a master hand at gettin' up new throw-ins."

"Throw-ins? What are they?"

"What? You brought up in the country, an' not know what a 'throw-in' is? Why, when a man buys somethin', he gen'rally says, 'What ye goin' to throw in?' That means, 'What are you goin' to give me for comin' here instead of buyin' somewhere else?' When it's stuff for clothes, there's no trouble, for any merchant throws in thread and buttons to make it up if it's men's goods, or thread an' hooks an' eyes if it's women's. Up at Bustpodder's store they throw in a drink o' whiskey whenever a man buys anythin' that costs a quarter or more, an' it draws lots o' trade; but your uncle never worked for drinkin' men's trade, unless for cash, so we've never kept liquor, but that made him all the keener to get other throw-ins. One year 'twas wooden pipes for men, an' little balls of gum-camphor for women. Then 'twas hair-ile for young men an' young women. Whatever 'twas, 'twas sure to be somethin' kind o' new, an' go-to-the-spotty. Shouldn't wonder if your wife, havin' been in a big store, might think of a lot o' new throw-ins for women-folks. But that's only a beginnin'."

"H'm! Now tell me everything I ought to do that I haven't been doing."

"Well, in the first place, when you meet a customer, you want to get a tight grip on him, somehow, 'fore he leaves. Then you want to get into your mind how much each one owes you, an' ask when he's goin' to begin to bring in his produce. None of the men on our books mean to be dishonest; but if you don't keep 'em in mind of their accounts at this time o' year, some of 'em may sell their stuff to somebody else for cash, an' country folks with cash in their pockets is likely to think more of what they'd like to buy than what they owe. I reckon, from some things I've heerd, that some city folks are that way too."

"Quite likely. Well?"

"Well, if say a dozen of your biggest country customers sell for cash an' don't bring you the money, you'll find yourself in a hole about your own bills, for some of your customers are on the books for three or four hundred apiece. Your uncle sold 'em all he could, for he knew their ways an' that he could bring 'em to time."

"H'm! Suppose they fail to pay after having been trusted a full year, isn't the law good for anything?"

"Oh, yes; but sue a customer an' you lose a customer, an' there ain't any too many in this county, at best. Now, your uncle made sure, before he died, about all of 'm whose principal crop was wheat; but the wheat's then brought in an' sold, an' most of the money for it, after his own bills were paid, was in the check the lawyers sent you. The rest of the customers raised mostly corn an' pork,—most gen'rally both, for the easiest way to get corn to market is to put it into pork; twenty bushels o' corn, weighin' over a thousan' poun's, makes two hundred pound o' pork, an' five times less haulin'; besides, pork's always good for cash, but sometimes you can't hardly give corn away. Queer about corn; lot's o' folks that's middlin' sensible about a good many things seems to think that corn's only fit to feed to hogs an' niggers. Why, some o' 'em's made me so touchy about it that I've took travellin' business men up into my room, over the store, an' give 'em a meal o' nothin' but corn an' pork, worked up in half a dozen ways, an' it seemed as if they couldn't eat enough, but I couldn't see that the price o' corn went up afterwards. I'd like to try a meal o' that kind on you an' your wife some day. If the world took as easy to corn when it's ground into meal as when it's turned into whiskey, this section o' country would get rich."

"I shouldn't wonder if it would. But what else?"

"Well, you must get a square up-an'-down promise from each o' your customers that their pork's to come to you, you promisin' to pay cash, at full market price, for all above the amount that's owed you. You must have the cash ready, too."

"But where am I to get it?"

"Why, out of the first pork you can get in an' ship East or South. You must be smart enough to coax some of 'em to do their killin' the first week the roads freeze hard enough to haul a full load. They'll all put it off, hopin' to put a few more pounds o' weight on each hog, an' that mebbe the price'll go up a little."

"But how am I to coax them?"

"Well, there's about as many ways as customers. I'll put you up to the nature of the men, as well as I can, an' help you other ways all I can, but you must do the rest; for, as I said before, you're boss, an' they're all takin' your measure, agin next year an' afterwards. As to ways o' coaxin',—well, the best is them that don't show on their face what they be. Your uncle held one slippery customer tight by pertendin' to be mighty fond o' the man's only son, who was the old fellow's idol. Your uncle got the boy a book once in a while, an' spent lots o' spare moments answerin' the youngster's questions, for your uncle knew a lot about a good many things. There was another customer that thought all money spent on women's clothes was money throwed away—p'raps 'twas 'cause his wife was more'n ordinary good-lookin', an' liked to show off. One year, in one of our goods boxes from the East, was a piece of silk dress-goods that would have put your eyes out. Black silk was the only kind that ever came here before, and it had always been satisfyin'. Next to plenty o' religion and gum-camphor, a black silk dress is what ev'ry self-respectin' woman in the county hankers for most. Well, your uncle never showed that blue an' white an' yaller an' purple an' red silk to nobody till about this time o' year; he told me not to, too, but one day, when the feller's wife was in town, an' warmin' her feet at the backroom stove, your uncle took that silk in there an' showed it, an' he see her eyes was a-devourin' it in less than a minute.

"'There's only enough of it for one dress,' said he, 'an' I ain't sure I could get any more like it. You're the style o' woman that would set it off, so you'd better take it before somebody else snaps it up.'

"'Take it?' said she, lookin' all ways to once; 'why, if I was to have that charged, my husband would go plum crazy, or else he'd send me to an asylum.'

"'Not a bit of it!' said your uncle. 'Tell you what I'll do; I'll lay that silk away, an' not show it to anybody till your husban' brings me in his pork an' we have our settlement. You come with him, an' I'll wrap up the silk for you, an' if he objects to payin' for it—oh, I know his ways, but I tell you right here, that if he objects to payin' for it, I'll make you a present of it, an' you can lay all the blame on me, sayin' I pestered you so hard that you had to take it.' Well, your uncle got the pork; the wife gave the man no peace till he promised to fetch it here, an' she got the dress, an' her husband—Hawk Howlaway, his name was,—was so tickled that he told all the county how he got the best of old Jethro."

"Pretty good—for one year, if the dress didn't cost too much."

"It only cost seventy cents a yard, an' there was fifteen yards of it. The pork netted more'n four hundred dollars. But that wa'n't the end of it. The woman hadn't wore the dress to church but one Sunday when her husband came into the store one day an' hung 'round a spell, lookin' 'bout as uneasy as a sinner under conviction, an' at last he winked your uncle into the back room, an' says Howlaway, says he:—

"'Jethro, you've got me in a heap o' trouble, 'cause of that silk dress you loaded on to my wife. She looks an' acts as if my Sunday clothes wasn't good enough to show alongside of it, an' other folks looks an' acts so too. So, Jethro, you've got to help me out. I've got to have some new clothes, an' they've got to be just so, or they won't do.' Your uncle said, 'All right,' an' got off a line from an advertisement in a city paper, about 'No fit, no pay.' Then he wrote to a city clothin' store for some samples of goods, an' for directions how to measure a man for a suit of clothes. Oh, he was a case, your uncle was; why, I do believe he'd ha' took an order from an angel for a new set of wing-feathers an' counted on gettin' the goods some way. I don't say he made light of it, though. I never see him so close-minded as he was for the next two weeks. One day I chaffed him a little about wastin' a lot o' time on a handsome hardware-goods drummer that hadn't much go, an' whose prices was too high anyway; but your uncle said:—

"'He's just about the height and build of Hawk Howlaway, an' he knows how to wear his clothes.' Then I knowed what was up. Well, to make a long story short, the clothes come, in the course o' time, and on an app'inted day Howlaway come too, lookin' about as wish-I-could-hide as a gal goin' to be married. Your uncle stuck up four lookin'-glasses on the back room wall, one over another, an' then he turned Howlaway loose in the room, with the clothes, an' a white shirt with cuffs an' collar on it, an' told him to lock himself in an' go to work, an' to pound on the door if he got into trouble. In about ten minutes he pounded, an' your uncle went in, an' Hawk was lookin' powerful cocky, though he said:—

"'There's somethin' that ain't quite right, though I don't know what 'tis.'

"'It's your hair—an' your beard,' said your uncle. 'Now, Hawk, you slip out o' them clothes, an' go down to Black Sam, that does barberin', an' tell him you want an all-round job: 't'll only cost a quarter. But wait a minute,' an' with that your uncle hurried into the store, took out of the cash-drawer a picture that he'd cut out of a paper that he'd been studyin' pretty hard for a week, took it back, an' said, 'Take this along, an' tell the barber it's about the style you want.'

"Well, when Hawk saw his own face in the glass after that reapin', he hardly knowed himself, an' he sneaked into the store by climbin' the fence an' knockin' at the back door, for fear of havin' to be interdooced to any neighbors that might be hangin' 'round the counters. Then he made another try at the clothes, an' called your uncle in again, and said:—

"'They looked all right until I put my hat on, an' then somethin' went wrong again.'

"'Shouldn't wonder if 'twas your hat,' said your uncle, comin' back for a special hat an' a pair of Sunday shoes, all Howlaway's size, that he'd ordered with the clothes. He took 'em in an' said:—

"'When you start to dress like a gentleman, to stand 'longside of a lady, you want to go the whole hog or none.'

"Well,—I didn't know this story was so long when I begun to tell it,—Hawk sneaked the clothes home, an' it come out in the course o' time that when on Sunday mornin' he dressed up an' showed off to his wife, she kissed him for the first time in three year, which sot him up so that he had the courage to go to church without first loadin' up with whiskey, as he'd expected to, to nerve him up to be looked at in his new things, an' when hog-killin' an' settlement time came round again, Hawk brought his pork to us, an' when he found his wife's silk dress hadn't been charged to him, he said in a high an' mighty way that he reckoned that until he was dead or divorced he could afford to pay for his own wife's duds, hearin' which, your uncle, who'd already socked the price of the dress onto the price of Hawk's own clothes, smiled out o' both sides of his mouth, an' all the way round to the back of his neck. An' since then, Hawk's always brought his pork to us, an' got a new silk dress ev'ry winter for his wife, an' new Sunday clothes for himself, an' nobody would he buy of but your uncle. Let's see; what was we talkin' 'bout when I turned off onto this story?"

"We were talking of ways of cajoling customers into paying their year's bills," said Philip. "Apparently I ought, just as a starter, to know how to coddle customer's boys, and supply hair-cutting and shaving plans to the village barber, and to play wife against husband, and learn to measure a man for clothes, like a—"

"That's so," said Caleb, "an' you can't be too quick about that, either, for Hawk'll want a new suit pretty soon."

"Anything else? By the way: what you said about the need of ready money reminds me of some questions I've been intending to ask, but forgotten. There are some mortgages in the safe on which interest will be due on the first of the year,—only a fortnight off. 'Twill aggregate nearly a thousand dollars."

"Yes,—when you get it, but interest's the slowest pay of all, in these parts, unless you work an' contrive for it. They know you won't foreclose on 'em; for while the security's good enough if you let it alone, there ain't an estate in the county that would fetch the face of its mortgage under the hammer. Besides, a merchant gen'rally dassent foreclose a mortgage, unless it's agin some worthless shack of a man. Folks remember it agin him, an' he loses some trade."

"Then those mortgages are practically worthless?"

"Oh, no. The money's in 'em, principal an' int'rest in full,—but the holder's got to know how to git it out. That's the difference between successful merchants and failures."

"H'm—I see. Apparently country merchants should be, like the disciples, as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves."

"That's it in a nutshell. I reckon any fool could make money in the store business if there was nothin' to do but weigh an' measure out goods an' take in ready cash for 'em. But there ain't no ready money in this county, 'xcept what the merchants get in for the produce they send out. There ain't no banks, so the store-keepers have to be money-lenders, an' have money in hand to lend; for while there's some borrowers that can be turned off, there's some it would never do to say 'No' to, if you wanted further dealin's with 'em, for they'd feel as if they'd lost their main dependence, an' been insulted besides. Why, some of our customers come in here Saturdays an' get a few five an' ten cent pieces, on credit like any other goods, so's their families can have somethin' to put in the plate in church on Sunday."

"But there are rentals due from several farms, and from houses in town. Are they as hard to collect as interest on mortgages?"

"Well, no—oh, no. The rent of most of the farms is payable in produce; there's ironclad written agreements, recorded in the county clerk's office, that the renters shan't sell any of their main crops anywhere else until the year's rent is satisfied. One of 'em pays by clearin' five acre of woodland ev'ry winter, an' gettin' it under cultivation in the spring, and another has to do a certain amount of ditchin' to drain swampy places. You'll have to watch them two fellers close, or they'll skimp their work, for there's nothin' farmers hate like clearin' an' ditchin'. I don't blame 'em, either."

"And the houses in town?"

"Oh, they're all right. The man in one of 'em, at two dollars a month, cuts all the firewood for the store an' house; that about balances his bill. Another house, at three thirty-three a month, has a cooper in it; he pays the rent, an' all of the stuff he buys at the store, in barrels for us in the pork-packin' season. The three an' a-half a month house man works out his rent in the pork-house durin' the winter, an' the four dollar house has your insurance agent in it; there's always a little balance in his favor ev'ry year. The—"

"Caleb!" exclaimed Philip, "wait a minute; do you mean to tell me that houses in Claybanks rent as low as four dollars, three and a half, three and a third, and even as low as two dollars a month?"

"That's what I said. Why, the highest rent ever paid in this town was six dollars a month. The owner tried to stick out for seventy-five a year, but the renter wouldn't stand the extra twenty-five cents a month."

Philip put his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and said:—

"Six dollars a month! And in New York I paid twenty-five dollars a month for five rooms, and thought myself lucky!"

"Twenty—five—dollars—a month!" echoed Caleb. "Why, if it's a fair question, how much money did you make?"

"Eighty dollars a month, with a certainty of a twenty per cent increase every year. 'Twasn't much, but I was sure of getting it. From what you've been telling me, I'm not absolutely sure of anything whatever here, unless I do a lot of special and peculiar work—and after I've earned the money by delivering the goods."

"Well, your uncle averaged somethin' between three an' four thousan', clear, ev'ry year, an' he come by it honestly, too, but there's no denyin' that he had to work for it. From seven in the mornin' to nine at night in winter; five in the mornin' till sundown in summer, to say nothin' of watchin' the pork-house work till all hours of the night throughout the season—a matter o' two months. He always went to sleep in church Sunday mornin', but the minister didn't hold it agin him. That reminds me: your uncle was a class-leader, an' the brethren are quietly sizin' you up to see if you can take the job where he left off. I hope you'll fetch."

"Thank you, Caleb," said Philip, closing his eyes as if to exclude the prospect. "But tell me," he said a moment later, "why my uncle did so much for so little. Don't imagine that I underrate three or four thousand dollars a year, but—money is worth only what it really brings or does. That's the common-sense view of the matter, isn't it?"

"Yes; I can't see anythin' the matter with it."

"But uncle got nothing for his money but ordinary food, clothes, and shelter, and seems to have worked as hard as any overworked laborer."

"Well, I reckon he was doin' what the rest of us do in one way or other; he was countin' on what there might be in the future. He b'lieved in a good time comin'."

"Yes,—in heaven, perhaps, but not here."

"That's where you're mistaken, for he did expect it here—right here, in Claybanks."

Philip looked incredulous, and asked:—

"From what?"

"Well, he could remember when Chicago was as small as Claybanks is now, an' had a good deal more swamp land to the acre, too—an' now look at it! He'd seen St. Paul an' Minneapolis when both of 'em together could be hid in a town as big as Claybanks—but now look at 'em!"

"But St. Paul and Minneapolis had an immense water-fall and water-power to attract millers of many kinds."

"Well, hain't we got a crick? They calculate that with a proper dam above town, we'd have water-power nine months every year, an' there ain't nothin' else o' the kind within fifty mile. Then there's our clay banks that the town was named after; they're the only banks of brick clay in the state; ev'rywhere else folks has to dig some feet down for clay to make bricks, so we ought to make brick cheaper'n any other town, an' supply all the country round—when we get a railroad to haul 'em out. They're not as red as some, bein' really brown, but they're a mighty sight harder'n any red brick, so they're better for foundations an' for walls o' big buildings. Chicago didn't have no clay banks nor water-power, but just look at her now! All that made her was her bein' the first tradin' place in the neighborhood; well, so's Claybanks, an' it's been so for forty year or more, too, so its time must be almost come. Your uncle 'xpected to see it all in his time, but, like Moses, he died without the sight. Why, there's been three or four railroads surveyed right through here—yes, sir!"

"Is there any Western town that couldn't say as much, I wonder?" Philip asked.

"Mebbe not, but they hain't all got clay banks an' a crick; not many of 'em's got eleven hundred people in forty year, either. An' say—it's all right for you to talk this way with me—askin' questions an' so on, an' wonderin' if the place'll ever 'mount to anythin', but don't let out a bit of it to anybody else—not for a farm. You might's well be dead out here as not to believe in the West with all your might, an' most of all in this part of it."

"Thank you; I'll remember."

Then Philip went out and walked slowly about the shabby village until he found himself in the depths of the blues.