"I'll Never be Anything But a Vagabond"

Sidney Wyeth had about filled Attalia with The Tempest by this time, and had anticipated going to another city almost as large, about one hundred seventy miles west. He made known the fact to Slim, and suggested that he might leave him in charge of the office, if he did so. As a precaution, or rather, to get some idea of his ability to dictate letters, he had him compose a few. When the typist handed them to him to be read, and he had done so, he decided to allow him to continue his canvass, and to hire some one more proficient.

"Say," he cried the next day. "I've been thinking it over, and maybe I'll be going along with you."

"That so? Well, I do not see any reason in particular why you should not go."

"There's only one reason," he said thoughtfully.

"What is it?"

"Mrs. King."

"Oh! yes; that's so. When's the wedding going to be?"

He glared at Wyeth a second, and then exclaimed doggedly: "I'm not going to marry. I wouldn't marry the best woman in the world."

"From what you have told me, it seems that you did marry the worst," laughed the other.

"I'll stay single henceforth, and be safe," he growled, and busied himself through some papers.

"Stay single, eh! And let the nice lady go without a husband. It's incredible that you can be so regardless!"

"I do not care to discuss marrying today," he muttered. "I've something better. It's a business proposition."

"Oh, I see. What is it this time? Going to buy the First National Bank or the Southern Railway?"

"Oh, you needn't try to kid me. Besides I have not asked you to come in, though if you did, you could pick up some big, quick money, if you were of a mind to be serious."

"Oh, well, if it doesn't take more than a million, I might be brought to consider it," Wyeth smiled, with assumed seriousness.

"I can see you laffing in your sleeve, so I don't tell you anything, you see!" He ended it angrily, and left the office.

It was too good though to keep to himself, so he told Mrs. Lautier, who in turn told it to Wyeth.

"Mr. Coleman had me write to Ames today, in regard to some song books, which he says he used to sell lots of," she said, when it was convenient.

Wyeth grunted.

"He is very much provoked at the way you treat him. He says, if you would go in with him, you and he could both make lots of money; but that you only laugh in your sleeve at everything he proposes," she went on, replete with gossip.

"He proposes many things," said Wyeth.

She giggled.

"He's going out to Liberty Street Baptist Church to sing and sell them Sunday, providing he gets them in time." She typed a few letters, and then said:

"He says he would like to go to Effingham with you and sell books, but that you want too much for it. That the book is too high, and you want to make too much. He says the book ought to sell for a dollar, and he should be paid seventy-five cents for selling it."

"He wouldn't make a living selling it then," retorted Wyeth, somewhat impatiently. Then he thought of Mrs. King, who fed him most of the time.

The following Monday, Wyeth thought he had fallen heir to a fortune. He passed him in the hallway, with head high, and as serious as zero.

Mrs. Lautier imparted the reason for it, when Sidney had taken out the letters.

"Mr. Coleman had a great day yesterday, so he informed me," she smiled. "He said you should have been out to Liberty Street Baptist Church, and heard him sing and sell song books afterwards. He said you were not a Christian, however, which made it bad."

"How many song books did he sell, and what did he receive a copy for them?"

"I think six, and he received fifteen cents apiece," she replied. He entered at this moment, his face wreathed in triumphant smiles.

"Well, my doubting friend, if you would have taken the trouble to come out to Liberty Street Baptist Church yesterday, I think you would have been convinced that I am something of a salesman after all."

"I've just been told that you 'mopped' up," said Wyeth, heartily. Slim swelled perceptibly. He seated himself, crossed his legs, and resumed:

"When I used to live in South Carolina, I was considered one of the best salesman in the country."

"You must have been a great man in South Carolina," said Wyeth. Slim observed him a moment sharply. Presently he went on:

"I would go to the camp meetings and festivals, sing a few songs, get the people warmed up with a good sermon, and then sell hundreds of song books in the end."

"Wonderful!" from Sidney.

"I am going to the HNRTYU convention at Timberdale Thursday, and I thought you'd like to go along," he said, artfully.

"Couldn't very well do it, unless you got them to hold the convention over until next week."

"You will not take me seriously, regardless of my success," he complained. "Now yesterday I sold a pile of song books, and today I am sending the man his share of the money. I could do you some good with the book you are general agent for, if you would increase my commission to seventy-five cents a copy, and lower the price to a dollar."

"If you wrote the publishers, they might give you the books free of charge, providing you agreed to pay the freight on arrival, and not let the railroad company come back on them later for it," soliloquized Sidney.

He went to Timberdale the next day, and the office saw no more of him for a week.

"When will Mr. Coleman return?" Mrs. Lautier would inquire every day. "I certainly do miss him."

"He's our mascot, our jest. I miss him also," said Sidney, and they both spoke of him at some length.

Mrs. Lautier was also a sociable person about the office, Sidney was coming to appreciate more each day. She was from New Orleans, and a creole. She had personality, and a way that won all who were near her. She was slender and very dark, and, although only thirty-nine, was almost white-haired, which contrasted beautifully with her dark skin. Her eyes were small and bead-like, while she was affectionate by nature. Her make-up was in keeping with the position she held as matron at one of the local Negro colleges. When she spoke, her voice struck the ear musically. She was a widow.

"Why have you never remarried, Mrs. Lautier?" Wyeth ventured, one day. She colored unseen for a moment, before she answered:

"Perhaps there's a reason."

"What reason? You are charming—very charming, I think," said he earnestly, although he smiled.

She hid her face. For a woman of her age, she was most extraordinary. "I have been told that creole people have a most frightful temper," pursued Wyeth, enjoying her manner. "Is that quite true?"

"Yes," She admitted, surveying him now.

"And do you happen to be endowed with such an asset, also?"

"I wouldn't be a creole if I were not," she advised, still smiling.

"That's too bad," said he, a trifle sadly. "You seem too kind and sweet of manner, to be liable to those angry, wild fits they tell me they have."

"Perhaps you will see New Orleans while you are in the south, and the creoles; and then, you can be better prepared to understand them in the future," she said.

"Perhaps I will," he said, after some thinking. "Yes, perhaps I will. I had not thought of it before."

"Mr. Coleman will be back tomorrow," cried Mrs. Lautier, entering the office a day or so later. "I received a postal from him announcing the fact, so we will not be so lonesome now."

"I am anxious to see what he did in Timberdale. I guess he succeeded in turning it upside down, and covering the whole town with song books."

The next morning, early, he was back. He entered the office and sat around in silence, seeming to be in an introspective mood. Wyeth waited for what he knew would eventually come. It did not as early as it usually did, in fact, he sighed wearily and looked so peculiar, until Wyeth, to break the impatience he was laboring under, presently turned his gaze upon him, and said: "Well, I see you are back...." The other sat up and looked about him suddenly, as though awakened from a trance.

"I suppose you have more money now than you can conveniently use for a while," Wyeth tested. "Made a bunch in Timberdale?"

"Like Hell!" spat the other grumblingly. "Lucky to be back here alive."

"M-m! What did you run up against? A freight train, or the madam?"

"I left the day she arrived," he said in a heavy tone, then added, after a pause: "They've been lynching and driving nigga's out of that town this week, so the convention was a fizzle."

"I suppose you sold out before they got after you? How many song books did you sell?"

"Didn't I tell you the white people was raising Hell, and a-killing and burning Negroes like barbecue out there!" he exclaimed impatiently. "I never sold any song books, but I sold one copy of The Tempest."

"How many song books of the amount you received have you still on hand?"

"All but six."

"I thought you had sold them all but a dozen when you left for Timberdale."

"Aw, that old nigga that I left them with, and who claimed he could sell them at his church and more, slipped them back into my room while I was away. He didn't sell any."

"You don't seem to be getting back into your old-time selling form very rapidly," suggested Wyeth. Ignoring him, Slim said suddenly:

"When you all going to Effin'ham?"

"Next week."

"I don't know whether I'll get to go with you or not. Mrs. King thinks I'd better stay here this summer. What do you think about it?"

"I agree with her."

Just then Mrs. Lautier came in, and, greeting Coleman very cordially, Wyeth left them and went out on business.

He happened to have a delivery on Fourteenth street, and when he had filled it, he stood talking with the girl a moment. "Are you acquainted with Mr. V.R. Coleman?" she inquired.

"Sure. He is a "sort" of agent for this book," Sidney replied.

"I thought so," said she; "and I was wondering what kind of an agent he must make, when he spends so much time in this neighborhood. He goes with a certain party next door, and he was there all last week. I think he scarcely went outside."

"Good morning," said Sidney.

"Goodbye," said she. "I hope I'll enjoy the book."

The week arrived in which Wyeth was to depart, and preparations were made to that end. He decided to leave the office in charge of Mrs. Lautier. Slim came in the day before he was to leave, looking frightened and terribly upset. Always given to joking with him, Wyeth hardly knew how to accept him, as he apparently was that day. He was trembling in every limb as he cried:

"That woman! She's after me! Great God! I wish she would leave me alone, I wish she would leave me alone! She's followed me all over the country. She's like a ghost on my trail! And now she is at this moment down in the street looking for me again!" Wyeth's sympathy went out to him, and he cried:

"Quiet yourself! You'll surely go to pieces trembling like that. After all, why should you become so excited? You say you have advised her that you are not going to live with her again."

"Aw, but you don't know; you don't understand. She's got it on me, on me so strong until I dasn't make a crooked move, or resort to the law. The only chance I have is to keep out of her sight." He paused a spell now, and his appearance was that of a man under sentence of death. Then he said: "She has vowed to kill me, and I know if she gets a chance she will!"

"I will go with you fellows to Effin'ham," he said more calmly. "I've got to get away from where she can see me, if I hope to live. Every moment I stay where I know her to be near, will be moments of fear. I don't want to kill her, even in self-defense. God, no! I don't want murder on my hands!" He paced the floor at some length, pausing at intervals to peep into the street, in evident fright.

"She was out to Mrs. King's, night before last. Mrs. King was not in, so she walked up to the front door of the white people, and rang the bell. When the door was opened by the man of the house, the expression he wore got her goat. She made some excuse to the effect that it was the wrong house, and went her way. Then, yesterday, or last night rather, she came back. We were eating supper, and it happened that my seat was so I could look out the window, and up the alley. I saw her slipping up this alley, near the side of the board fence, with a big gun and it cocked. I rushed out the front way and avoided her; but she is bent upon forcing me either to live with her and submit to her tyranny, or she'll kill me, and prevent me from living or being friendly with any other."

"You seem certainly up against a bad proposition, V.R.," said Wyeth, helplessly.

"If it wasn't for a certain little deal back in South Carolina, I wouldn't be so afraid; but, owing to that, I dare not do anything but keep out of her way," he trembled on, woefully. "I'm going to try and slip out of town unbeknown to her, and go along with you fellows to Effin'ham. I'll be safe there for a while; but as soon as she learns I am there, she'll take up the trail and I'll have to 'beat' it elsewhere."

"Gee! It must be dreadful to live in the fear that somebody is thirsting for your blood," said Wyeth, shuddering.

"I'll never be anything but a vagabond; a rover, drifting over the face of the earth until death comes," he cried despairingly.

He was calmed presently, with the prospect of going to Effingham. Wyeth went uptown, attending to considerable business in connection with the office, preparatory to leaving. When this was completed, he went to a movie, and returned to the office about six o'clock. He went to another show that evening, and after that had closed, strolled about the town until ten-thirty. There appeared to be a gathering of women for some occasion at the auditorium, which was breaking up when he returned. Mrs. King and Coleman were leaving the building when Wyeth came up. They started up the street with the crowd. As they reached the corner, there was a sudden commotion. Wyeth ran up, and was just in time to see a woman dash after Coleman from around the corner. He saw her before she got near him, and, jerking free of his escort, he tore into the street. She was a dark woman with coarse black hair, and of an Indian appearance. With a cry she flew after him, as she cried in a diabolical voice:

"At last, Vance Coleman, I have found you, and in another's company. I am forced to stand aside, although your wife!" Down the street his steps could be heard, as he tore along in mad haste. She stopped when she saw that she could not catch him, and, drawing from some invisible direction, a gun, she levelled it, with deliberate aim, at the flying figure. The crowd stood frozen creatures.

And then suddenly, a terrible cry rent the still night air, just as the gun went off; but the cry had disconcerted her aim, and, with a cry she turned toward the crowd, but Wyeth had the arm of the hand that held the revolver, which he twisted and made the weapon fall to the ground. She was led away presently by an officer, while still, far down a street, the sound of hurriedly retreating footsteps came to Wyeth's ears. He listened until they died away in the night. Wyeth turned, and disappeared in the direction of his room.

He never saw Slim again.

END OF BOOK ONE

BOOK II.