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Show HawkhtMWind I BY HELEN TOPPING MILLER a ACT5"ffJ!Sw co' I CHAPTER XII 11 virj.ie took a letter that Lucy Mded her, unfolded the single Let of cheap gray paper, read it ' ugh twice. The envelope was arked "Personal." The handwrit- was angular and labored, the "Jript of one who expresses himself L writing only at rare intervals. "Did you take a look at this?" j,e asked. .No, Mrs. Morgan. It was marked personal I opened the envelope en-velope but I didn't look at the let- jumped up, with a gallant flourish to carry their load and help them over the steep places. "But an old battle-ax like me can change her own tires or get herself out of holes. Nobody bothers!" The sun was dropping behind the black rampart of the mountains as Virgie drove homeward. The eastern slopes sank into purple pur-ple shadows, the valleys were lost in a citron-colored mist. But beyond the aloof crests, cold-looking and forbidding for-bidding now as the mountains are in I winter, a saffron line of light burned along the sky. Virgie admired the "It hasn't occurred to you, has it, i Mother, that all these things that t have happened ugly, destructive I things that have never happened to -us before began after you hired Branford Wills to work in the mill?" t "What?" Virgie straightened up, 1 the poker in her hand. "What are you talking about?" I "I'm talking" Marian went on a 1 little breathlessly "about ruined : pulp and fires set to burn the plant, about tracks being torn up. and cars wrecked and shipments delayed. They could be significant, couldn't they? They could mean that the ;ie. It ain't for sale. I got other hings on my mind. I reckon you've leard that two fellers from up east -name of Hooper and Payne have ot claims allowed by the court on hat piece of stuff Tom Pruitt claims le owns, on Hazel Fork?" "I heard it But they won't tim-oer tim-oer it. I went over day before yesterday yes-terday and filed foreclosure suits tor Tom. So if you got roped into that business and came up here to argue about it, Wallace, you might as well save your breath. Tom's in jail, but he isn't friendless. He's an old man a mountain man and he dealt with those skunks like a mountain moun-tain man would do. But the law won't beat him out of what is his not if I can help it." "I didn't come here to talk about Pruitt, either," Wallace went on. "Though I might as well tell you your foreclosure suit won't interfere inter-fere with Hooper and Payne not likely. There's claims that eome ahead of first mortgages claims that have got priority in law." "What claims?" "Labor claims. A mechanics' lien supersedes most any other kind of claim you know that, I reckon." "When did any mechanic ever set foot on Hazel Fork?" "There was roads built there and gradin' done and gravel hauled" "Mighty sorry roads. And mighty little of them is left now." "That ain't here nor there, Virgie. Vir-gie. The men who built 'em never got paid." "So this Hooper and Payne and that man Cragg, I suppose, bought up the labor claims?" "The court allowed the claims they hold. They financed this Phillips' Phil-lips' bunch and all they got was notes and liens with Pruitt's lien standing ahead of 'em. They had to protect themselves. But they're business men and they think this country has got a future." "What did you come here to talk to me about?" Virgie demanded, abruptly, while Lucy made little, frightened, scribbling marks on her paper. "When you talk by-products you mean pulp. What's on your mind?" But Wallace refused to be hurried. hur-ried. He made a steeple with his lona fingers, and looked at her -, :- from Wallace Withers. He 1 tints to come to my house tonight 1 lo talk business, so he says." 1 Lucy brightened. "Then he has ; decided to sell that Bennett spruce. He'll try to get three prices out of rail. Mrs. Morgan." ' "He's sure to try something. I've known Wallace all my life the old scorpion. The last time he came to "see me he tried to talk me into marrying mar-rying him because he said I didn't ( know enough to run this mill." ,.BUt you couldn't! Why, Mrs. Morgan, his poor first wife never did come to town. I don't suppose she ever had more than one decent dress in her whole married life." "I didn't marry him, did I? I ' may be getting soft in a few spots, but not in that one. Lucy, you listen. lis-ten. I want you to come out to that conference. If Withers has any idea of selling that spruce I want a record rec-ord of it He'll try to work some kind of racket You can make notes of everything. He says he wants to talk business well, when i I talk business my secretary is present. pres-ent. I'll nave Marian there, too. I'd like to have young Wills where is he?" "He went up in the woods with the truck." "Well, I'm glad somebody went besides me. Marian thinks I look like an old fool trailing around in the mud, climbing over timber and wading creeks, a fat old woman like me. Anyway, it's a poor executive execu-tive who can't get somebody to do the dirty work." "You're not a poor executive, Drilliance briefly, considered the tact that the Almighty seemed to take a lot of trouble to make every act of nature splendid and beautiful. beauti-ful. Trees could have been dirty brown or gray, but they weren't Even stripped of their leaves they were interesting and graceful. And rocks were softened and made lovely by lichen and waterfall, water-fall, ferns and the mystery of shadows. shad-ows. Storms, too, were beautiful. The piling anger of the clouds, the fiery skeleton bones of lightning, the silver marching of the rain. And fire though it had the color of terror, had glory. There was the pink and purple of laurel and rhododendron in the spring, the white candelabra of dogwood set in the forests in spring, the flame of azalea. Only in making man had the fine brush and chisel of the Creator slipped. Men were a sorry piece of work, so Virgie thought. Dreary to look at, most of them, full of silly hates and greedinesses, schemes to defeat and destroy each other, all to no profit. Wars and politics, angers and absurdities, these men had made; going on their scrambling way, adding add-ing little to the beauty and serenity of the world. The black scald, bristling bris-tling with broken, burned trunks and charred stumps men had done that. Mank Pressly had a still up there somewhere, and his fire had got away from him, burned up the still and six kegs of raw whisky before be-fore it tore down the ridge to ruin four or five hundred acres of fail timber. And with-it had gone thousands thou-sands of Virgie's little seedling men who've worked for you forever for-ever don't want to work with your arrogant young Mr. Wills!" "There could be," Virgie said slowly, "a wilder idea than that. There could be. But I doubt if there ever was. How could any crazy nut believe that he could get rid of Wills by ruining me? And why are you so poisonous against Wills anyway? He's a nice chap. He can be a lot of help to me." A sick, ugly doubt crept like a foul-footed creature through Marian J Mrs. Morgan. Nobody else could have pulled the mill through" "I know. You've told me. I reckon reck-on I'd better not have Wills out. You can handle anything that needs to be done. I'll send the car after you." Wills would probably refuse to come to the house, anyway, because ( of Marian. Marian's attitude was V still an enigma to her mother. Marian Mar-ian had always been a bright gift that Virgie was grateful for, but a gift that left her bewildered and a little uncertain and abashed. She found herself constantly contriving to please Marian or to avoid her displeasure, and this was all wrong, of course. Nonsense, being bossed around by ninety-odd pounds of black-eyed girl, but that was the foolishness of mothers. And mothers moth-ers loved it. They put up a spirit- trees. Surveying this blackened, months-old months-old ruin, Virgie thought of Tom. The man Cragg lived on, and Tom stubbornly refused to be released from the jail. He was a fanatic old fool, he had gone a Uttle mad as lonely old men sometimes do. And here was Wallace Withers scheming to cheat her and she was alone, with no one to go to for the steadying steady-ing courage that comes with approval. ap-proval. Fires were burning in the house, for a wonder, and Marian was curled in a big chair under her father's portrait Marian stayed alone too much lately, was too stilL "Wallace Withers is coming here tonight to sell me some timber," Virgie said at dinner. "I want you to go and get Lucy then both of vnn stay around. I don't trust that But Wallace refused to be hurried. Morgan's mind. Older women did get sentimental ideas about young men. It couldn't be she fought the thought away furiously. Her splendid, splen-did, courageous, capable mother-low, mother-low, to let such a suspicion creep into her brain. She breathed deep, and threw back her head, and because be-cause she had to ignore and defeat it or be tortured endlessly, she managed man-aged a cool remoteness. "It was an idea I had. I don't think it's insane. I think it's quite reasonable," Marian said as she walked to the door, her eyes more like David's than ever. Lucy settled herself with her notebook note-book and pencil when Marian i . i V..I.V cnarlpt snnts in blandly over the crest of it. "There will be," he announced, in an oratorical tone, "big developments develop-ments in this country if you don't hinder them, Virgie Morgan." "I? I've been developing the country coun-try myself, for a few years! I'd be the last person on earth to hinder anything that was for the good of this country. But you aren't talking talk-ing about the good pf the country, Wallace Withers. You're frying fish of your own and I want plain talk, not speeches. What's your proposition?" proposi-tion?" "With big business men getting behind things, in this county," he went on, still pompously, "I figure to travel with them, Virgie! Not fight 'em or oppose 'em. I don't aim to fight progress. I aim to get into : 1 ,oUn rnnnpu nlnnff with the less fight againsi uie uamij ijrinuujr, the disturbing sense of inferiority, the whims and humors forced upon I them by their young. When they did fight they came off bad seconds, usually, and were pitifully piti-fully patient about that. Lucy, on the other side of the desk, was swallowing nervously and the red was coming up into her i cheeks and throat. A "Mrs. Morgan," she began, in a Uttle rush, "if you think it would be wise, Mr. Daniels might come to the conference tonight?" "What for?" Virgie asked, bluntly. blunt-ly. "Wallace Withers is an old sour-puss, sour-puss, I know that-but I don't need a chemist to find out how acid he old man and I want somebody to hear every word that he says. "Why doesn't he come to the office of-fice if he wants to talk business? Why does he come to the house?' Marian asked. Virgie was a little bothered to find an answer for this. It was incredible, in-credible, of course, that Wallace might still be harboring some mad idea that his proposal would again be listened to. "I don't know," she said. He wrote me a letter. I'm telling you what he said. He's come here before." be-fore." "That's just it. Mother" Marian sat up a little straighter and looked a trifle grim "doesn't it ever occur Drougm "i "-., her cheeks, her eyes as excited as though she was about to attend a seance. Marian said, "Do 1 have to listen when old Withers comes or is it all right to go on reading?" "You don't have to listen unless you want to. I just want plenty of people around when I have to talk to that old scoot." "Why on earth are you so nervous, Mother, if it's just a business deal?" "I'm not nervous!" snapped Virgie Vir-gie putting down the ashtray she was fiddling with. "Why should I be nervous?" "You have been I've noticed it for days. You know it, Mother." "It's because so many things are 11 eiliu man.. o rest. So I come up here to talk business to you. I figure to buy your mill!" CHAPTER XIII There was an instant's silence. Virgie sat without moving. Marian gave a little startled gasp and Lucy said vaguely, "Why " Then Virgie snorted. "I reckon I'll just have to go on standing in the way of progress, Wallace. Because Be-cause you won't get my mill." Withers hitched forward, his eyes showing points of anger. "I reckon you didn't understand me, Virgie. I want your mill and I'm going to get it. I've got. money is. ,, " "You spoke about Mr. Wills Lucy bridled slightly. "Wills has got that spruce to cut, if I buy it. But I may not buy it I'd like to let old Withers talk himself him-self blue in the gills and then just blandly tell him we don't need his J, timber the worst about that is, we 'S do need it." "We can run another month on what we have in," Lucy was ready with her little book, "and then we could begin thinning on the Bobcat Run stuff." "I don't want to cut on Bobcat. ( Not for another year if I can help it. V Call up Bryson, Lucy, and ask him if he has any of that cider left that hasn't got too darned explosive. There might be a way to limber up old Withers. Most every man has i loose joint somewhere." "I don't believe Mr. Withers has any. He's made like one of these dry land turtles all shell and claws Lo you that you are supposea 10 uc a wealthy widow?" Virgie buttered a biscuit, her mouth dragged into a dry grin. "If anything like that did occur to me, all I'd have to do is go down to the bank and have a heart-to-heart talk with some facts and figures fig-ures That's about the most awakening awak-ening thing I know of. What is all this' Have you seen a peacock-blue roadster you can't live without? "I'm not talking about myself. I m talking about Wallace Withers He hasn't any wife. He isn t an old man not terribly old "Oh-that!" Virgie was scornful. -He got ideas-weeks ago. He did art me to marry him. I guess he taowTby now that I'm not inter- "tnd you refused him?" Marian Idwant him for a stepfather? step-father? I didn't think you d hke going over there to hve in that happening, aeienueu uhB"j-"I'm uhB"j-"I'm nervous myself. Every time I open a filing cabinet 1 halfway expect a bomb to go off." "You've been listening to mystery plays on the radio," Marian drawled. "We don't have a radio, Lucy returned, calmly. Wallace Withers came promptly. He had on his funeral suit, he was blue-shaven and rather pompous He looked doubtful when Marian and Lucy Fields were introduced. I came up here to talk business" busi-ness" he began. "Lucy knows all my business," Virgie was short, "and you can talk before my daughter." Withers settled himself, a bit uneasily, un-easily, in David Morgan's high-backed high-backed chair. Virgie sat straight and uncompromising, on the opposite oppo-site side of the fire. She had regained re-gained her poise, she felt cool again ta command. Wallace Withers was behind me big money. I can get the timber and I can get the markets. mar-kets. I figure on getting into the pulp business." "And just how," Virgie asked deliberately, de-liberately, "do you plan to get possession pos-session of my mill?" "I figure to buy it at a fair price, taking account of the depreciation in the value of the stock and the depreciation of the property. I got a right to do it." Slow red crept up into his face. "I figure to buy that property and improve it." "It needs improvement, does it?" "You know the shape that mill's in! Look here, what's that Fields girl writing down everything I say for?" "This is a business conference. You said so yourself. I may not know enough to run a pulp mill but I do know enough to run a business busi-ness conference. Lucy's taking notes because I told her to do it" rtf this "You a Deuer iae a uiic ....... Virgie I'm offering an opportunity to sell. If you won't sell th?n I figure fig-ure to put you out of business!" "You did some fancy figuring, didn't you, Wallace? You must have strained your mind, getting all those high aims and ambitions into language. lan-guage. Too bad it's all going to waste aii that brain power. You could run for something and maybe get elected if you put all your eloquence elo-quence on the job. As it is. you're just wasting your breath. My mill won't be for sale tomorrow nor any other day. Not so long as I can fine , g-een stick in this country tc grind into pulp. So-this busines; conference seems to me to be prac tically over!" (TOBECOXTlMEDj just another countryman " shrewd way of getting along. She had handled enough men like him in her career. They began being clumsily gallant usually, then tried to outsmart her. Wallace Withers put his long fingers fin-gers together. I've got a matter of some importance im-portance to discuss," he began. 1 reckon you know what it is. -I suppose it's Perry Bennetts timber. You knew I was trading to Uiat Piece so you skinned around 0nd got 'hi ahead of n That wasn t a neighborly thing to do. What ao you want for it?" Virgie wasted no W WUhers studied his knuckles elab-or;tely elab-or;tely "I didn't come up here to taff about the Bennett timber. Vir- auu luuuui aim uu sun. ..f- "You're real bright at times, Lucy," Lu-cy," Virgie applauded. "Just don't forget to be bright that's all. It s that fifteen-minute interval when a woman forgets that God puts brains S inside her head as well as eyelashes ! ' on the side of it that ruins a lot of 'em." "I won't forget." She will though, Virgie thought, wearily, as she crossed the yard to back her old car out of the shed. That cool-headed young chap from Missouri would give Lucy two lan-' lan-' i Buishing looks and reduce her instantly in-stantly to the compliant softness of vanilla custard. But the Lord, so Virgie decided, looked after the soft omen. It was the tough ones who culd take it who had a hard time. 'The soft ones lay back and whim-Perod whim-Perod and swiftly somebody else moldy old nouse m. havens, no! But, Mother-Marian's Mother-Marian's voice rose almos to a wail"you never mentioned it! You never told me! If anything like that hufdLtofm7mber I would consider a boy hke that "Well, I'm not considering Wal lace Withers either. Nor anybody ds" I felt like a fool-he made anrf I went off in one of me mad and 1 weni my tantrums then young iy. |