Father carefully put down the bundle of his new shoes, drew a long breath, then tried to look bored again. Cautiously: "Yes, I've thought some of going back into business. 'Course I'd hate to give up my exploring and all, but-Progress, you know; hate to lay down the burden of big affairs after being right in the midst of them for so long." Which was a recollection of some editorial Father had read in a stray roadside newspaper. "And you mustn't suppose I'd be sniffy about Lipsittsville. No, no; no, indeed. Not at all. I must say I don't know when I've seen a more wide-awake, pretty town-and you can imagine how many towns I must have seen. Maples and cement walks and nice houses and-uh-wide-awake town.... Well, who knows! Perhaps some day I might come back here and talk business with you. Ha, ha! Though I wouldn't put in one cent of capital. No, sir! Not one red cent. All my money is invested with my son-in-law-you know, Harris Hartwig, the famous chemical works. Happen to know um?"
"Oh yes, indeed! Harry Sartwig. I don't know him personally, but of course I've heard of him. Well, I do wish you'd think it over, some day, Mr. Appleby. Indeed I understand about the capital. If you and me ever did happen to come to terms, I'd try to see my way clear to giving you an interest in the business, in return for your city experience and your expert knowledge and fame and so on as an explorer-not that we outfit so many explorers here. Hee, hee!"
"Well, maybe I'll think it over, some day. Well-well, maybe I'll see you again before I get out of town. I'm kind of planning to stick around here for a day or two. I'll talk over the suggestion with Mrs. Appleby. Me, I could probably call off my wager; but she is really the one that you'd have to convince. She's crazy for us to hike out and tramp clear down into Mexico and Central America. Doesn't mind bandits and revolutions no more than you and I would a mouse."
In his attempt to let people bluff themselves and accept him as a person to be taken seriously, Father kept on trying to adhere to the truth. But certainly this last statement of his was the grossest misrepresentation of Mother's desires. Mother Appleby, with her still unvanquished preference for tea and baths, did not have the slightest desire to encounter bandits, snakes, deserts, or cacti of any variety.
"Well, look here, Mr. Appleby; if you are going to be around, couldn't you and the madam come to dinner, as I was so bold as to suggest awhile ago? That would give us a chance to discuss things. Aside from any future business dicker between you and me personally, I'd like to show you just why Lipsittsville is going to be a bigger town than Freiburg or Taormina or Hongkong or Bryan or any of the other towns in the county, let 'em say what they like! Or couldn't you come to supper to-night? Then we could let the ladies gossip, and I'll have Doc Schergan come in, and maybe him and me between us could persuade you to think of taking a partnership with me-wouldn't cost you a cent of capital, neither. Why, the doc was saying, just this morning, when we was speaking of having read about you in the paper-he was saying that you were the kind of man we need for president of our country club, instead of some dude like that sissified Buck Simpson. Buck is as punk an athlete as he is a shoeman, and, believe me, Mr. Appleby, we've got the makings of a fine country club. We expect to have a club-house and tennis-courts and golluf-links and all them things before long. We got a croquet-ground right now! And every Fourthajuly we all go for a picnic. Now can't the madam come? Make it supper this evening. But, say, I want to warn you that if we ever did talk business, I don't see how I could very well offer you more than a forty-per-cent. interest, in any case."
"No," growled Father, "wouldn't take over a third interest. Don't believe in demanding too much. Live and let live, that's my motto."
"Yes, sir, and a fine motto it is, too," admired the shoeman.
"What time is supper?"
* * * * *
"... and before I get through with it I'll own a chain of shoe-stores from here to Indianapolis," said Father. "I'll be good for twenty years' more business, and I'll wake this town up."
"I do believe you will, Father. But I just can't believe yet that you've actually signed the contract and are a partner," Mother yearned. "Why, it ain't possible."
"Guess it is possible, though, judging by this hundred dollar advance," Father chuckled. "Nice fellow, that shoeman-or he will be when he gets over thinking I'm a tin god and sits down and plays crib like I was an ordinary human being.... We ought to have larger show-windows. We'll keep Peter on-don't want to make the boy lose his job on account of me. Give him another chance.... I'm just wambling, Mother, but I'm so excited at having a job again-"
With tiny pats of her arm, he stalked the street, conscious of the admiring gaze of the villagers, among whom ran the news that the famous explorer was going to remain with them.
When the landlord himself had preceded them up-stairs to the two rooms which the shoeman had engaged for the Applebys at the Star Hotel, Father chuckled: "Does it look more possible, now, with these rooms, eh? Let's see, we must get a nice little picture of a kitten in a basket, to hang over that radiator. Drat the landlord, I thought he'd stick here all evening, and-I want to kiss you, my old honey, my comrade!"
CHAPTER XVII
The Lipsittsville Pioneer Shoe Store found Mr. Seth Appleby the best investment it had ever made. The proprietor was timorous about having given away thirty-three per cent. of his profits. But Mr. Appleby did attract customers-from the banker's college-bred daughter to farmers from the other side of the Lake-and he really did sell more shoes. He became a person of lasting importance.
In a village, every clerk, every tradesman, has something of the same distinctive importance as the doctors, the lawyers, the ministers. It really makes a difference to you when Jim Smith changes from Brown's grocery to Robinson's, because Jim knows what kind of sugar-corn you like, and your second cousin married Jim's best friend. Bill Blank, the tailor, is not just a mysterious agent who produces your clothes, but a real personality, whose wife's bonnet is worth your study, even though you are the wife of the mayor. So to every person in Lipsittsville Mr. Seth Appleby was not just a lowly person on a stool who helped one in the choice of shoes. He was a person, he was their brother, to be loved or hated. If he had gone out of the shoe business there would have been something else for him to do-he would have sold farm machinery or driven on a rural mail route or collected rents, and have kept the same acquaintances.
It was very pleasant to Father to pass down the village street in the sun, to call the town policeman "Ben" and the town banker "Major" and the town newspaperman "Lym," and to be hailed as "Seth" in return. It was diverting to join the little group of G. A. R. men in the back of the Filson Land and Farms Company office, and have even the heroes of Gettysburg pet him as a promising young adventurer and ask for his tales of tramping.
Father was rather conscience-stricken when he saw how the town accepted his pretense of being an explorer, but when he tried to tell the truth everybody thought that he was merely being modest, and he finally settled down contentedly to being a hero, to the great satisfaction of all the town, which pointed out to unfortunate citizens of Freiburg and Hongkong and Bryan and other rival villages that none of them had a real up-to-date hero with all modern geographical improvements. In time, as his partner, the shoeman, had predicted, Father was elected president of the clubless country club, and organized a cross-country hike in which he outdistanced all the others, including the young and boastful Buck Simpson.