“Stop!” said Harvey, suddenly. “I want to buy that.”
A silver coin changed hands. The old man shook the ashes from his pipe into his palm, and scattered them to the winds. He began to strap his basket.
“You haven’t,” said Harvey, slowly—“you haven’t got any more—houses and gardens in there?”
The quick glance of the black eyes was wary.
“This,” went on Harvey, indicating the house behind him, the finest in Lobelia—“this here came out of a basket like that.”
The old face creased slowly into a hundred doubtful wrinkles. With a gesture that said, “That may be a good joke, but it’s beyond me,” the pedlar went on covering his basket. Harvey was beset by a fear that the old man would yet slip out of his hold.
“Stop a bit!” he said, desperately. “I want to ask you, did you ever know a feller called Gammett?”
“I forget, boss. I know fellers all over.”
The old man was sending Harvey the swift, impenetrable glances of a wild thing frightened. He was strapping his basket quickly. Harvey, gripping the gate in excitement, spoke commandingly.
“Wait! I’ve got something to tell you. Wait!”
The old pedlar hesitated, then silently acquiesced. He squatted once more at the foot of the fence, relighted his pipe, and prepared to listen. Once more, with the faint blue spiral of kinnikinnick smoke, the lost years came down on Harvey like a wave.
“There was a man,” began Harvey, abruptly, “a man who was down and out, five years ago.”
“Most fellers been that,” agreed Harvey, slowly. “But not many have the bad luck this one did. And one can’t rightly say it was his fault. He’d fought it. My faith, how he’d fought his luck for years! But it just seemed that everything he touched went wrong. Year by year he went down, and down, and a little bit farther down. He tried farmin’, but he hadn’t enough capital to tide over the bad seasons. He tried prospectin’, and his health gave out. At last,” he said, quietly, “this feller got so far down that he was workin’ for a Chinaman—for a Chink that kep’ a little store way up in the hills.”
“When that job failed,” Harvey went on, after a silence, “Gammett got him.”
He glanced at the old pedlar’s back, every fold of the rags covering it instinct with listening.
“If you _don’t_ know Gammett,” he went on again, “I’ll have to tell you. Gammett had a store, too—a big store. He made a fortune by helping people. Yes, he was very helpful, was Gammett. If a man was in bad luck, or ill, or’d been on the bust and spent all his money, Gammett was right there, ready for help. He’d supply goods, would Gammett—at his own prices. Many a feller that Gammett helped in the bad years has spent all he made in the good years payin’ off Gammett. Yes, every down-and-outer in the hills got on Gammett’s books sooner or later.