The Worm Turned

ESLEYSTERRITT i was a thrifty soul and enterprisinff. i In early youth he j was a crossroads '] genius. No casual server would ever suspect hira of shrewdness- afact which he turned to his own advantage in many a bárgain- but Wesley had, as though nature provided special compensa tion" for the shortcomings of personal attractions, a peculiar indifEerence as to externalities, whether his own or j those of other peóple. He was one of those peoplo who could swap a bushei of corn for a bushei of corn and profit by the transaction, j taining a leputation for fair measure and inch-for-inch honesty. He removed at 10 from Flat Rock to Shiloh. He was rapidly advanced to $40 a Í month and then to a partnership in a dry goods store. He soon became sole owner of the business. He added a line of school books and coffms, flourished for ten or twelve months, insured everything and got burned out. He went to Fairburn. He flourished, of course. He expanded, as it were, to the limit of his opportunities. His enterprise was a revelation to his competitors. He had toys for Christmas, Valentines for the 14th of February, flags for the Fourth of July. There were ruraors that he had sold whisky - very prolitable that, because very risky, the town and county being1 dry - but the grand jury never did anythmg with it; and Wesley continued to prosper. He attended church and Sunday-school regularly, I ingratiating himself to a degree with I the denomination that had most adherents in the neighborhood. Eventually he began speculating in cotton. He sent mysterious telegrams in cyphers and received equally mysterious answers. The telegraph operator told all about it, confidentially. The rumor was speedily corroborated, as it could be in none but a small town where everybody knows everybody else and everybody else's business. Fairburn held its breath a while - the expression is semi-figurative of course - in expeetation of a catastrophe, the sudden annihilation of Wesley Sterritt. The negroos who heard the white folks whispering about it, looked for the earth to open up and hterally swallow him up. There was no financia! crash, no crack of doom, no sensation of any sort. The man simply continued to prosper. The town rubbed its eyes and looked again, to be certain Wesley was still there, and then deliberately settled down to the conviction that he was a great financier - a man who eould hold his own in conflict with the money kings in Wall street. He came to be regarded as an oracla in the matter of speculative investments. No list of trustees or directors could be complete without his name. He was offered the mayoralty and declined the honor. His store burned up, fully insured - a fact which soma envious people and the insurance adjuster, referring to the similar experience in Shiloh, made a suggestive coincidence - but Wesiey collected the money and removed to Atlanta. He started a business in Atlanta. He was amply successful. He was dissatisfied. One evening, after a good day's business, he went home in a thoughtful. silent mood. He had little petite for supper. His wife - yes, indeed, he had a wife. It is strange how naturally one who knew Wesley ( Sterritt at thia time might, in telling the story of his life, forget to mention the existence of a Mrs. Sterritt I There was little about Mrs. Sterritt, ' except her existence to be mentioned j in that connection. Even in the account g-iven by her old neighbors of the marriage - the one time in her I life when slie said "I will"- she was made subordínate and incidental to the consideration of a grist mili, ! which Wesley was commonly said to have married, the wife as a I sort of incumbrance upon the property. Poor woman! Her identity, except the mechanical part of it, had faded away into that of her husband -her mentality, if that isn't in itself too positive a term, bore to his the relation of a shadow to substancc. She acquiesced, always acquiesced, simply accjuiesced in what he said and did. "Martha," said he abruptly, whun she had finished with the dishes and began with her knitting as usual, "I'm going to buy that lot I was talkin' about yistiddy- the brick house place j'inin' the church." Mrs. Sterritt was vaguely startled and suspicious. He never made her a confldant ïn his affairs, and now talked as thoug-h it especially cpncernod her. He even looked as if he expectèd her to make a reply. "He's erbleeged to sell - the f ello w I war talkin' to in the sto' when you was thar yistiddy," he continued, preseutly. "I kin (fit it fer 32.000 cash. It's wuth easy a time and half that; easy." Mrs. Sterritt continued her knitting in silence. never once looking up. The indications, she knew, were ominous. 'Tve c-ot, say, $14,000 of that. My credit is good, but not good enough, Martha." Wesley looked closely at her face . She fuinbled a bit at her knitting. "I can't be burned out again. I raust try something else. I must fail. I must put that lot in yo' name." He explained the scheme in detail. She listened without comment until he had finished. Then she folded up the knitting an-1 said quietly: "That's stealin'. Iwon't." Wesley's face crimsoned. He was equally atnazed and angry. She as■ tonished him further before he could '. find words for his wrath by asking sternly: "Is what they say about them fires o' your'n a fact, Wesley?" He answered vvith an oath. Ilis face was pale now and his fists were clenched. He controlled hlmselfwith an effort, and then said slowly: 'If you won't, she will; 111 put the lot in Dory Turner's name, an' you - . Glad enough she'd be. Now, Miss Righteous, will the lot be in yo' name or her'n?" He saw her flush at the mention of Dora Turner's name. Her head and shoulders drooped for an instant as though she had been dazed by a blow. He had thoujjht it useless to say as much as he had intended to say, so confident was he that she would submit. He asked triumphantly: "Yo' name or Dory Turner's?" "Mine," she answered. She obeyed implicitly after that, signing papers as he directed. The fraud was consummated. Outraged I creditors attacked the title, but unsuccessfully. The deed was good. Wesley Sterritt owned property in his wife's nam, worth more than $30,000 He caJculated that, all things considered, he had done well in business. He had only to sell the lot after a while and begin again, probably in Nashville or Louisville, with a cash capital which it would have taken years to acquire in legitímate business. Meanwhile the house was filled with boarders, the property was good interest. He could afford to wait, to look about leisurely for a purchaser and for an opportunity to lócate elsewhere. He went homo with his wife from the court house on the day of the final decisión. "Is it all over?" she asked. "All over," he said. "The property is mine. It's paid for, too." He laughed at his own wit, and laughed at her puzzled, curious expression. "All over," she repeated thoughtfully. "May I ask?" he grinned, as the new idea occurred to him, "what you propose to do with yo' property?" "Yes," she said quietly, "1 perpose to keep it, Wesley." "You're comin' out," he said, In mock encouragement, noting the aptness with which she matched his grim humor. "An' what, may I ask, do you propose to do with me?" "You must git out, Wesley." "When?" "Today. Yes, I'll keep the place, ril pay back what you stole an' keep the place." Then the suspicion, and instaDtly the certainty, got into Wesley Sterritt's head that the woman was in earnest - that she was crazy and would do exactly what she said. Cold perspiration carne out in beads upon his face. He pleaded as he never pleaded before. lira. Sterritt was inexorable, and answered simply: "You must go, Wesley." "Ain't my credit good fOr board, Martha?" "Mebbe - with Dory Turner." There was no answer for that. He looked to see that the window curtains shut off the view from the outside, and then got upon his knees. "Martha," he whined, "Martha - " "Wesley," she said decisively, "you must go now - go right away. " That was ten or twelve years ago. Mrs. Sterritt still keeps the boardinghouse. She has paid off what Weslsy stole, every cent of it, with intarest. At long intervals there reappears in Atlanta a homeles3 sot, the meekest of men, who goes thera and asks for Mrs. Sterritt. She gives him a meal in the kitchen, and says when he has finished it: "You must go now, Wesley."