Now git away
fr'm here. Don't pester me.... You've been swindled, that's what, and it
serves you doggone well right. Now git."
It was one of the few times that Coldriver saw Scattergood in a rage.
The rage convinced them. Scattergood said they were swindled and he was
in a rage. Therefore he must be right. The news spread, and knots of
citizens with lowered heads and anxious eyes gathered on street corners
and whispered and nodded toward Scattergood, who sat heavily on his
piazza, speaking to nobody. It was Grandmother Penny who dared accost
him. She crept up to his place and said, tremulously:
"Be you sure, Scattergood, about that feller bein' a swindler?"
Scattergood looked down at her fiercely. Then his eyes softened and he
leaned forward and scrutinized her face.
"Did you git into this mess, too, Grandmother Penny?"
"Both me 'n' James," she said. "You let on that folks got rich quick by
investin'. Me 'n' James was powerful anxious to git money so's--so's we
could git married on it. So we drawed out our money and--and invested
it."
"Come here, Grandmother," said Scattergood, and she stood just before
his chair, her head coming very little higher than his own as he sat
there, big and ominous.
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