Read Online Crows & Cards by Joseph Helgerson - Free Book Online Page B

there supposed to be a wire or something for me to work with?"
    "Zeb says we need a wire," Chilly yelled out to Goose. I could tell by his uppity tone that he was poking fun at me. He knew full well that a telegraph needed wire.
    "He's a sharp one, all right," Goose heckled.
    "Even if I had a wire," I went on, "wouldn't somebody have to teach me how to talk over it with clicks and clacks? That's the way it's done, ain't it?"
    "He says we got to learn him clicks and clacks too," Chilly shouted to Goose.
    "Sounds like a job for the Professor," Goose yelled back.
    "Best leave me out of it," the Professor warned from behind the bar.
    Chilly jabbed my shoulder hard and asked in a mean voice, "Anything else bothering you?"
    "No," I sulked, though I did have one mighty big question circling around in my head.
    Try as I might, I couldn't quite figure why anyone on the other end of a long telegraph line would give a hoot about what cards Goose Nedeau was holding in his hand. Wouldn't they want to be hearing about something more important? Wouldn't floods or elections or steamboat races be on their minds? Wasn't that the kind of news fit for telegraphs? I couldn't get a hook on any answers to that question at all, though it turned out I didn't have to worry over it. Right about then, Chilly called out, "Ho-John, come in here. Got a job for you."
    Clinking chains all the way, Ho-John shuffled into the pantry, took one look at me, and announced, "I don't think he'll cook up none too good."
    "This ain't a cooking job," Chilly explained. "It's a carpentering job."
    Ho-John straightened up some upon hearing that and said, "You tell old Ho-John what you're needing. Leave the rest to him."
    "I want you to run a good stout wire up to this shelf that Zeb's on. I want you to run it down through the floor, under the house, and attach it to the bottom side of a floorboard in the main parlor."
    It didn't amount to much of a telegraph line. The total length would have run maybe ten to fifteen foot worth, give or take.
    "That mean you done found some new way to cheat the poor gents what come in here?" Ho-John wanted to know.
    I recoiled some at the sound of that. Back in Stavely's Landing, hauling out a word like cheat often as not ended in fisticuffs.
    "Well I like that!" Chilly cried, his cheeks taking on color fast. "Where do you think these gents get their money if not by cheating somebody else? Answer me that."
    "I wouldn't be knowing 'bout that," Ho-John said. "Imagine each of 'em gots their ways."
    "And if you add all those different ways up," Chilly came right back, "what do you think we'd have us?"
    "I've done heard your preachering before, Mr. Chilly," Ho-John said. "There anything else you want fixed?"
    Ho-John could have done a better job on sounding respectful, but he could have done worse too. Mostly, he sounded kind of lukewarm. But answering Chilly's questions with a question, that wasn't anywhere near a good idea. It got Chilly's back up even more.
    "Only your manners," Chilly bristled.
    "Are we going to be cheating then?" I asked kind of peaked-and worried-like in the silence that followed.
    " Cheating 's a mighty harsh word," Chilly commented, still glaring at Ho-John. "It ain't one the Brotherhood much favors."
    "What word does the Brotherhood go for?" I asked.
    " Shortening's the way we put it." Turning toward me, he simmered down enough to say, "Let me ask you this, Zeb. If one man's got a thousand dollars to make a thousand bets with, and another man's only got one dollar to make one bet with, who do you think's going to win?"
    "Why, the man with the thousand."
    "And does that seem fair?" Chilly asked.
    "If you're going to put 'er that way..." I backed off.
    "That's the only way to put it. 'Cause the fellows that come in here with their pockets bulging, in the long run they're going to win every time. Unless we do something to shorten 'em up some."
    "Still sound like cheating to me," Ho-John said, "and the Sunday preachers say