Part 14

"Just so. Did he say which side of the line his own property was?"

"Yes--no--that is, he took me over a lot of ground that contained many fine large walnut trees. See here, Squire, have I been swindled?"

"That depends. Weefer is about as smart as they make 'em, so I don't think he'd be fool enough to swindle any one--not, at least, so that the law could take hold of him. Did he say the land he showed you was his? Tell me exactly what he said; for if he over-reached himself, my old law partner would like to handle the case for you. To win a case against Weefer would be a great feather in his cap. The fact is that all the walnut on Weefer's land consists of stumps, for the trees were cut off two or three years ago. There's a fine lot of standing walnut adjoining it, but it belongs to Doctor Taggess."

"Then I am swindled."

"I hope so--that is, I hope, for the sake of our old firm, which I'll have to go back into if I'm not reëlected, that you've a good case against Weefer. Now tell me--carefully--exactly what he said. Did he say that Taggess's land was his?"

"No--o--o," said Philip, after a moment of thought, "I can't say that he did. We rode out there on horseback, stopped at the edge of some wooded ground, and he said, 'Did you ever see finer walnut land than that?' Those were his very words--I'll swear to them--the old scoundrel!"

"Quite likely, but did he say that those trees--that land--was his?"

"No; not in so many words, but he certainly gave me that impression."

"With what exact words?" Again Philip searched his memory, but was compelled to reply:--

"With no words that I can recall. He talked rapturously about the beauty of a lot of walnut trees, from the money point of view."

"But didn't say, in any way, that they belonged to him?"

"Confound him, no! But he handed me a deed--"

"That's no evidence, unless it was Taggess's deed he showed you, which evidently it wasn't. Well, Mr. Somerton, you've got no case. Morally 'twas a swindle--not a new one, either. He wouldn't have tried it on you if Caleb hadn't been away; for Caleb knows the lay and condition of every tract of land in this county--just as you'll know when you've been here long enough. You've bought forty acres that won't bring you anything but taxes, unless you can find some use for walnut stumps--and they're harder to get out than any other kind but oak, unless some day the land-owners along the creek combine to put up a levee that'll prevent overflow, so that the land can be farmed, but even then the stumps will be a nuisance. Hope you got it cheap."

"Five dollars an acre," Philip growled.

"Cash?"

"No; trade."

"Trade, eh? Well, that's not so bad, though it's bad enough." The old man's eyes twinkled, for what man of affairs is there who does not enjoy the details of a smart trade--at some other man's expense? Philip noticed the clerk's amused expression and frowned; the clerk quickly continued, "Let me give you some professional advice--no charge for it. Keep entirely quiet about this affair; you may be sure that Weefer won't talk until you do. If the story gets out, you'll never hear the end of it, and 'twon't do your reputation as a business man any good. We don't publish records of transfers in this county, and of course I won't mention it, and I'll see that my son doesn't either; he's the only other man who has access to the books."

"Thank you very much, Squire. You may count on my vote and influence if you're renominated."

"Much obliged. Whew! Five dollars an acre for a lot of walnut stumps!"

"Five dollars an acre, and a silk dress for Mrs. Weefer's waiver of dower-right," said Philip, so humiliated that he wished to make his confession complete.

"What? Well, Weefer won't talk, but whether he can harness his wife's tongue when she's ready to show off that silk dress is another matter."

Philip started to go, and the clerk made haste to hide his face behind the deed, and silently chuckle himself towards a fit of apoplexy.

"You're absolutely sure that I've no way out of it?" Philip said, pausing for an instant.

"Absolutely," the clerk replied, with some difficulty, his face still behind the deed, "unless--you can find--a market--for--walnut stumps." Then the clerk coughed alarmingly, and Philip pulled his hat over his eyes and hurried away, with a consuming desire to mount his horse, overtake Weefer, shoot him to death, recover the wagon-load of goods, and particularly the silk dress given to Mrs. Weefer. When he reached the store, he found his wife looking pale and troubled; there were present also three men with very serious countenances, and one of them said:--

"Mr. Somerton, I s'pose?"

"Yes, sir. What can I do for you?"

"You can shell out my colt that's in your barn. I was goin' to take him whether or no, but your wife said you was a square man, an' would do what was right. Well, there's only one right thing in this case, an' that's to gimme back my colt."

"There are but two horses in my stable," said Philip. "One of them I've owned several months, and the other I bought yesterday."

"Who from?"

"From--" Philip took from his pocket the bill of sale and read from it the signature:--

"James Marney."

The three men exchanged grim grins, and the complainant said:--

"His name ain't Marney, an' 'tain't James, neither. He's a no 'count cousin o' mine, an' his name's Bill Tewks. An' he never had no right of any sort or kind to the colt. The colt's mine, an' never was any one else's, an' I can prove it by these two men, an' one of 'em's depitty sheriff of our county, an' he's got a warrant for Bill's arrest for stealin' the hoss. My name's James Marney; I can prove it by any storekeeper in this town, or by Doc Taggess, or your county clerk, or--"

"I'll take your word for it," Philip said hastily, for the thought of exposing a second business blunder to the county clerk in a single day--a single hour, indeed--was unendurable.

"I don't see," continued the claimant of the horse, looking greatly aggrieved, "how a man buys one man's hoss off of another man anyway, leastways of a no 'count shack like Bill Tewks."

"Perhaps not," said Philip, "but I may be able to enlighten you. Do you know a man named Caleb Wright?"

"Know Caleb? Who don't? That ain't all; he's the honestest man I ever _did_ know. I wish he was here right now, instead of off to York, as your wife says, for he knows me an' he knows the hoss. Why, a spell ago, not long after old Jethro died, an' I needed some money pooty bad, I writ to Caleb an' ast him what he could git me in cash for the colt, here in town, prices of hosses here bein' some better'n what they be in our county, where there ain't never city buyers lookin' aroun', and Caleb writ back that--"

"One moment, please," said Philip. "He wrote that any one ought to be glad to give you seventy-five dollars, but that you would be foolish to sell, because you could get far more a year later, but that if you really must sell, he wished you would give me the first chance."

The claimant, whose eyes by this time were bulging, exclaimed:--

"You've got a pooty long mem'ry, an' it's as good as it is long."

"As to that, I never saw the letter until yesterday. The man who brought the horse showed me the letter; otherwise I shouldn't have purchased."

The claimant and his companions exchanged looks of astonishment, and the deputy drawled:--

"How'd he git it, Jim?"

"It beats me," was the reply. "Onless he went through the house like he did the barn. That letter was in the Bible, where I keep some papers o' one kind an' another, cal'latin' that's as safe a place as any, not gettin' much rummagin'. He must 'a' knowed I had it. Oh, he's a slick un, Bill is, when he gits dead broke an' wants to go on a spree. You see, Mr. Somerton, the way of it was this: the wife was off visitin', an' I was ploughin' corn, an' took some snack with me, an' some stuff for the hosses, so's to have a longer rest at noon-time, not havin' to go back all the way to the house. The colt was in the barn, so I didn't miss him till I got home, long about dusk. Bill must 'a' knowed, some way, my wife wa'n't home, an' I could see by the lot o' hay in the colt's rack that he'd been took out 'fore the middle o' the day. I was so knocked by missin' him that I've been on the track ever sence, an' didn't think to look to see ef anythin' was gone from the house, but the cuss must 'a' prowled 'roun' consid'able ef he got that letter. Didn't bring in my rifle an' shotgun to sell, did he, nor flat-irons, nor cook-stove?"

"No, although he did sell me a saddle and bridle. I hope you'll succeed in catching the scamp."

"Oh, I ain't got no use for him. The furder away he gits, the better satisfied I'll be. We ain't never had no other thief 'mong our relations. I reckon it's you that ought to want him. What I want is my colt, an' I'm goin' to have him--peaceful, ef I kin, or by law, ef I must. He's thar--in your barn; I seen him through the door; so did my frien's here, so there's no good beatin' about the bush an'--"

"Stop!" said Philip. "There's no sense in insinuating that I would knowingly retain stolen property--unless you wish to have your tongue knocked down your throat."

"That's fair talk, Jim, an' I don't blame him for givin' it to you," suggested the deputy. "Now you chaw yerself for a while, an' let me say somethin'. It don't stan' to reason that any business man is goin' to try to keep a stolen hoss. On 'tother han', he'd be a fool to give up on the word o' three men he never seen till just now. You, Jim, ain't such a fool as to want to air the family skunk so fur from home, an' Mr. Somerton here ain't likely to be over'n above anxious to have a fuss that'll let ev'rybody in town know that he was took in by an amatoor hoss-thief. Now, Jim, jest sa'nter out an' get some square man, an' not a storekeeper that knows ye, to come in an' speak for ye, as if ye wanted to buy some goods on credit. Thet'll prove who ye be, an' like enough he'll know me, too, 'specially if it's--"

"Why not Doctor Taggess?" Philip suggested.

"Good idee," the officer replied, "for he knows both of us."

"An' he knows the colt, too," said the claimant.

"Better and better," Philip declared, for anything would have been preferable, at Claybanks or any other Western town, to being known as a merchant to whom a thief could sell anything.

Fortunately the Doctor was at home; he came to the store, identified the claimant, vouched for his honesty and truthfulness, and then identified the colt as the claimant's property. Philip told the entire story to the Doctor, who said there was nothing to do but surrender the horse--or repurchase him.

"How much do you want for him, Mr. Marney?"

"Ye ain't said what ye give a'ready."

"No; that's a different matter. What is your price?"

"Cash, note, or trade?"

"Whichever you like, if the figures are right."

"Well, seein' you've been put to expense a'ready, an' I don't need money for a couple o' months yet, an' you'll most likely give more on time than in cash, I'd rather take your sixty-day note for a hundred back home with me than take the colt back. No other man could have him so cheap."

"You shall have it--on condition, written and signed, that neither of you three shall tell the story of the thief's sale. No one else can tell it."

"You'll stand by me, boys?" said the claimant, appealingly.

"Sure!"

"Then I'll take the note, Mr. Somerton, an' you've done the square thing. But say, I'll throw off five dollar ef ye'll tell me what ye paid fer him."

"No," said Philip, beginning to draw a bill of sale to include the condition already specified.

"I'll make it ten."

"No."

"Ah, say! I cayn't sleep peaceful without knowin', but this is rubbin' it in. Fifteen!"

"Sign this, please," said Philip, showing the bill of sale. Then he passed over his own note for eighty-five dollars, and said:--

"I paid seventy-five dollars, cash."

"Well," sighed Marney, "that's a comfort--for besides knowin' how much 'twas, it shows what I wanted to b'lieve, that Bill was as much fool as scoundrel, else he'd 'a' ast more. Good-by, Mr. Somerton an' Doc."

The trio departed. The Doctor remained to condole with the victim, who could not help telling of his real-estate trade. The Doctor laughed,--but not too long,--then he said:--

"There ought to be finer grainings and markings, and, therefore, more money, in walnut roots than in the average of trees. I've been intending to experiment in that direction. As to that colt, let me drive him for you a few days; he may have the making of both prices in him."

When the Doctor departed, Philip got out his own horse and buggy, and insisted that his wife should drive, but Grace was reluctant to go. Something seemed to be troubling her. Philip asked what it was. "I wish Caleb were back," she said.

"_Et tu, Brute?_ Now is my humiliation complete; but as Caleb is where he is, let us make the best of it." So saying, he indited the following telegram to Caleb, for Grace to send from the railway station, three miles distant:--

"Look up a buyer for big walnut stumps.

"PHILIP."

XXI--CUPID AND CORN-MEAL

"THIS," said Philip, as he returned one morning from the post-office to the store, with an open letter in his hand, "is about the twelfth letter I've had from old acquaintances in New York, and all are as like unto one another as if written by the same hand. The writers imagine that the West is bursting with opportunities for men whose wits are abler than their hands. What a chance I would have to avenge myself on mine enemy--if I had one!"

"And this," Grace said, after opening a letter addressed to herself that Philip had given her, "is from Mary Truett. I wonder if she has caught the Western fever from Caleb? Oh--I declare!"

"Your slave awaits the declaration."

"She, too, wants to know if there isn't a place here for a clever young man--her brother; it seems he is a civil engineer and landscape architect."

"Imagine it! A landscape architect--at Claybanks! Ask her if he can live on air, and sleep on the ground with a tree-top for roof. Doesn't she say anything about Caleb?"

"I'm skipping her brother and looking for it, as fast as I can. Yes; here it is. There! Didn't I tell you how sensible she always was? She thanks me for introducing Caleb, and says he's the most interesting and genial man she has met in a long time, though, she says, she wonders whose grammar was in vogue when Caleb went to school. And--dear me!--this is becoming serious!"

"My dear girl," said Philip, "there are different ways of reading a letter aloud. Won't you choose a new one or let me have the letter itself, when you've read it, provided it contains no secrets?"

"Do wait a moment, Phil! You're as curious as women are said to be. It seems that Caleb has persuaded her to accompany him to a prayer-meeting; and as she has also been to a theatre with him, I'm afraid the persuading, or a hint to that effect, must have been on her part. She says he has completely changed in appearance--and by what means, do you suppose?"

"I can't imagine."

"His beard has gone, and his hair has been cut Eastern fashion, and his mustache turned up at the ends, and he dresses well,--Mary says so,--and that the contrast is startling. Oh, Phil! What if he should--"

"Should what? Fall in love with your paragon of women? Well, I suppose men are never too old to make fools of themselves, and Caleb is only forty, but I beg that you'll at once remind Miss Truett that Caleb is too good a man to be hurt at heart for a woman's amusement. Why are you looking at nothing in that vague manner?"

"I'm trying to imagine Caleb's new appearance."

"Spare yourself the effort. I'll telegraph him for a photograph."

"But I want to know--at once, to see whether he's really impressed Mary more seriously than she admits."

"Oh, you women! You can start a possible romance on less basis than would serve for a dream. Do go backward in that letter, to the lady's brother, if only to suppress your imagination."

"I suppose I must," sighed Grace, "for I've reached the end. The brother, it seems, can secure a railroad pass to visit this country, if there is any possible business opening for him here."

"I wish there were, I'm sure, for I don't know of a place more in need of services such as a landscape architect could render, but you know that he couldn't earn a dollar."

"But it seems that he knows something of road-making and grading."

"Which also are accomplishments that might be put to good use here, if there were any one to pay for the work."

"I have it!" Grace said. "The very thing! Don't you dare laugh at me until I tell it all. You know--or I do--that Doctor Taggess thinks Claybanks would be far less malarious if the swamp lands could be drained. He says the malarious exhalation, whatever it is, seems to be heavier than the air, and is therefore comparatively local in its effects, for he has known certain towns and other small localities to be entirely free from it, though the surrounding country was full of it. Now, if some surveyor and engineer--say Mary Truett's brother--could find out how to drain our Claybanks swamps, it might make this a healthy town. Is that a very silly notion?"

"Silly? Not a bit of it! But, my dear girl, do you know what such an enterprise would cost?"

"No, but I do know what I suffered on the day of my awful malarial attack and that I shall never forget the spectacle of a poor, dear, little, helpless, innocent baby shaking with a chill!"

"Poor girl! Poor baby! But don't you suppose that our swamp lands have been studied for years by the men most interested in them--the farmers and other owners?--studied and worked at?"

"Perhaps they have, but Doctor Taggess says farmers always do things in the hardest way; they've not time and money to try any other. Besides, since I began to think of it I've often recalled a case somewhat similar. In our town in western New York the railway station was very inconvenient; it was on a bridge crossing the track, and everything and everybody had to go up and down stairs or up and down hill to get to or from it. It was talked of at town meetings and the post-office and other places, and public-spirited citizens roamed the line from one end of town to the other, looking for a spot where the station could be placed near the level of the track.

"At last they subscribed money to pay for a new site, if the company would move its station to the level, and one day a surveyor and his men came up, and he looked about with an instrument, and a few days afterward a little cutting at one place and a little filling just back of it did the business, and all the village wiseacres called themselves names for not thinking of the same thing, but Grandpa said, 'It takes a shoemaker to make shoes.' You know the swamps are almost dry now, because of the hot weather; don't you suppose a surveyor and engineer, or even a sensible man who's studied physical geography in school, might be able to go over the ground and learn where and what retains the water? Now laugh, if you like."

"Grace, you ought to have been a man!"

"No, thank you--not unless you had been a woman. But you really think my plan isn't foolish?"

"As one of the owners of swamp land, I am so impressed with your wisdom that I suggest that we invite Miss Truett's brother to visit us; tell him the outlook is bad, but say we'll guarantee him--well, a hundred-dollar fee to look into a matter in which we personally are interested. If your plan is practicable, I'll recover the money easily. I'll write him this afternoon--or you may do it, through his sister. Let us see what else is in the mail. Why, I didn't suspect it, the address being typewritten!--Ah, young woman, now for my revenge, for here's a letter from Caleb, and if 'tis anything like the last--yes, here it is--Miss Truett, Miss Truett, Miss Truett."

"Oh, Phil!"

"I'll be merciful, and read every word, without stopping to sentimentalize:--

"'DEAR PHILIP: I'm in it, as Jonah thought when the whale shut his mouth. When I say "it" I mean all of New York that I can pervade while waiting for the corn-meal to come. I've been to a New York prayer-meeting and I can't say that it was any better than the Claybanks kind, except that Miss Truett went with me and joined in all the hymns as natural as if brought up on them. You ought to hear her voice. 'Tain't as loud as some, but it goes right to the heart of a hymn. Next day I went to a museum in a big park and saw more things than I can ever get straightened out in my head: I wish I could have had your wife's camera for company.

"'I went to a theatre, too. I had no more idea of doing it than you have of selling liquor, but I got into a sort of argument with Miss Truett, without meaning to, about the great amount of that kind of sin that was going on; and when she said that she didn't think it was always sinful, I felt like the man that cussed somebody in the dark for stepping on his toes, and then found it was the preacher that done the stepping. She said she really thought that some kinds of theatre would do a sight of good to a hard-working man like me, and that she'd like to see me under the influence of a good comedy for a spell; so I told her there was one way of doing it, and that was to name the comedy and then go along with me, so as to give her observing powers a fair chance. She did it, and I ain't sorry I went; though if you don't mind keeping it to yourself, there won't be some Claybanks prayers wasted on me that might be more useful if kept nearer home.

"'Who should I run against on Broadway one day but an old chum of mine in the army? He'd got a commission, after the war, in the regulars, and got retired for a bad wound he got in the Indian country, yet, for all that, he didn't look any older than he used to. He took me visiting to his post of the Grand Army of the Republic one night, and there I saw a lot of vets that looked as spruce and chipper as if they was beaus just going to see their sweethearts. "What's the matter with you fellows here, that you don't grow old?" says I to my old chum. He didn't understand me at first, but when he saw what I was driving at, he said many of the members of the post were older than I, but 'twasn't thought good sense in New York for a fellow to look older than he was, and he didn't see why 'twas good sense anywhere. I felt sort of riled, and he nagged me awhile, good-natured like, about trying to pass for my own grandfather, till I said: "Look here, Jim, if you've got any fountain of youth around New York, I'm the man that ain't afraid to take a dip." "Good boy!" says he. "I'd like the job of reconstructing you, for old times' sake." "No fooling?" says I; for in old times Jim wouldn't let anything stand in the way of a joke. "Honor bright, Cale," said he, "for I want you to look like yourself, and you can do it." Remembering some advertisements I've seen in newspapers, I says, "What do you do it with--pills or powders?" Jim coughed up a laugh from the bottom of his boots, and says he: "Neither. Come along!"

"'Well, I was skittisher than I've been since Gettysburg, not knowing what new-fangled treatment he had in his mind, and how it would agree with me; but he took me into a barber shop where he appeared to know a man, and he did some whispering, and,--well, when that barber got through, first giving me a hair-cut and then a shave, and fussing over my mustache for a spell, and I got a sight of my face in the glass, I thought 'twas somebody else I was looking at, and somebody that I'd seen before, a long time ago, and it wasn't until I tried to brush a fly off my nose that I found 'twas I. Maybe you think I was a fool, but I was so tickled that I yelled, "Whoop--ee!" right out in meeting. "There!" says Jim, when we got outside. "Don't you ever wear long hair and a beard again--not while I'm around."