CHAPTER XVIII.

Horse-dealing transactions--A typical horse-deal--“Splitting the difference”--The horse-trading conscience--A gathering at a funeral--Another type of farmer--The sordid life that drives the boys away.

There are some few persons in every community who have always a weather-eye open for a likely horse which they may see passing by. These men are usually free-handed, and know how to match horses and train them nicely, that they may drive quietly and travel evenly and slowly, so as to be desirable carriage teams. When they can make a trade for such a desirable beast they are in their happiest moods. Trade failing, if the owner does not wish to trade, they will buy for the cash at the very lowest possible figure. Disparaging others’ goods which one wants to buy seems to be the general rule among traders in our province. Not that it is thought that such tactics are disreputable, but it would seem almost inherent in the nature of such traders. Perhaps the farmer has a likely young horse harnessed beside a steady old one, which he is driving along, and the horse-trader fastens his eye on him.

“Wouldn’t you like to trade my off black beast for that awkward colt of yours?” and the conversation is opened and the “dickering” commences.

“How much boot would you give me?” and the farmer turns and looks attentively to the trader’s old nag, checked up so high and so tight that he champs continually at his bit. But it’s an old beast after all, although nicely groomed and made to look its best. On its nigh hindfoot is just a suspicion that a spavin has at one time been “doctored,” and on the whole the trader’s horse much resembles the shabby genteel man with his threadbare broadcloth and napless silk hat carefully brushed.

“As for boot, why I really ought to have $35, but seeing it’s you, I’ll trade for $25,” says the trader.

And the farmer chirrups to his team, becoming impatient with the man’s absurdity. “Hold on a minute, let’s see if we can’t split the difference,” says the dealer.

Now, there’s this peculiarity in many an Ontarian’s dealings that it is very generally proposed to “split the difference” where the buyer and seller cannot come to terms. It may be a hap-hazard way of doing business, and has no foundation in sound reasoning; yet it is a fact that very much of the buying and selling in rural Ontario is done by “splitting the difference.”

Our farmer, however, has not yet seen any difference to split, and thinks still that he should get the best. And the horse-trader tells of the merits of his horse, its weight, how gentle it is, how well and handily it will work, and impresses his idea upon the farmer that his colt is yet untried and scarcely broken. Up to this time in this “dickering” the farmer has not made a positive offer, and once more chirrups to his team and starts upon his way.

“Stop a minute. If you think you could not split the difference, how will you trade, any way?”

“Well, I might trade even, since your horse is heavier than mine and better able to do my work, but how old did you say he was?”

And the farmer gets off his waggon and looks in the horse’s mouth.

Here, as all the way along in this “dicker,” the horse-trader has been too sharp for the farmer, and the horse’s teeth have been nicely filed and his horse is made to appear only seven years old.

A swap is made at length on even terms, and this horse-trading jockey drives off with the farmer’s valuable colt, worth about $165, and leaving for it an old used-up horse, worth perhaps $80 at most. And these horse-traders are not gipsies either, for every one expects them to trade horses, but men in the community, who, take them out of their own specialty, pass as respectable men. Between services at the church this trader slyly tells his neighbor how he got $125 the better of So-and-so at the last trade, with a sly laugh and a cough. With his forefinger he digs his companion gently in the ribs, and in great confidence tells him that he knows where there is another whopping good trade for him. A bank account this man has, too, and in every way is the pink of perfection, save in his own peculiar business; pays his bills promptly, dresses his family well, and is never backward in his contributions to the church, and is really, as he pretends to be, a decent man. But on a horse trade he would cheat his own father. Just how he reconciles this peculiarity with his theology we have never been able to discover, but somehow his theology is elastic enough to stretch over the point, and he conveniently allows it to do so.

Maybe it’s a horse I want to sell, and I have advertised the fact in the local papers. After tea, and on the eve of setting out for a drive, this horse-buyer comes along and inquires for the “boss.”

“Understands I want to sell a horse,” and I tell him that the hired man is in the stable and will show him the horse.

But he must talk with the “boss,” and I am forced to go to the stable with this would-be buyer.

“Bring out that Clyde horse, John; this gentleman wants to buy him,” and John leads by the halter the horse which six months ago I paid $180 for, and now having no further use for him, I wish to convert into bankable funds.

“Rather stocky, and just a little heavy in the legs,” and I prepare myself to hear my good, sound, strong horse so run down as to be only fit for slowest and easiest work on a farm.

“You’d be asking as much as $125 for that horse, I suppose, boss?”

Now, as far as I have ever known or can discover, I never yet heard of any one selling a horse for as much as he gave for it, unless he belonged to the horse-dealing fraternity. I reply, however, “A hundred and forty dollars is my price for this horse, and I paid $40 more for him only six months ago.”

“Whew! boss, you paid far too much; don’t know as you know it, but just now the Americans are buying lighter horses, and horses of this stamp don’t sell so well. Now, if you were to say $130, I might--”

“John, take him back to his stall, for I am afraid this gentleman and I can’t agree.” And John turns the horse for the stable door.

“Don’t be in such a hurry, boss; perhaps we can split the difference.” An appeal, as before, to “split the difference.” But at this stage of the dicker I am thoroughly disgusted, and wonder if it be necessary to practise so much deceit and cunning in the purchase and sale of a horse simply.

I reply that $140 is my price, and not a cent less. “Well, boss, I guess I’ll take him, but you’re a very impatient man anyway. There’s a blanket on the fence; I suppose you’ll throw that in, and, of course, the halter now on him.”

In sheer desperation to get rid of this pest of a buyer, I give up the blanket, and the horse is put in the buyer’s charge. “Grand growing weather now, boss; hope your turnips haven’t been eaten by the fly;” and thus the conversation drifts to polite subjects, and he inquires as to the health of the family, and I can do no less than reciprocate and ask him if his care are likewise well.

There’s something mean about the whole transaction, and one feels that his manhood is lowered by his “dickering.” This buyer knew that my horse was richly worth all I asked for him at the first, but he formed a deliberate plan to cheat me out of just as many dollars as he could by lying, or by running my horse down contrary to his own deliberate judgment.

There’s a gathering at neighbor Jones’s, and I see over the fields a lot of carriages in the road. Looking still, I see the village hearse come driving down the road towards the house, with its black plumes nodding as the wheels feel the inequalities of the road. More of the neighbors have collected, and now I see the pastor of one of the village churches coming in his light covered carriage.

“So Mr. Jones’s eldest boy has gone, boss, and it will likely be rather hard on the old man, for he did think a lot of the boy, even if he did run away from him,” neighbor Dixon remarks to me as he is driving by to the funeral. This neighbor Jones is one of the fore-handed farmers of Ontario, and the only quality that can be praised about him in any way is his industry. Up before day dawn, winter and summer, and drudging daily till dark at night, and his wife’s just like him.

He’d only two boys, and this oldest one was so harried at home that two years ago he ran away to Texas and became a cowboy. Only a few short weeks ago he returned with seeds of that dreadful malarial fever in his system, and only to die. The second boy is not yet old enough to run away, but in the ordinary course of events, as soon as he does get old enough, he’ll follow his poor dead brother’s example.

This Jones is a Yorkshire man, and his wife is a North of Ireland woman. Last winter they boarded the school-master. At four o’clock of a winter morning this dame would call him up for breakfast. For some days the school-master stood it meekly, until he finally told Mrs. Jones that this first meal would do for a lunch, and that he’d take some breakfast before he went to school. It is a large farm-house Jones has, and it is nicely painted and well finished, and for a marvel contains really good and appropriate furniture. The matter of furniture can be explained, for Jones sold a lot of hay to some cabinet-maker, and being afraid of his pay was glad to get the furniture.

His hired help are worked beyond all reason, and have scarcely ever a part of Sunday for themselves. Some poor ignorant fellow of an emigrant has come over and has not yet learned our prices, and Jones has pounced on him, and so he gets his work done for a song.

Get rich? Of course, he does. How could such a man help it?

The parlor is open to-day--the first time I have seen it for a twelvemonth--and the shutters are thrown back. Neighborly decency says I must go to the funeral, and I get my horse and carriage.

In the parlor the boy is laid, and the fine embellished coffin contains all that is mortal of the poor lad, Jones’s eldest heir.

Well, it’s a nice parlor, even so, and those things which money could buy in a lump are there. The little bric-a-brac, or knick-knacks, or books, are of course absent, for Mrs. Jones only sees the parlor monthly, when she dusts it out, and no one has any time about Jones’s to make it homelike.

Books are conspicuous by their absence, save only one, a large gilt family Bible, opened last when it was put in here, some months ago, for no one has any time to read at Jones’s.

A hush, and the minister rises and announces the hymn. Neighbors’ wives and daughters have mercifully gathered, and, standing in the hall, and upon the stairs, raise their voices in one of Watts’s soul-stirring hymns, and gradually the assembled neighbors join in. A prayer follows, and then the solemn warning. All voices are hushed. Boys of the neighborhood are the bearers--boys whom this Jones boy once loved and made his confidants and associates. The coffin is placed within the hearse. The procession moves, and soon the grave closes all, and Jones has lost his oldest son, and is disconsolate for a day or two.

Again the parlor is closed. When its cobwebs will be again dusted from it, as I have attempted to do, it is impossible to say. Possibly not until the next boy comes home to die like his brother. I am picturing Jones’s home to show one of a class of money grabbers and slaves in Ontario. The bright sunshine of a home is not there. Books, papers, recreation, society and neighborly chat are all absent.