"'M, yes; 'm, yes; first-rate," said Butler, as his eye took in the neat
garden, the pig-pen, and the well-filled barnyard. "You're gitt'n' quite
a stock around yeh. Done well, eh?"
Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He had not seen it for a
year, having spent the year in Washington and Boston with Ashley, his
brother-in-law, who had been elected to Congress.
"Yes, I've laid out a good deal of money durin' the last three years.
I've paid out three hundred dollars f'r fencin'."
"Um--h'm! I see, I see," said Butler, while Haskins went on:
"The kitchen there cost two hundred; the barn ain't cost much in money,
but I've put a lot o' time on it. I've dug a new well, and I--"
"Yes, yes, I see. You've done well. Stock worth a thousand dollars,"
said Butler, picking his teeth with a straw.
"About that," said Haskins, modestly. "We begin to feel's if we was
gitt'n' a home f'r ourselves; but we've worked hard. I tell you we begin
to feel it, Mr. Butler, and we're goin' t' begin to ease up purty soon.
We've been kind o' plannin' a trip back t' her folks after the fall
ploughin's done."
"Eggs-actly!" said Butler, who was evidently thinking of something else.
"I suppose you've kind o' calc'lated on stayin' here three years more?"
"Well, yes. Fact is, I think I c'n buy the farm this fall, if you'll
give me a reasonable show."
"Um--m! What do you call a reasonable show?"
"Well, say a quarter down and three years' time."
Butler looked at the huge stacks of wheat, which filled the yard, over
which the chickens were fluttering and crawling, catching grasshoppers,
and out of which the crickets were singing innumerably. He smiled in a
peculiar way as he said, "Oh, I won't be hard on yeh. But what did you
expect to pay f'r the place?"
"Why, about what you offered it for before, two thousand five hundred,
or possibly three thousand dollars," he added quickly, as he saw the
owner shake his head.
"This farm is worth five thousand and five hundred dollars," said
Butler, in a careless and decided voice.
"What!" almost shrieked the astounded Haskins. "What's that? Five
thousand? Why, that's double what you offered it for three years ago."
"Of course, and it's worth it. It was all run down then; now it's in
good shape. You've laid out fifteen hundred dollars in improvements,
according to your own story."
"But you had nothin' t' do about that. It's my work an' my money."
"You bet it was; but it's my land."
"But what's to pay me for all my--"
"Ain't you had the use of 'em?" replied Butler, smiling calmly into his
face.
Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a sandbag; he couldn't
think; he stammered as he tried to say: "But--I never'd git the
use--You'd rob me! More'n that: you agreed--you promised that I could
buy or rent at the end of three years at--"
"That's all right. But I didn't say I'd let you carry off the
improvements, nor that I'd go on renting the farm at two-fifty. The land
is doubled in value, it don't matter how; it don't enter into the
question; an' now you can pay me five hundred dollars a year rent, or
take it on your own terms at fifty-five hundred, or--git out."
He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pouring from his face,
fronted him, saying again:
"But you've done nothing to make it so. You hain't added a cent. I put
it all there myself, expectin' to buy. I worked an' sweat to improve it.
I was workin' for myself an' babes--"
"Well, why didn't you buy when I offered to sell? What y' kickin'
about?"
"I'm kickin' about payin' you twice f'r my own things,--my own fences,
my own kitchen, my own garden."
Butler laughed. "You're too green t' eat, young feller. Your
improvements! The law will sing another tune."
"But I trusted your word."
"Never trust anybody, my friend. Besides, I didn't promise not to do
this thing. Why, man, don't look at me like that. Don't take me for a
thief. It's the law. The reg'lar thing. Everybody does it."
"I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same. You take three
thousand dollars of my money--the work o' my hands and my wife's." He
broke down at this point. He was not a strong man mentally. He could
face hardship, ceaseless toil, but he could not face the cold and
sneering face of Butler.
"But I don't take it," said Butler, coolly. "All you've got to do is to
go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dollars down,
and a mortgage at ten per cent on the rest."
Haskins sat down blindly on a bundle of oats near by, and with staring
eyes and drooping head went over the situation. He was under the lion's
paw. He felt a horrible numbness in his heart and limbs. He was hid in a
mist, and there was no path out.
Butler walked about, looking at the huge stacks of grain, and pulling
now and again a few handfuls out, shelling the heads in his hands and
blowing the chaff away. He hummed a little tune as he did so. He had an
accommodating air of waiting.
Haskins was in the midst of the terrible toil of the last year. He was
walking again in the rain and the mud behind his plough; he felt the
dust and dirt of the threshing. The ferocious husking-time, with its
cutting wind and biting, clinging snows, lay hard upon him. Then he
thought of his wife, how she had cheerfully cooked and baked, without
holiday and without rest.
"Well, what do you think of it?" inquired the cool, mocking, insinuating
voice of Butler.
"I think you're a thief and a liar!" shouted Haskins, leaping up. "A
black-hearted houn'!" Butler's smile maddened him; with a sudden leap he
caught a fork in his hands, and whirled it in the air. "You'll never rob
another man, damn ye!" he grated through his teeth, a look of pitiless
ferocity in his accusing eyes.
Butler shrank and quivered, expecting the blow; stood, held hypnotized
by the eyes of the man he had a moment before despised--a man
transformed into an avenging demon. But in the deadly hush between the
lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint, childish
laughter and then across the range of his vision, far away and dim, he
saw the sun-bright head of his baby girl, as, with the pretty, tottering
run of a two-year-old, she moved across the grass of the dooryard. His
hands relaxed: the fork fell to the ground; his head lowered.
"Make out y'r deed an' mor'gage, an' git off'n my land, an' don't ye
never cross my line agin; if y' do, I'll kill ye."
Butler backed away from the man in wild haste, and climbing into his
buggy with trembling limbs drove off down the road, leaving Haskins
seated dumbly on the sunny pile of sheaves, his head sunk into his
hands.