MR. STARR’S INVOLUNTARY RIDE.
The farmhouse of Mr. Joshua Starr was situated about a mile from the
village. It was a dilapidated old building, standing very much in need
of paint and repairs, but the owner felt too poor to provide either.
Mr. Starr had never married. From early manhood to the age of sixty-nine
he had lived in the same old house, using the same furniture, part of
the time cooking for himself.
At one time he employed a young girl of fourteen, whom he had taken from
the poorhouse to do his household work. She was not an accomplished
cook, but that was unnecessary, for Mr. Starr had never desired a
liberal table. She could cook well enough to suit him, but he finally
dismissed her for two reasons. First, he begrudged paying her
seventy-five cents a week, which he had agreed with the selectmen to do,
in order to give the girl the means of supplying herself with decent
clothes; and, secondly, he was appalled by her appetite, which, though
no greater than might be expected of a growing girl, seemed to him
enormous.
At the time of which we speak, Mr. Starr was living alone. He had to
employ some help outside, but in the house he took care of himself.
It was certainly a miserable way of living for a man who, besides his
farm, had accumulated, by dint of meanness, not far from ten thousand
dollars, in money and securities, and owned his farm clear, in addition.
Andy went up to the front door, and used the old brass knocker
vigorously, but there was no response.
“I suppose Mr. Starr is somewhere about the place,” he said to himself,
and bent his steps toward the barn.
There he found the man of whom he was in search.
Joshua Starr was attired in a much-patched suit, which might have been
new thirty years before. Certainly he did not set the rising generation
a wasteful example in the matter of dress.
The old man espied Andy just before he got within hearing distance, and
guessed his errand.
“Howdy do, Andy Gordon?” he said, in a quavering voice.
“All right!” answered Andy, coolly.
If it had been anyone else, he would have added, “thank you,” but he did
not feel like being ordinarily polite to the man who was conspiring to
defraud his mother.
“I’m tollable myself,” said Joshua, though Andy had not inquired. “The
rheumatiz catches me sometimes and hurts me a sight.”
“You ought to expect it at your age,” said Andy.
“I ain’t so very old,” said Mr. Starr, uneasily.
“How old are you?”
“Sixty-nine.”
“That seems pretty old to me.”
“My father lived to be nigh on to eighty,” said Joshua. “He wa’n’t no
healthier than I be, as I know of.”
“You might live to be as old, if you would eat nourishing food.”
“So I do! Who says I don’t?”
“Nancy Gray, the girl that worked for you, says you didn’t allow
yourself enough to eat.”
“That girl!” groaned the old man. “It’s well I got red on her, or she’d
have eaten me out of house and home. She eat three times as much as I
did, and I’m a hardworking man and need more than she does.”
“I suppose you know what I’ve come to speak to you about, Mr. Starr,”
said Andy, thinking it time to come to business.
“Have you come to pay that note I hold agin’ your mother?” asked the old
man, with suppressed eagerness.
“My mother owes you nothing,” said Andy, firmly.
“You’re mistaken, Andy. She owes me a hundred dollars and interest, and
I’ve got the dockyment to prove it.”
“You know very well, Mr. Starr, that my father paid you that money long
ago.”
“When did he pay it?”
“Just before he started for the war. You needn’t ask, for you know
better than I do.”
“Yes, I do know better’n you do,” said the old man. “Ef he paid it, why
didn’t he get the note? I’d like to know that, Andy Gordon.”
“That’s easily answered. It was because you pretended you had mislaid
it, and you asked him to take a receipt instead.”
“That ain’t a very likely story, Andy. Still, ef you’ve got the receipt
to show, it may make a difference.”
“We haven’t been able to find the receipt,” said Andy.
“Of course you ain’t, and a good reason why. There never was any
receipt. You don’t expect I’d give a receipt when the note wasn’t paid.”
“No, I don’t; but we both know the note was paid.”
“Then, all I can say is you was mighty shif’less to lose it,” said the
old man, chuckling.
“An honorable man wouldn’t take advantage of such a loss, Mr. Starr. He
wouldn’t be willing to defraud a poor widow, even if he had the power to
do it.”
“You’re wandering from the p’int, Andrew. Ef the money was paid, you can
show the receipt, and then I won’t have another word to say.”
“I am afraid my father must have taken the receipt with him when he went
to the war.”
“Jes’ so--jes’ so!” chuckled Mr. Starr, his chuckle bringing on a fit of
coughing.
“What do you mean to do?” asked Andy, a little anxiously.
“Waal, I want to collect my money. A hundred dollars is a good deal of
money. I can’t afford to lose it.”
“We don’t owe it.”
“The law says you do.”
“At any rate, we can’t pay it. We have no money.”
“Ain’t your mother got her pension, Andrew?”
“Yes, she has, and she will keep it! Not a cent will you get out of it!”
“Then I’ll have to take your furniture,” said Mr. Starr, placidly.
“I believe you are the meanest man in town!” said Andy, indignantly.
“I want my own property,” said the old man, doggedly, “and you may tell
your mother so.”
While the two had been conversing, the old man, shovel in hand, had led
the way into the barnyard, where there were three cows.
One of them, unseen by Mr. Starr, being out of humor, probably, lowered
her head and, approaching the old man from behind, fairly lifted him up
to a sitting position on her head. Mechanically he grasped her horns,
and in this position was carried rapidly round the yard, much to his own
dismay and Andy’s amusement.
“Take her off, Andy!” exclaimed the frightened and bewildered old man.
“She’ll kill me!”
“If I touch her, she’ll throw you on the ground,” said Andy, between
paroxysms of laughter.
“Do somethin’ to help me, or I’m a dead man!” shrieked Joshua, clinging
tighter to the cow’s horns. “If you’ll help me, I’ll take off a dollar
from the note.”
Andy knew that the old man was in no real danger, and stood still, while
the triumphant cow ran about the yard with her terrified master between
her horns.
“Oh, dear! Will nobody help me?” howled Joshua. “Is the cow crazy?”
“I think she must be, Mr. Starr,” said Andy, gravely.
“I shall be killed, and I’m only sixty-nine!” wailed the old man, who by
this time had lost his hat.
“Shall I shoot her?” asked Andy, displaying a toy pistol, which was
quite harmless.
“No, don’t!” exclaimed the old man, turning pale. “You might hit me!
Besides, I gave thirty dollars for her. Oh, I never expected to die this
way,” he added, dismally.
But the cow was by this time tired of her burden, and, with a jerk of
her head, dislodged her proprietor, who fell prostrate in a pile of
manure.
Andy ran to pick him up, and helped him into the house.
“Do you think any of my bones is broken?” asked Joshua, anxiously.
“I don’t see how they can be. You fell in a soft place,” said Andy,
wanting to laugh.
“I’ll sell that cow as quick as I get a chance,” said Joshua. “Don’t you
tell anybody what’s happened, or you may spile the sale.”
Andy tried to introduce the subject of the note again, but Joshua was
too full of the accident to talk about it. Finally, discouraged by his
poor success, he went home.
On the way he met Louis Schick, a schoolfellow, of German extraction,
who hailed him.
“You’d better go to the post office, Andy. There’s a big parcel there
for your mother.”
“A parcel?”
“Yes; it’s too big for a letter.”
Wondering what it could be, Andy went to the post office.
The parcel he found there was of great importance.