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.