You have forgotten me, likely enough, but I have not forgotten you nor
anyone (nor anything) in Brexington. I saw your advertisement in the
New York _Herald_ and am glad to learn from it that you are alive
and to infer that you are well and prosperous.
I need a lawyer’s help. I want to buy real estate and I mean to return
home, so you are exactly the man I am looking for. I am writing this
to ask that you take charge of any and all of my affairs falling
within your province, and to learn whether you are willing to do so.
I am a rich man now, and without any near ties of kin or kind. I want
to come home to Brexington, to live there if I can, to die there if I
must. Along with other matters which I will explain if you accept I
want to buy a house in the town and a farm nearby, if not the Shelby
house and estate then some others like them.
If willing to act for me please reply at once care of the Hotel
Menger. Remember me to any cousins of mine you may see.
Faithfully yours,
CASSIUS M. CASE.”
The name I knew well enough, of course, but my efforts to recall the
individual resulted only in a somewhat hazy recollection of a tall,
thin, red-cheeked lad of seventeen or so. It was almost exactly
twenty-eight years since Colonel Shelby Case had left Brexington
taking with him his son. Colonel Shelby had died some six years later.
I remembered hearing of his death, in Egypt, I thought. Since his
departure from Brexington I had never heard of or from Cassius.
My reply I wrote at once, professing my readiness to do anything in my
power to serve him.
As soon as the mails made it possible, I had a second letter from him.
“MY DEAR RADFORD:
“Your kind letter has taken a load off my mind. I am particular about
any sort of arrangements I make, exacting as to the accurate carrying
out of small details and I feared I might have difficulty in finding a
painstaking man in a community so easy-going as Brexington. I remember
your precise ways as a boy and am basking in a sense of total relief
and complete reliance on you.
“I should buy the Shelby house and estate on your representations, but
I must see for myself first. If they are the best I can get I shall
take them anyhow. But please be ready to show me over every estate
of five hundred acres or more, lying within ten miles of the Court
House. I wish to examine every one which is now for sale or which you
can induce the owners to consider selling. I want the best which is
to be had. Also I want a small place of fifty acres or so, two miles
or more from the larger place I buy. Money is no object to me and the
condition of the buildings on the places will not weigh with me at all.
“So with the town house: I may tear it down entirely and rebuild from
the cellar up. What I want in the town is a place of half an acre
to two acres carrying fine, tall trees, with well-developed trunks.
I want shade and plenty of it, but no limbs or branches growing or
hanging within eight feet of the ground. I do not desire shrubbery,
but if there is any I can have it removed, while I cannot create stout
trees. Those I must have on the place when I buy it, for I will have
the shade and I will have a clear sweep for air and an unobstructed
view all round.
“I am not at the Menger as you naturally suppose. I merely have my
mail sent there. I am living in a tent half a mile or more from the
town. At Los Angeles I had the luck to fall in with a Brexington
nigger, Jeff Twibill. He knew of another, Cato Johnson, who was in
Frisco. I have the two of them with me now, Jeff takes care of the
horses and Cato of me and I am very comfortable.
“That brings me to the arrangements I want you to make for me. Buy or
lease or rent or borrow a piece of a field, say four acres, free of
trees or bushes and sloping enough to shed the rain. Be sure there is
good water handy. Have four tents; one for me, one for the two niggers
(and make it big enough for three or four); one to cook in and one
for my four horses, they are luxurious beasts and live as well as I
do. Have the tents pitched in the middle of the field so I shall have
a clear view all around. The field must be clear of bushes or trees,
must be at least four acres and may be any size larger than that:
forty would be none too big for me. I want no houses too close to me.
“You see I am at present averse to houses, hotels and public
conveyances. I mean to ride across the continent camping as I go. And
in Brexington I mean to tent it until I have my own house ready to
live in. I am resolute to be no man’s guest nor any man’s lodger, nor
any company’s passenger.
“I am coming home, Radford, coming home to be a Colonel with the rest
of them. And I shall be no mere colonel-by-courtesy: I have won my
right to the title, I won it twice over, years ago in Egypt and later
in Asia.
“Thank you for all the news of the many cousins, I did not realize
they were so very numerous. I am sorry that Mary Mattingly is dead, of
all the many dear people in Brexington I loved her best.
“I shall keep you advised of my progress across the continent. And
as questions come up about the details of the tent-equipment you can
confer with me by letter.
“Gratefully yours,
“CASSIUS M. CASE.”
I showed the letters to one and another of my elder acquaintances, who
remembered Cassius.
Dr. Boone said:
“I presume it is a case of advanced tuberculosis. He should have
remained in that climate. Of course, he may live a long time here,
tenting in the open or living with the completest fresh air treatment.
His punctiliousness in respect to self isolation does him credit,
though he carries it further than is necessary. We must do all we can
for him.”
Beverly said:
“Poor devil. ‘Live if he can, die if he must.’ He’ll die all right.
They’d call him a ‘lunger’ out there and he had better stay there.”
The minister said:
“The lode-star of old sweet memories draws him homeward. ‘Mary
Mattingly,’ yes we all remember how wildly he loved Mary Mattingly.
While full of youth he could find forgetfulness fighting in strange
lands. Now he must be near her although she lies in her grave. The
proximity even of her tomb will be a solace to his last days.”
We were prepared to do all that sympathy could suggest. Mr. Hall and
Dr. Boone gravely discussed together the prolongation of Case’s life
and the affording of spiritual support. Beverly I found helpful on my
line of finances and creature comforts. As Case’s leisurely progress
brought him nearer and nearer our interest deepened. When the day came
on which he was to arrive Beverly and I rode put out to meet him.