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[Illustration: The space below was literally filled up with bags]
A STRUGGLE FOR A FORTUNE
HARRY CASTLEMON
Illustrated by W. H. Fry
M. A. Donohue & Company
Chicago
Copyright, 1905,
By
The Saalfield Publishing Company
A Struggle for a Fortune.
CHAPTER I.
_About Money._
It was in a little log cabin with a dirt floor and a stick chimney
which occupied almost the whole of one side of it, situated a few miles
from Pond Post Office, a small hamlet located somewhere in the wilds of
Missouri, that the opening scene of this story took place. There were
four occupants of the cabin, sitting around in various attitudes, and
they all seemed to be looking at a fifth person, Jonas Keeler by name,
who was standing in the middle of the floor with a whip in his hand
and a fierce frown on his face. Something was evidently troubling this
man Jonas, and, if we listen to a few scraps of the conversation that
passed between him and his wife, perhaps we can ascertain what it was.
“And is there any thing else that you want?” inquired Jonas, in a tone
that was fully as fierce as his frown. “It beats the world how many
things I have to get when I go to town. It is coffee here, and flour
there, until I have to have a memory as long as this whip-stock for
fear that I will forget some of them.”
“But, father, we have got to live somehow,” said his wife, who was
seated on a rickety chair. “We can’t grow fat on air.”
“To be sure you can’t, but it seems to me that you might make things
last longer. We wasn’t in this fix before the war. Then we had a house
and something that was fit to eat; but ever since the rebs and the
Yanks have got in here and burned us out, things is all mussed up and I
don’t know which way to turn.”
“Why, father, you have money now,” said his wife.
“Where did I get money? Not much I ain’t. It has been this way ever
since that old man Nickerson came here to board. I didn’t agree to take
him for nothing, and I would not have done it if you hadn’t showed
signs of getting up on your ear.”
“I know you didn’t. He gave you one thousand dollars when he first came
here, and you said it would be more than enough to keep him as long as
he lived.”
“But I did not suppose he was going to last forever, did I? He has
chawed that up in tobacco long ago; and every time I go to town I am
getting him a plug out of my own pocket.”
“Do you mean to say that he has used up a thousand dollars in three
years?” asked Mrs. Keeler, in a tone of astonishment.
“Now look at you. You seem to think that amount of money will last
forever. He has chawed that up and more, too. He must have had more
than a thousand dollars when he came here. The folks down to Manchester
used to say he was worth ten thousand dollars. What did you do with all
that money, old man?”
This question, addressed in no very amiable tone of voice, was spoken
to a person who was seated in a remote corner of the cabin as if he
was anxious to get out of reach of the speaker. He was a very aged
man, with white locks that came down upon his shoulders and hands that
trembled in spite of all he could do to prevent it, and there was
something in his eyes and face which he turned toward Jonas that would
have appealed to any heart except the heart of Jonas Keeler. The old
man was not in his right mind. He had worked hard and laboriously,
his hands showed that, for the little money he possessed--Jonas said
it was more than a thousand dollars--but those days were passed now.
Something, no one could have told exactly what it was, had operated
on his mind until he hardly knew what he was doing. But there was one
thing he did know and that was that during the last year his supply of
tobacco had been extremely limited. What Jonas did with the thousand
dollars that he gave him when he first came to his cabin and took
up his abode with him, no one ever knew. Some believed that he had
invested it in a mortgage while others thought he had it stowed away so
that he could draw on it whenever necessity required it. At any rate
his money went somewhere, and Jonas never got him a thing when he went
to town without finding fault about it.
There had been a time when this Mr. Nickerson who lived a short
distance from Manchester, was thought to be the richest person in all
that county. Every thing he had about him went to show it. His horses
were the fattest, his beef cattle brought the most money and his farm
was nicely kept up. But the war broke out about this time, and Mrs.
Keeler often wondered what had become of old man Nickerson who lived
twenty miles away. He had been the husband of her sister, but since her
death he had lived alone on his farm. He often said that he would not
go into either army, he had no hand in bringing on the war and those
who were to blame for it could settle the matter among themselves, and
the consequence was he was robbed by both Union and Confederates. Every
thing he had in sight was gone except one thousand dollars, which he
finally gave into the hands of Jonas Keeler with the understanding
that the amount was to support him while he lived.
“I don’t much like the idea of giving up my money,” said Mr. Nickerson,
after he had taken a long time to think the matter over. “If I keep it
with me I can get tobacco and other little things that I need; but now
that I have let Jonas have it,--I don’t know; I don’t know. The first
thing I know that thousand dollars will all be gone, and then what will
I do? We’ll see what sort of a man Jonas is to live up to his word.”
Jonas Keeler did not believe in war either, and he tried by every
means in his power to keep out of it. He hid in the woods when either
army came near him, and of course he lost everything he had. The
Confederates stole his horses and cattle, and the Union fellows said
if he were not a rebel he ought to be, and burned his house over his
head. But Jonas had the thousand dollars to go on and with this he was
remarkably content. He kept along until the war closed and then he was
ready to set out and make his living over again; but he found that it
was a hard thing to do. It was tiresome work to get up where he was
before, he never grew any richer, and Jonas, from being a quiet and
peaceable man, became sullen and morose, did not like to hear anybody
talk of spending money, even though he knew he must spend some in order
to live, and finally got so that his family were afraid of him. There
was one thing that he never could get through his head: Mr. Nickerson
had never said anything about what had become of the rest of his
money, and Jonas finally came to the conclusion that it was concealed
somewhere, and he wanted to know where it was.
“You need not talk to me about that sum being all the old man had,”
said he, when he had held one of his long arguments with his wife. “He
had more money than that and I know it. What did he do when Daddy Price
took him off into the army? He buried it; that’s what he did with it.”
“But the rebels must have got it,” said Mrs. Keeler. “You know they
went all over his house and took everything there was in it.”
“But they never got any money,” said Jonas. “The old man hangs onto a
dollar until the eagle hollers before he will give it up, and if they
had found anything he would not fail to say so. He has got that money
hidden somewhere, and I wish I knew where it was. He makes me so mad
when he denies it, that I have half a mind to take him by the scurf of
the neck and throw him out of doors.”
“Don’t do that, Jonas; don’t do that,” said Mrs. Keeler in alarm. “The
old gentleman is getting feeble, I can see that plainly enough, and the
only way you can do is to treat him kindly.”
“Good gracious! Ain’t that what I have been doing ever since he has
been here?” demanded Jonas in a heat. “I tell you that his tobacco
money is pretty near gone, and when it is _all_ gone he will not get
any more. It is high time he was quitting that bad habit.”
Mrs. Keeler made no remark when she heard this. The idea that a man
ninety years old could cease a habit that he had been accustomed to all
his life, was absurd. Jonas himself really delighted in a good smoke.
How would he feel if he were deprived of that privilege? Furthermore,
his wife did not believe that all Mr. Nickerson’s money was gone. She
was certain that Jonas could find a good deal of it if he looked around
and tried.
This conversation took place some time previous to the beginning of
our story. Mr. Nickerson’s thousand dollars were nearly gone, at least
Jonas said so, and at the time we introduce them to the reader it was
all gone, and the old man did not know what he would do next. He had
not a bit of that staff of life, as he regarded it, remaining, and now
Jonas wanted to know where he had hidden the rest of his money. He had
held a long talk with the old man down to the stable but could not get
any thing out of him. That was one thing that put him in such bad humor.
“What did you do with all that money, old man?” repeated Jonas, when
Mr. Nickerson looked up at him with a sickly smile on his face.
“What money?” inquired the old gentleman, as if he had never heard of
the subject before.
“Aw! what money!” said Jonas; and when he got into conversation on this
matter he nearly always forgot himself and shouted out the words as if
the man he was addressing were a mile away. “I mean the money you had
stowed away in your pocket-book where the soldiers could not find it;
the money we were talking about down to the barn. Where did you put it?”
“I gave you every cent I had left,” was the reply. “If there was any
more the rebels have got it. Say, Jonas, are you going to get me a plug
of tobacco when you go down town?”
“There it is again. No, I ain’t. Your money is all gone, and you will
have to do without it from this time on.”
Jonas started toward the door as if he were in a hurry to get out, but
before he had made many steps he suddenly paused in his walk, gazed
steadily at the dirt floor and then turned to Mr. Nickerson again.
“Don’t you remember where a dollar or two of that money went?” said he;
and he tried to make his voice as pleading as he knew how. “If you
could remember that, I might find you a plug or two of tobacco while I
am down town.”
“There was no more of it in the purse other than the money I gave you,”
said the old man, once more resting his forehead on his hands and his
elbows on his knees. “That was all I had left to give you. You saw the
inside of the purse as plainly as I did.”
“But you must have some other that was not in the purse,” said Jonas.
“Where did you put that?”
“All I had was there in my pocket and you have got that. I want a plug
of tobacco, too.”
“Well, you don’t get it out of me this trip,” shouted Jonas. “If you
won’t tell where your money is you can go without tobacco.”
Jonas went out, climbed into his wagon and drove off while the old man
raised his head from his hands, tottered to the door and watched him as
he was whirled away down the road. Then he came back and seated himself
on the chair again.
“Jonas still sticks to it that I had more money in that purse than I
gave him,” whined Mr. Nickerson. “I hid it under the doorstep before
Price took me away to the army. He knew that I was not able to do
anything toward driving the mules, I was too old; but he took me along
just to let me see that the Confederates ruled this State instead
of the Union people. He set me to getting the mules out of the mud
holes they got into, but in a few days he saw that I was not of any
use at that, so he discharged me where I was all of one hundred miles
from home, and left me to get there the best I could. I made it after
awhile, although I suffered severely while I was doing it, found my
thousand dollars right where I had left it and came up here and gave
it to Jonas, consarn my picture. He said it would be enough to get me
all the tobacco and clothes I needed, and now it is all gone. What I am
going to do beats me.”
“I have not got a cent, Mr. Nickerson,” said Mrs. Keeler. “If I had
I would give it to you in a minute. I have not seen the color of any
body’s money since the war.”
“I know you haven’t, Mandy,” said Mr. Nickerson. “I have not any kith
nor kin of my own, but you have always been good to me, and some day--”
The old man started as if he had been shot, looked all around him,
his gaze resting on the faces of the two boys who stood near the door
listening to what he had to say, and then hid his face in his hands
and burst into a loud cough, doubling himself up as if he were almost
strangled. Perhaps the boys were taken by surprise--and perhaps they
were not; but Jonas’s wife was really alarmed.
“Why, Mr. Nickerson, what is the matter?” she inquired.
“Oh, it is nothing. It will pass off in a few minutes. I get to
coughing that way once in a while.”
“Especially when you are going to say something you don’t want to,”
murmured one of the boys under his breath. “And some day you are going
to pay mother for her goodness to you. I wish I knew what you meant by
that.”
The boys turned and left the cabin, but they did not go in company with
each other. In fact, they tried to get as far apart as possible. There
was something wrong with them--a person could see that at a glance.
What these young fellows had to make them enemies, living there in the
wilderness with not another house in sight, shall be told further on.