“Hi, thar!” called Cal Arnold, their next neighbor, who lived some
three miles further on, who now halted his rickety wagon and bony
horses along the road opposite the field in which Queeder was working.
“Hyur the news?” He spoke briskly, shifting his cud of tobacco and
eyeing Queeder with the chirpiness of one who brings diverting
information.
“No; what?” asked Queeder, ceasing his “cultivating” with a worn
one-share plough and coming over and leaning on his zinc fence, rubbing
a hand through his sparse hair the while.
“Ol’ Dunk Porter down here to Newton’s sold his farm,” replied Cal,
shrewdly and jubilantly, as though he were relating the tale of a great
battle or the suspected approach of the end of the world. “An’ he got
three thousan’ dollars fer it.” He rolled the sum deliciously under his
tongue.
“Yuh don’t say!” said Queeder quietly but with profound and amazed
astonishment. “Three thousan’?” He stirred as one who hears of the
impossible being accomplished and knows it can’t be true. “Whut fer?”
“They ’low now ez how thar’s min’l onto it,” went on the farmer wisely.
“They ’low ez how now this hyur hull kentry round hyur is thick an’
spilin’ with it. Hit’s uvrywhar. They tell me ez how these hyur slug
lumps”—and he flicked at one of the large piles of hitherto worthless
zinc against which Queeder was leaning—“is this hyur min’l—er ‘Jack,’
ez they call hit—an’ that hit’s wuth two cents a pound when it’s
swelted” (“smelted,” he meant) “an’ even more. I see yuh got quite a
bit uv hit. So’ve I. Thar’s a lot layin’ down around my place. I allus
’lowed ez how ’twant wuth much o’ anythin,’ but they say ’tis. I hyur
from some o’ the boys ’at’s been to K—— that when hit’s fixed up,
swelted and like o’ that, that hit’s good fer lots of things.”
He did not know what exactly, so he did not stop to explain. Instead
he cocked a dreamful eye, screwed up his mouth preparatory to
expectorating and looked at Queeder. The latter, unable to adjust his
thoughts to this new situation, picked up a piece of the hitherto
despised “slug” and looked at it. To think that through all these years
of toil and suffering he should have believed it worthless and now all
of a sudden it was worth two cents a pound when “swelted” and that
neighbors were beginning to sell their farms for princely sums!—and his
farm was covered with this stuff, this gold almost! Why, there were
whole hummocks of it raising slaty-gray backs to the hot sun further
on, a low wall in one place where it rose sheer out of the ground on
this “prupetty,” as he always referred to it. Think of that! Think of
that! But although he thought much he said nothing, for in his starved
and hungry brain was beginning to sprout and flourish a great and
wondrous idea. He was to have money, wealth—ease, no less! Think of it!
Not to toil and sweat in the summer sun any more, to loaf and dream at
his ease, chew all the tobacco he wished, live in town, visit far-off,
mysterious K——, see all there was to see!
“Well, I guess I’ll be drivin’ on,” commented Arnold after a time,
noting Queeder’s marked abstraction. “I cal’late tuh git over tuh
Bruder’s an’ back by sundown. He’s got a little hay I traded him a pig
fer hyur a while back,” and he flicked his two bony horses and was off
up the rubbly, dusty road.
For a time Queeder was scarcely satisfied to believe his senses. Was
it really true? Had Porter really sold his place? For days thereafter,
although he drove to Arno—sixteen miles away—to discover the real
truth, he held his own counsel, nursing a wonderful fancy. This
property was his, not his wife’s, nor his two children’s. Years before
he had worked and paid for it, a few lone dollars at a time, or their
equivalent in corn, pigs, wheat, before he had married. Now—now—soon
one of those strange creatures—a “prowspector,” Arnold had called
him—who went about with money would come along and buy up his property.
Wonderful! Wonderful! What would he get for it?—surely five thousand
dollars, considering that Porter had received three for forty acres,
whereas he had seventy. Four thousand, anyhow—a little more than Dunk.
He could not figure it very well, but it would be more than Dunk’s,
whatever it was—probably five thousand!
The one flaw in all this though—and it was a great flaw—was the thought
of his savage and unkindly family—the recalcitrant Dode, the angular
Jane and his sour better half, Emma—who would now probably have to
share in all this marvelous prosperity, might even take it away from
him and push him into that background where he had been for so long.
They were so much more dogmatic, forceful than he. He was getting old,
feeble even, from long years of toil. His wife had done little this
long time but sneer and jeer at him, as he now chose most emphatically
to remember; his savage son the same. Jane, the indifferent, who looked
on him as a failure and a ne’er-do-well, had done nothing but suggest
that he work harder. Love, family tenderness, family unity—if these had
ever existed they had long since withered in the thin, unnourishing air
of this rough, poverty-stricken world. What did he owe any of them?
Nothing. And now they would want to share in all this, of course.
Having lived so long with them, and under such disagreeable conditions,
he now wondered how they would dare suggest as much, and still he knew
they would. Fight him, nag him, that’s all they had ever done. But now
that wealth was at his door they would be running after him, fawning
upon him—demanding it of him, perhaps! What should he do? How arrange
for all of this?—for wealth was surely close to his hands. It must be.
Like a small, half-intelligent rat he peeked and perked. His demeanor
changed to such an extent that even his family noticed it and began to
wonder, although (knowing nothing of all that had transpired as yet)
they laid it to the increasing queerness of age.
“Have yuh noticed how Pap acts these hyur days?” Dode inquired of Jane
and his mother one noontime after old Queeder had eaten and returned to
the fields. “He’s all the time standin’ out thar at the fence lookin’
aroun’ ez if he wuz a-waitin’ fer somebody er thinkin’ about somepin.
Mebbe he’s gittin’ a little queer, huh? Y’ think so?”
Dode was most interested in anything which concerned his father—or,
rather, his physical or mental future—for once he died this place would
have to be divided or he be called upon to run it, and in that case
he would be a fitting catch for any neighborhood farming maiden, and
as such able to broach and carry through the long-cherished dream of
matrimony, now attenuated and made all but impossible by the grinding
necessities he was compelled to endure.
“Yes, I’ve been noticin’ somepin,” returned Mrs. Queeder. “He hain’t
the same ez he wuz a little while back. Some new notion he’s got into
his mind, I reckon, somepin he wants tuh do an’ kain’t, er somepin new
in ’ligion, mebbe. Yuh kain’t ever tell whut’s botherin’ him.”
Jane “’lowed” as much and the conversation ended. But still Queeder
brooded, trying to solve the knotty problem, which depended, of course,
on the open or secret sale of the land—secret, if possible, he now
finally decided, seeing that his family had always been so unkind to
him. They deserved nothing better. It was his—why not?
In due time appeared a prospector, mounted on horseback and dressed
for rough travel, who, looking over the fields of this area and noting
the value of these particular acres, the surface outcropping of a
thick vein, became intensely interested. Queeder was not to be seen
at the time, having gone to some remote portion of the farm, but Mrs.
Queeder, wholly ignorant of the value of the land and therefore of the
half-suppressed light in the stranger’s eye, greeted him pleasantly
enough.
“Would you let me have a drink of water?” inquired the stranger when
she appeared at the door.
“Sartinly,” she replied with a tone of great respect. Even
comparatively well-dressed strangers were so rare here.
Old Queeder in a distant field observing him at the well, now started
for the house.
“What is that stuff you make your fences out of?” asked the stranger
agreeably, wondering if they knew.
“Well, now, I dunno,” said Mrs. Queeder. “It’s some kind o’ stone, I
reckon—slug lumps, we uns always call hit aroun’ hyur.”
The newcomer suppressed a desire to smile and stooped to pick up a
piece of the zinc with which the ground was scattered. It was the same
as he had seen some miles back, only purer and present in much greater
quantities. Never had he seen more and better zinc near the surface.
It was lying everywhere exposed, cultivation, frosts and rains having
denuded it, whereas in the next county other men were digging for it.
The sight of these dilapidated holdings, the miserable clothing, old
Queeder toiling out in the hot fields, and all this land valueless for
agriculture because of its wondrous mineral wealth, was almost too much
for him.
“Do you own all this land about here?” he inquired.
“’Bout seventy acres,” returned Mrs. Queeder.
“Do you know what it sells at an acre?”
“No. It ain’t wuth much, though, I reckon. I ain’t heerd o’ none bein’
sold aroun’ hyur fer some time now.”
The prospector involuntarily twitched at the words “not wuth much.”
What would some of his friends and rivals say if they knew of this
particular spot? What if some one should tell these people? If he could
buy it now for a song, as he well might! Already other prospectors were
in the neighborhood. Had he not eaten at the same table at Arno with
three whom he suspected as such? He must get this, and get it now.
“I guess I’ll stroll over and talk to your husband a moment,” he
remarked and ambled off, the while Mrs. Queeder and Jane, the twain in
loose blue gingham bags of dresses much blown by the wind, stood in the
tumbledown doorway and looked after him.
“Funny, ain’t he?” said the daughter. “Wonder whut he wants o’ Paw?”
Old Queeder looked up quizzically from his ploughing, to which he had
returned, as he saw the stranger approaching, and now surveyed him
doubtfully as he offered a cheery “Good morning.”
“Do you happen to know if there is any really good farming land around
here for sale?” inquired the prospector after a few delaying comments
about the weather.
“Air yuh wantin’ it fer farmin’?” replied Queeder cynically and casting
a searching look upon the newcomer, who saw at once by Queeder’s eye
that he knew more than his wife. “They’re buyin’ hit now mostly fer the
min’l ez is onto it, ez I hyur.” At the same time he perked like a bird
to see how this thrust had been received.
The prospector smiled archly if wisely. “I see,” he said. “You think
it’s good for mining, do you? What would you hold your land at as
mineral land then if you had a chance to sell it?”
Queeder thought for a while. Two wood doves cooed mournfully in the
distance and a blackbird squeaked rustily before he answered.
“I dunno ez I keer tuh sell yit.” He had been getting notions of late
as to what might be done if he were to retain his land, bid it up
against the desires of one and another, only also the thought of how
his wife and children might soon learn and insist on dividing the
profits with him if he did sell it was haunting him. Those dreams of
getting out in the world and seeing something, of getting away from his
family and being happy in some weird, free way, were actually torturing
him.
“Who owns the land just below here, then?” asked the stranger,
realizing that his idea of buying for little or nothing might as well
be abandoned. But at this Queeder winced. For after all, the land
adjoining had considerable mineral on it also, as he well knew.
“Why, let me see,” he replied waspishly, with mingled feelings of
opposition and indifference. “Marradew,” he finally added, grudgingly.
It was no doubt true that this stranger or some other could buy of
other farmers if he refused to sell. Still, land around here anywhere
must be worth something, his as much as any other. If Dunk Porter had
received $3,000—
“If you don’t want to sell, I suppose he might,” the prospector
continued pleasantly. The idea was expressed softly, meditatively,
indifferently almost.
There was a silence, in which Queeder calmly leaned on his plough
handles thinking. The possibility of losing this long-awaited
opportunity was dreadful. But he was not floored yet, for all his
hunger and greed. Arnold had said that the metal alone, these rocks,
was worth two cents a pound, and he could not get it out of his mind
that somehow the land itself, the space of soil aside from the metal,
must be worth something. How could it be otherwise? Small crops of
sorts grew on it.
“I dunno,” he replied defiantly, if internally weakly. “Yuh might ast.
I ain’t heerd o’ his wantin’ to sell.” He was determined to risk this
last if he had to run after the stranger afterward and beg him to
compromise, although he hoped not to have to do that, either. There
were other prospectors.
“I don’t know yet whether I want this,” continued the prospector
heavily and with an air of profound indifference, “but I’d like to have
an option on it, if you’d like to sell. What’ll you take for an option
at sixty days on the entire seventy acres?”
The worn farmer did not in the least understand what was meant by the
word option, but he was determined not to admit it. “Whut’ll yuh
give?” he asked finally, in great doubt as to what to say.
“Well, how about $200 down and $5,000 more at the end of sixty days if
we come to terms at the end of that time?” He was offering the very
lowest figure that he imagined Queeder would take, if any, for he had
heard of other sales in this vicinity this very day.
Queeder, not knowing what an option was, knew not what to say. Five
thousand was what he had originally supposed he might be offered, but
sixty days! What did he mean by that? Why not at once if he wanted the
place—cash—as Dunk Porter, according to Arnold, had received? He eyed
the stranger feverishly, fidgeted with his plough handles, and finally
observed almost aimlessly: “I ’low ez I could git seven thousan’ any
day ef I wanted to wait. The feller hyur b’low me a ways got three
thousan’, an’ he’s got thirty acres less’n I got. Thar’s been a feller
aroun’ hyur offerin’ me six thousan’.”
“Well, I might give you $6,000, providing I found the ground all
right,” he said.
“Cash down?” asked Queeder amazedly, kicking at a clod.
“Within sixty days,” answered the prospector.
“Oh!” said Queeder, gloomily. “I thort yuh wanted tuh buy t’day.”
“Oh, no,” said the other. “I said an option. If we come to terms I’ll
be back here with the money within sixty days or before, and we’ll
close the thing up—six thousand in cash, minus the option money. Of
course I don’t bind myself absolutely to buy—just get the privilege of
buying at any time within sixty days, and if I don’t come back within
that time the money I turn over to you to-day is yours, see, and you’re
free to sell the land to some one else.”
“Huh!” grunted Queeder. He had dreamed of getting the money at once and
making off all by himself, but here was this talk of sixty days, which
might mean something or nothing.
“Well,” said the prospector, noting Queeder’s dissatisfaction and
deciding that he must do something to make the deal seem more
attractive, “suppose we say seven thousand, then, and I put down $500
cash into your hands now? How’s that? Seven thousand in sixty days and
five hundred in cash right now. What do you say?”
He reached in his pocket and extracted a wallet thick with bills, which
excited Queeder greatly. Never had so much ready money, which he might
quickly count as his if he chose, been so near him. After all, $500
in cash was an amazing amount in itself. With that alone what could
he not do? And then the remainder of the seven thousand within sixty
days! Only, there were his wife and two children to consider. If he
was to carry out his dream of decamping there must be great secrecy.
If they learned of this—his possession of even so much as five hundred
in cash—what might not happen? Would not Dode or his wife or Jane, or
all three, take it away from him—steal it while he was asleep? It might
well be so. He was so silent and puzzled that the stranger felt that he
was going to reject his offer.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said, as though he were making a grand
concession. “I’ll make it eight thousand and put up eight hundred.
How’s that? If we can’t arrange it on that basis we’ll have to drop the
matter, for I can’t offer to pay any more,” and at that he returned the
wallet to his pocket.
But Queeder still gazed, made all but dumb by his good fortune and the
difficulties it presented. Eight thousand! Eight hundred in cash down!
He could scarcely understand.
“T’day?” he asked.
“Yes, to-day—only you’ll have to come with me to Arno. I want to look
into your title. Maybe you have a deed, though—have you?”
Queeder nodded.
“Well, if it’s all right I’ll pay you the money at once. I have a form
of agreement here and we can get some one to witness it, I suppose.
Only we’ll have to get your wife to sign, too.”
Queeder’s face fell. Here was the rub—his wife and two children! “She’s
gotta sign, hez she?” he inquired grimly, sadly even. He was beside
himself with despair, disgust. To work and slave so all these years!
Then, when a chance came, to have it all come to nothing, or nearly so!
“Yes,” said the prospector, who saw by his manner and tone that
his wife’s knowledge of it was not desired. “We’ll have to get her
signature, too. I’m sorry if it annoys you, but the law compels it.
Perhaps you could arrange all that between you in some way. Why not go
over and talk to her about it?”
Queeder hesitated. How he hated it—this sharing with his wife and
son! He didn’t mind Jane so much. But now if they heard of it they
would quarrel with him and want the larger share. He would have to
fight—stand by his “rights.” And once he had the money—if he ever got
it—he would have to watch it, hide it, to keep it away from them.
“What’s the matter?” asked the prospector, noting his perturbation.
“Does she object to your selling?”
“’Tain’t that. She’ll sell, well enough, once she hyurs. I didn’t ’low
ez I’d let ’er know at fust. She’ll be wantin’ the most uv it—her an’
Dode—an’ hit ain’t ther’n, hit’s mine. I wuz on hyur fust. I owned this
hyur place fust, ’fore ever I saw ’er. She don’t do nuthin’ but fuss
an’ fight, ez ’tis.”
“Supposing we go over to the house and talk to her. She may not be
unreasonable. She’s only entitled to a third, you know, if you don’t
want to give her more than that. That’s the law. That would leave
you nearly five thousand. In fact, if you want it, I’ll see that you
get five thousand whatever she gets.” He had somehow gathered the
impression that five thousand, for himself, meant a great deal to
Queeder.
And true enough, at that the old farmer brightened a little. For five
thousand? Was not that really more than he had expected to get for
the place as a whole but an hour before! And supposing his wife did
get three thousand? What of it? Was not his own dream coming true? He
agreed at once and decided to accompany the prospector to the house.
But on the way the farmer paused and gazed about him. He was as one
who scarcely knew what he was doing. All this money—this new order
of things—if it went through! He felt strange, different, confused.
The mental ills of his many years plus this great fortune with its
complications and possibilities were almost too much for him. The
stranger noted a queer metallic and vacant light in the old farmer’s
eyes as he now turned slowly about from west to east, staring.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, a suspicion of insanity coming to him.
The old man seemed suddenly to come to. “’Tain’t nuthin’,” he said. “I
wuz just thinkin’.”
The prospector meditated on the validity of a contract made with a
lunatic, but the land was too valuable to bother about trifles. Once a
contract was made, even with a half-wit, the legal difficulties which
could be made over any attempt to break the agreement would be very
great.
In the old cabin Jane and her mother wondered at the meaning of the
approaching couple, but old Queeder shooed off the former as he would
have a chicken. Once inside the single room, which served as parlor,
sitting-room, bedroom and all else convenient, Queeder nervously closed
the door leading into the kitchen, where Jane had retired.
“Go on away, now,” he mumbled, as he saw her there hanging about. “We
want a word with yer Maw, I tell yuh.”
Lank Jane retired, but later clapped a misshapen ear to the door until
she was driven away by her suspicious father. Then the farmer began to
explain to his wife what it was all about.
“This hyur stranger—I don’t know your name yit—”
“Crawford! Crawford!” put in the prospector.
“Crawford—Mr. Crawford—is hyur tuh buy the place ef he kin. I thought,
seein’ ez how yuh’ve got a little int’est in it—third”—he was careful
to add—“we’d better come an’ talk tuh yuh.”
“Int’est!” snapped Mrs. Queeder, sharply and suspiciously, no thought
of the presence of the stranger troubling her in her expression of
her opinion, “I should think I had—workin’ an’ slavin’ on it fer
twenty-four year! Well, whut wuz yuh thinkin’ uv payin’ fer the place?”
she asked of the stranger sharply.
A nervous sign from Queeder, whose acquisitiveness was so intense that
it was almost audible, indicated that he was not to say.
“Well, now what do you think it would be worth?”
“Dunno ez I kin say exackly,” replied the wife slyly and greedily,
imagining that Queeder, because of his age and various mental
deficiencies was perhaps leaving these negotiations to her. “Thar’s
ben furms aroun’ hyur ez big’s this sold fer nigh onto two thousan’
dollars.” She was quoting the topmost figure of which she had ever
heard.
“Well, that’s pretty steep, isn’t it?” asked Crawford solemnly but
refusing to look at Queeder. “Ordinarily land around here is not worth
much more than twenty dollars an acre and you have only seventy, as I
understand.”
“Yes, but this hyur land ain’t so pore ez some, nuther,” rejoined Mrs.
Queeder, forgetting her original comment on it and making the best
argument she could for it. “Thar’s a spring on this hyur one, just
b’low the house hyur.”
“Yes,” said Crawford, “I saw it as I came in. It has some value. So you
think two thousand is what it’s worth, do you?” He looked at Queeder
wisely, as much as to say, “This is a good joke, Queeder.”
Mrs. Queeder, fairly satisfied that hers was to be the dominant mind
in this argument, now turned to her husband for counsel. “What do yuh
think, Bursay?” she asked.
Queeder, shaken by his duplicity, his fear of discovery, his greed and
troublesome dreams, gazed at her nervously. “I sartinly think hit’s
wuth that much anyhow.”
Crawford now began to explain that he only wanted an option on it
at present, an agreement to sell within a given time, and if this
were given, a paper signed, he would pay a few dollars to bind the
bargain—and at this he looked wisely at Queeder and half closed one
eye, by which the latter understood that he was to receive the sum
originally agreed upon.
“If you say so we’ll close this right now,” he said ingratiatingly,
taking from his pockets a form of agreement and opening it. “I’ll just
fill this in and you two can sign it.” He went to the worn poplar table
and spread out his paper, the while Queeder and his wife eyed the
proceeding with intense interest. Neither could read or write but the
farmer, not knowing how he was to get his eight hundred, could only
trust to the ingenuity of the prospector to solve the problem. Besides,
both were hypnotized by the idea of selling this worthless old land so
quickly and for so much, coming into possession of actual money, and
moved and thought like people in a dream. Mrs. Queeder’s eyelids had
narrowed to thin, greedy lines.
“How much did yuh cal’late yuh’d give tuh bind this hyur?” she inquired
tensely and with a feverish gleam in her eye.
“Oh,” said the stranger, who was once more looking at Queeder with an
explanatory light in his eye, “about a hundred dollars, I should say.
Wouldn’t that be enough?”
A hundred dollars! Even that sum in this lean world was a fortune.
To Mrs. Queeder, who knew nothing of the value of the mineral on the
farm, it was unbelievable, an unexplainable windfall, an augury of
better things. And besides, the two thousand to come later! But now
came the question of a witness and how the paper was to be signed.
The prospector, having filled in (in pencil) a sample acknowledgment
of the amount paid—$100—and then having said, “Now you sign here, Mr.
Queeder,” the latter replied, “But I kain’t write an’ nuther kin my
wife.”
“Thar wuzn’t much chance fer schoolin’ around’ hyur when I wuz young,”
simpered his better half.
“Well then, we’ll just have to let you make your marks, and get some
one to witness them. Can your son or daughter write?”
Here was a new situation and one most unpleasant to both, for Dode,
once called, would wish to rule, being so headstrong and contrary. He
could write his name anyhow, read a little bit also—but did they want
him to know yet? Husband and wife looked at each dubiously and with
suspicion. What now? The difficulty was solved by the rumble of a wagon
on the nearby road.
“Maybe that is some one who could witness for you?” suggested Crawford.
Queeder looked out. “Yes, I b’lieve he kin write,” he commented. “Hi,
thar, Lester!” he called. “Come in hyur a minute! We wantcha fer
somepin.”
The rumbling ceased and in due time one Lester Botts, a farmer, not
so much better in appearance than Queeder, arrived at the door. The
prospector explained what was wanted and the agreement was eventually
completed, only Botts, not knowing of the mineral which Queeder’s acres
represented, was anxious to tell the prospector of better land than
this, from an agricultural view, which could be had for less money, but
he did not know how to go about it. Before she would sign, Mrs. Queeder
made it perfectly clear where she stood in the matter.
“I git my sheer uv this hyur money now, don’t I,” she demanded, “paid
tuh me right hyur?”
Crawford, uncertain as to Queeder’s wishes in this, looked at him; and
he, knowing his wife’s temper and being moved by greed, exclaimed,
“Yuh don’t git nuthin’ ’ceptin’ I die. Yuh ain’t entitled tuh no sheer
unless’n we’re separatin’, which we hain’t.”
“Then I don’t sign nuthin’,” said Mrs. Queeder truculently.
“Of course I don’t want to interfere,” commented the prospector,
soothingly, “but I should think you’d rather give her her share of
this—thirty-three dollars,” he eyed Queeder persuasively—“and then
possibly a third of the two thousand—that’s only six hundred and
sixty—rather than stop the sale now, wouldn’t you? You’ll have to agree
to do something like that. It’s a good bargain. There ought to be
plenty for everybody.”
The farmer hearkened to the subtlety of this. After all, six hundred
and sixty out of eight thousand was not so much. Rather than risk delay
and discovery he pretended to soften, and finally consented. The marks
were made and their validity attested by Botts, the one hundred in
cash being counted out in two piles, according to Mrs. Queeder’s wish,
and the agreement pocketed. Then the prospector accompanied by Mr.
Botts, was off—only Queeder, following and delaying him, was finally
handed over in secret the difference between the hundred and the sum
originally agreed upon. When he saw all the money the old farmer’s eyes
wiggled as if magnetically operated. Trembling with the agony of greed
he waited, and then his hard and knotted fingers closed upon the bills
like the claws of a gripping hawk.
“Thank yuh,” he said aloud. “Thank yuh,” and he jerked doorward in
distress. “See me alone fust when yuh come ag’in. We gotta be mighty
keerful er she’ll find out, an’ ef she does she’ll not sign nuthin’,
an’ raise ol’ Harry, too.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the prospector archly. He was thinking
how easy it would be, in view of all the dishonesty and chicanery
already practised, to insist that the two thousand written in in
pencil was the actual sale price and efface old Queeder by threatening
to expose his duplicity. However, there were sixty days yet in which
to consider this. “In sixty days, maybe less, I’ll show up.” And he
slipped gracefully away, leaving the old earth-scraper to brood alone.
But all was not ended with the payment of this sum, as any one might
have foretold. For Dode and Jane, hearing after a little while from
their mother of the profitable sale of the land, were intensely moved.
Money—any money, however small in amount—conjured up visions of
pleasure and ease, and who was to get it, after all the toil here on
the part of all? Where was their share in all this? They had worked,
too. They demanded it in repeated ways, but to no avail. Their mother
and father were obdurate, insisting that they wait until the sale was
completed before any further consideration was given the matter.
While they were thus arguing, however, quarreling over even so small
a sum as $100, as they thought, a new complication was added by Dode
learning, as he soon did, that this was all mineral land, that farms
were being sold in Adair—the next township—and even here; that it was
rumored that Queeder had already sold his land for $5,000, and that
if he had he had been beaten, for the land was worth much more—$200
an acre even, or $14,000. At once he suspected his father and mother
of some treachery in connection with the sale—that there had been
no option given, but a genuine sale made, and that Queeder or his
mother, or both, were concealing a vast sum from himself and Jane. An
atmosphere of intense suspicion and evil will was at once introduced.
“They’ve sold the furm fer $5,000 ’stid uv $2,000; that’s whut they’ve
gone an’ done,” insisted Dode one day to Jane in the presence of his
father and mother. “Ev’rybody aroun’ hyur knows now what this hyur
land’s wuth, an’ that’s whut they got, yuh kin bet.”
“Yuh lie!” shrieked Queeder shrilly, who was at once struck by the fact
that if what Dode said was true he had walked into a financial as well
as a moral trap from which he could not well extricate himself. “I
hain’t sold nuthin’,” he went on angrily. “Lester Botts wuz hyur an’
seed whut we done. He signed onto it.”
“Ef the land’s wuth more’n $2,000, that feller ’twuz hyur didn’
agree tuh pay no more’n that fer it in hyur,” put in Mrs. Queeder
explanatorily, although, so little did she trust her husband, she
was now beginning to wonder if there might not have been some secret
agreement between him and this stranger. “Ef he had any different talk
with yer Paw,” and here she eyed old Queeder suspiciously, beginning
to recall the prospector’s smooth airs and ways, “he didn’ say nuthin’
’bout it tuh me. I do rec’leck yer Paw’n him talkin’ over by the fence
yander near an hour afore they come in hyur. I wondered then whut it
wuz about.” She was beginning to worry as to how she was to get more
seeing that the price agreed upon was now, apparently, inconsequential.
And as for Dode, he now eyed his father cynically and suspiciously. “I
cal’late he got somepin more fer it than he’s tellin’ us about,” he
insisted. “They ain’t sellin’ land down to Arno right now fer no $200
an acre an’ him not knowin’ it—an’ land not ez good ez this, nuther.
Ye’re hidin’ the money whut yuh got fer it, that’s whut!”
Mrs. Queeder, while greatly disturbed as to the possibility of
duplicity on her husband’s part in connection with all this, still
considered it policy to call Heaven to witness that in her case at
least no duplicity was involved. If more had been offered or paid
she knew nothing of it. For his part Queeder boiled with fear, rage,
general opposition to all of them and their share in this.
“Yuh consarned varmint!” he squealed, addressing Dode and leaping to
his feet and running for a stick of stovewood, “I’ll show yuh whuther
we air er not! Yuh ’low I steal, do yuh?”
Dode intercepted him, however, and being the stronger, pushed him off.
It was always so easy so to do—much to Queeder’s rage. He despised
his son for his triumphant strength alone, to say nothing of his dour
cynicism in regard to himself. The argument was ended by the father
being put out of the house and the mother pleading volubly that in so
far as she knew it was all as she said, that in signing the secret
agreement with her husband she had meant no harm to her children, but
only to protect them and herself.
But now, brooding over the possibility of Queeder’s deception, she
began to lay plans for his discomfiture in any way that she might—she
and Dode and Jane. Queeder himself raged secretly between fear and
hatred of Dode and what might follow because of his present knowledge.
How was he to prevent Dode from being present at the final transaction,
and if so how would the secret difference be handed him? Besides, if
he took the sum mentioned, how did he know that he was not now being
overreached? Every day nearly brought new rumors of new sales at better
prices than he had been able to fix. In addition, each day Mrs. Queeder
cackled like an irritable hen over the possible duplicity of her
husband, although that creature in his secretive greed and queerness
was not to be encompassed. He fought shy of the house the greater part
of each day, jerked like a rat at every sound or passing stranger and
denied himself words to speak or explain, or passed the lie if they
pressed him too warmly. The seven hundred extra he had received was
wrapped in paper and hidden in a crevice back of a post in the barn, a
tin can serving as an outer protection for his newly acquired wealth.
More than once during the day he returned to that spot, listened and
peeked before he ventured to see whether it was still safe.
Indeed, there was something deadly in the household order from now on,
little short of madness in fact, for now mother and children schemed
for his downfall while all night long old Queeder wakened, jerking in
the blackness and listening for any sounds which might be about the
barn. On more than one occasion he changed the hiding place, even going
so far as to keep the money on his person for a time. Once he found an
old rusty butcher knife and, putting that in his shirt bosom, he slept
with it and dreamed of trouble.
Into the heart of this walked another prospector one morning rejoicing,
like the first one, at his find. Like all good business men he was
concerned to see the owner only and demanded that Queeder be called.
“Oh, Paw!” called Jane from the rickety doorway. “Thar’s some one hyur
wants tuh see yuh!”
Old Queeder looked warily up from his hot field, where he had been
waiting these many days, and beheld the stranger. He dropped his weed
fighting and came forward. Dode drifted in from somewhere.
“Pretty dry weather we’re having, isn’t it?” remarked the stranger
pleasantly meeting him halfway in his approach.
“Yes,” he replied vacantly, for he was very, very much worn these days,
mentally and physically. “It’s tol’able dry! Tol-able dry!” He wiped
his leathery brow with his hand.
“You don’t know of any one about here, do you, who has any land for
sale?”
“Ye’re another one uv them min’l prowspecters, I projeck, eh?” inquired
Queeder, now quite openly. There was no need to attempt to conceal that
fact any longer.
The newcomer was taken aback, for he had not expected so much awareness
in this region so soon. “I am,” he said frankly.
“I thought so,” said Queeder.
“Have you ever thought of selling the land here?” he inquired.
“Well, I dunno,” began the farmer shrewdly. “Thar’ve been fellers like
yuh aroun’ hyar afore now lookin’ at the place. Whut do yuh cal-late
it might be wuth tuh yuh?” He eyed him sharply the while they strolled
still further away from the spot where Dode, Jane and the mother formed
an audience in the doorway.
The prospector ambled about the place examining the surface lumps, so
very plentiful everywhere.
“This looks like fairly good land to me,” he said quietly after a time.
“You haven’t an idea how much you’d want an acre for it, have you?”
“Well, I hyur they’re gettin’ ez much ez three hundred down to Arno,”
replied Queeder, exaggerating fiercely. Now that a second purchaser
had appeared he was eager to learn how much more, if any, than the
original offer would be made.
“Yes—well, that’s a little steep, don’t you think, considering the
distance the metal would have to be hauled to the railroad? It’ll cost
considerable to get it over there.”
“Not enough, I ’low, tuh make it wuth much less’n three hundred, would
it?” observed Queeder, sagely.
“Well, I don’t know about that. Would you take two hundred an acre for
as much as forty acres of it?”
Old Queeder pricked his ears at the sound of bargain. As near as he
could figure, two hundred an acre for forty acres would bring him as
much as he was now to get for the entire seventy, and he would still
have thirty to dispose of. The definiteness of the proposition thrilled
him, boded something large for his future—eight thousand for forty, and
all he could wring from the first comer had been eight thousand for
seventy!
“Huh!” he said, hanging on the argument with ease and leisure. “I got
an offer uv a option on the hull uv it fer twelve thousan’ now.”
“What!” said the stranger, surveying him critically. “Have you signed
any papers in the matter?”
Queeder looked at him for the moment as if he suspected treachery, and
then seeing the gathered family surveying them from the distant doorway
he made the newcomer a cabalistic sign.
“Come over hyur,” he said, leading off to a distant fence. At the safe
distance they halted. “I tell yuh just how ’tis,” he observed very
secretively. “Thar wuz a feller come along hyur three er four weeks ago
an’ at that time I didn’t know ez how this hyur now wuz min’l, see? An’
he ast me, ’thout sayin’ nuthin’ ez tuh whut he knowed, whut I’d take
for it, acre fer acre. Well, thar wuz anuther feller, a neighbor o’
mine, had been along hyur an’ he wuz sayin’ ez how a piece o’ land just
below, about forty acres, wuz sold fer five thousan’ dollars. Seein’
ez how my land wuz the same kind o’ land, only better, I ’lowed ez how
thar bein’ seventy acres hyur tuh his forty I oughta git nearly twicet
ez much, an’ I said so. He didn’t ’low ez I ought at fust, but later on
he kind o’ come roun’ an’ we agreed ez how I bein’ the one that fust
had the place—I wuz farmin’ hyur ’fore ever I married my wife—that ef
any sale wuz made I orter git the biggest sheer. So we kind o’ fixed
it up b’tween us, quiet-like an’ not lettin’ anybody else know, that
when it come tuh makin’ out the papers an’ sich at the end uv the sixty
days he was to gimme a shade the best o’ the money afore we signed any
papers. Course I wouldn’t do nuthin’ like that ef the place hadn’t
b’longed tuh me in the fust place, an’ ef me an’ my wife an’ chil’n
got along ez well’s we did at fust, but she’s allers a-fightin’ an’
squallin’. Ef he come back hyur, ez he ’lowed he would, I wuz t’ have
eight thousan’ fer myself, an’ me an’ my wife wuzta divide the rest
b’tween us ez best we could, her to have her third, ez the law is.”
The stranger listened with mingled astonishment, amusement and
satisfaction at the thought that the contract, if not exactly illegal,
could at least to Queeder be made to appear so. For an appeal to the
wife must break it, and besides because of the old man’s cupidity he
might easily be made to annul the original agreement. For plainly even
now this farmer did not know the full value of all that he had so
foolishly bartered away. About him were fields literally solid with
zinc under the surface. Commercially $60,000 would be a mere bagatelle
to give for it, when the East was considered. One million dollars
would be a ridiculously low capitalization for a mine based on this
property. A hundred thousand might well be his share for his part in
the transaction. Good heavens, the other fellow had bought a fortune
for a song! It was only fair to try to get it away from him.
“I’ll tell you how this is, Mr. Queeder,” he said after a time. “It
looks to me as though this fellow, whoever he is, has given you a
little the worst end of this bargain. Your land is worth much more than
that, that’s plain enough. But you can get out of that easily enough
on the ground that you really didn’t know what you were selling at the
time you made this bargain. That’s the law, I believe. You don’t have
to stick by an agreement if it’s made when you don’t understand what
you’re doing. As a matter of fact, I think I could get you out of it if
you wanted me to. All you would have to do would be to refuse to sign
any other papers when the time comes and return the money that’s been
paid you. Then when the time came I would be glad to take over your
whole farm at three hundred dollars an acre and pay cash down. That
would make you a rich man. I’d give you three thousand cash in hand the
day you signed an agreement to sell. The trouble is you were just taken
in. You and your wife really didn’t know what you were doing.”
“That’s right,” squeaked Queeder, “we wuz. We didn’t ’low ez they wuz
any min’l on this when we signed that air contrack.”
Three hundred dollars an acre, as he dumbly figured it out, meant
$21,000—twenty-one instead of a wretched eight thousand! For the
moment he stood there quite lost as to what to do, say, think, a
wavering, element-worn figure. His bent and shriveled body, raked
and gutted by misfortune, fairly quivered with the knowledge that
riches were really his for the asking, yet also that now, owing to
his early error and ignorance in regard to all this, he might not be
able to arrange for their reception. His seared and tangled brain,
half twisted by solitude, balanced unevenly with the weight of this
marvelous possibility. It crossed the wires of his mind and made him
see strabismically.
The prospector, uncertain as to what his silence indicated, added: “I
might even do a little better than that, Mr. Queeder—say, twenty-five
thousand. You could have a house in the city for that. Your wife could
wear silk dresses; you yourself need never do another stroke of work;
your son and daughter could go to college if they wanted to. All you
have to do is to refuse to sign that deed when he comes back—hand him
the money or get his address and let me send it to him.”
“He swindled me, so he did!” Queeder almost shouted now, great beads of
sweat standing out upon his brow. “He tried tuh rob me! He shan’t have
an acre, by God—not an acre!”
“That’s right,” said the newcomer, and before he left he again
insinuated into the farmer’s mind the tremendous and unfair
disproportion between twelve (as he understood Queeder was receiving)
and twenty-five thousand. He pictured the difference in terms of city
or town opportunities, the ease of his future life.
Unfortunately, the farmer possessed no avenue by which to escape from
his recent duplicity. Having deceived his wife and children over so
comparatively small a sum as eight thousand, this immensely greater sum
offered many more difficulties—bickering, quarreling, open fighting,
perhaps, so fierce were Dode and his wife in their moods, before it
could be attained. And was he equal to it? At the same time, although
he had never had anything, he was now feeling as though he had lost a
great deal, as if some one were endeavoring to take something immense
away from him, something which he had always had!
During the days that followed he brooded over this, avoiding his family
as much as possible, while they, wondering when the first prospector
would return and what conversation or arrangement Queeder had had with
the second, watched him closely. At last he was all but unbalanced
mentally, and by degrees his mind came to possess but one idea, and
that was that his wife, his children, the world, all were trying to rob
him, and that his one escape lay in flight with his treasure if only
he could once gain possession of it. But how? How? One thing was sure.
They should not have it. He would fight first; he would die. And alone
in his silent field, with ragged body and mind, he brooded over riches
and felt as if he already had them to defend.
In the meanwhile the first prospector had been meditating as to the
ease, under the circumstances, with which Queeder’s land could be taken
from him at the very nominal price of two thousand, considering the
secrecy which, according to Queeder’s own wish, must attach to the
transfer of all moneys over that sum. Once the deed was signed—the same
reading for two thousand—in the presence of the wife and a lawyer who
should accompany him, how easy to walk off and pay no more, standing
calmly on the letter of the contract!
It was nearing that last day now and the terrible suspense was telling.
Queeder was in no mental state to endure anything. His hollow eyes
showed the wondering out of which nothing had come. His nervous
strolling here and there had lost all semblance of reason. Then on the
last of the sixty allotted days there rode forward the now bane of his
existence, the original prospector, accompanied by Attorney Giles, of
Arno, a veritable scamp and rascal of a lawyer.
At first on seeing them Queeder felt a strong impulse to run away, but
on second consideration he feared so to do. The land was his. If he did
not stay Dode and Mrs. Queeder might enter on some arrangement without
his consent—something which would leave him landless, money-less—or
they might find out something about the extra money he had taken and
contracted for, the better price he was now privately to receive. It
was essential that he stay, and yet he had no least idea as to how he
would solve it all.
Jane, who was in the doorway as they entered the yard, was the one to
welcome them, although Dode, watchful and working in a nearby patch,
saluted them next. Then Mrs. Queeder examined them cynically and with
much opposition. These, then, were the twain who were expecting to
misuse her financially!
“Where’s your father, Dode?” asked Attorney Giles familiarly, for he
knew them well.
“Over thar in the second ’tater patch,” answered Dode sourly. A moment
later he added with rough calculation, “Ef ye’re comin’ about the land,
though, I ’low ez ’twon’t do yuh no good. Maw an’ Paw have decided not
tuh sell. The place is wuth a heap more’n whut you all’re offerin’.
They’re sellin’ land roun’ Arno with not near ez much min’l onto hit
ez this hez for three hundred now, an’ yuh all only wanta give two
thousan’ fer the hull place, I hyur. Maw’n Paw’d be fools ef they’d
agree tuh that.”
“Oh, come now,” exclaimed Giles placatively and yet irritably—a very
wasp who was always attempting to smooth over the ruffled tempers of
people on just such trying occasions as this. “Mr. Crawford here has an
option on this property signed by your mother and father and witnessed
by a Mr.”—he considered the slip—“a Mr. Botts—oh, yes, Lester Botts.
You cannot legally escape that. All Mr. Crawford has to do is to offer
you the money—leave it here, in fact—and the property is his. That is
the law. An option is an option, and this one has a witness. I don’t
see how you can hope to escape it, really.”
“They wuzn’t nuthin’ said about no min’l when I signed that air,”
insisted Mrs. Queeder, “an’ I don’t ’low ez no paper whut I didn’t know
the meanin’ uv is goin’ tuh be good anywhar. Leastways, I won’t put my
name onto nuthin’ else.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Giles fussily, “We’d better get Mr. Queeder in
here and see what he says to this. I’m sure he’ll not take any such
unreasonable and illegal view.”
In the meantime old Queeder, called for lustily by Jane, came edging
around the house corner like some hunted animal—dark, fearful,
suspicious—and at sight of him the prospector and lawyer, who had
seated themselves, arose.
“Well, here we are, Mr. Queeder,” said the prospector, but stopped,
astonished at the weird manner in which Queeder passed an aimless
hand over his brow and gazed almost dully before him. He had more
the appearance of a hungry bird than a human being. He was yellow,
emaciated, all but wild.
“Look at Paw!” whispered Jane to Dode, used as she was to all the old
man’s idiosyncrasies.
“Yes, Mr. Queeder,” began the lawyer, undisturbed by the whisper of
Jane and anxious to smooth over a very troublesome situation, “here we
are. We have come to settle this sale with you according to the terms
of the option. I suppose you’re ready?”
“Whut?” asked old Queeder aimlessly, then, recovering himself slightly,
began, “I hain’t goin’ tuh sign nuthin’! Nuthin’ ’tall! That’s whut
I hain’t! Nuthin’!” He opened and closed his fingers and twisted and
craned his neck as though physically there were something very much
awry with him.
“What’s that?” queried the lawyer incisively, attempting by his tone
to overawe him or bring him to his senses, “not sign? What do you mean
by saying you won’t sign? You gave an option here for the sum of $100
cash in hand, signed by you and your wife and witnessed by Lester
Botts, and now you say you won’t sign! I don’t want to be harsh, but
there’s a definite contract entered into here and money passed, and
such things can’t be handled in any such light way, Mr. Queeder. This
is a contract, a very serious matter before the law, Mr. Queeder, a
very serious matter. The law provides a very definite remedy in a case
of this kind. Whether you want to sign or not, with this option we have
here and what it calls for we can pay over the money before witnesses
and enter suit for possession and win it.”
“Not when a feller’s never knowed whut he wuz doin’ when he signed,”
insisted Dode, who by now, because of his self-interest and the
appearance of his father having been misled, was coming round to a more
sympathetic or at least friendly attitude.
“I’ll not sign nuthin’,” insisted Queeder grimly. “I hain’t a-goin’ tuh
be swindled out o’ my prupetty. I never knowed they wuz min’l onto hit,
like they is—leastways not whut it wuz wuth—an’ I won’t sign, an’ yuh
ain’t a-goin’ tuh make me. Ye’re a-tryin’ tuh get it away from me fur
nuthin’, that’s whut ye’re a-tryin’ tuh do. I won’t sign nuthin’!”
“I had no idee they wuz min’l onto hit when I signed,” whimpered Mrs.
Queeder.
“Oh, come, come!” put in Crawford sternly, deciding to deal with
this eccentric character and believing that he could overawe him by
referring to the secret agreement between them, “don’t forget, Mr.
Queeder, that I had a special agreement with you concerning all this.”
He was not quite sure now as to what he would have to pay—the two or
the eight. “Are you going to keep your bargain with me or not? You want
to decide quick now. Which is it?”
“Git out!” shouted Queeder, becoming wildly excited and waving his
hands and jumping backward. “Yuh swindled me, that’s whutcha done! Yut
thort yuh’d git this place fer nothin’. Well, yuh won’t—yuh kain’t. I
won’t sign nuthin’. I won’t sign nuthin’.” His eyes were red and wild
from too much brooding.
Now it was that Crawford, who had been hoping to get it all for two
thousand, decided to stick to his private agreement to pay eight, only
instead of waiting to adjust it with Queeder in private he decided
now to use it openly in an attempt to suborn the family to his point
of view by showing them how much he really was to have and how unjust
Queeder had planned to be to himself and them. In all certainty the
family understood it as only two. If he would now let them know how
matters stood, perhaps that would make a difference in his favor.
“You call eight thousand for this place swindling, and after you’ve
taken eight hundred dollars of my money and kept it for sixty days?”
“Whut’s that?” asked Dode, edging nearer, then turning and glaring at
his father and eyeing his mother amazedly. This surpassed in amount and
importance anything he had imagined had been secured by them, and of
course he assumed that both were lying. “Eight thousan’! I thort yuh
said it wuz two!” He looked at his mother for confirmation.
The latter was a picture of genuine surprise. “That’s the fust I hearn
uv any eight thousan’,” she replied dumbly, her own veracity in regard
to the transaction being in question.
The picture that Queeder made under the circumstances was remarkable.
Quite upset by this half-unexpected and yet feared revelation, he
was now quite beside himself with rage, fear, the insolvability of
the amazing tangle into which he had worked himself. The idea that
after he had made an agreement with this man, which was really unfair
to himself, he should turn on him in this way was all but mentally
upsetting. Besides, the fact that his wife and son now knew how greedy
and selfish he had been weakened him to the point of terror.
“Well, that’s what I offered him, just the same,” went on Crawford
aggressively and noting the extreme effect, “and that’s what he agreed
to take, and that’s what I’m here to pay. I paid him $800 in cash
to bind the bargain, and he has the money now somewhere. His saying
now that I tried to swindle him is too funny! He asked me not to say
anything about it because the land was all his and he wanted to adjust
things with you three in his own way.”
“Git outen hyur!” shouted Queeder savagely, going all but mad, “before
I kill yuh! I hain’t signed nuthin’! We never said nuthin’ about no
$8,000. It wuz $2,000—that’s what it wuz! Ye’re trin’ tuh swindle me,
the hull varmint passel o’ yuh! I won’t sign nuthin’!” and he stooped
and attempted to seize a stool that stood near the wall.
At this all retreated except Dode, who, having mastered his father in
more than one preceding contest, now descended on him and with one
push of his arm knocked him down, so weak was he, while the lawyer and
prospector, seeing him prone, attempted to interfere in his behalf.
What Dode was really thinking was that now was his chance. His father
had lied to him. He was naturally afraid of him. Why not force him by
sheer brute strength to accept this agreement and take the money? Once
it was paid here before him, if he could make his father sign, he could
take his share without let or hindrance. Of what dreams might not
this be the fulfilment? “He agreed on’t, an’ now he’s gotta do it,” he
thought; “that’s all.”
“No fighting, now,” called Giles. “We don’t want any fighting—just to
settle this thing pleasantly, that’s all.”
After all, Queeder’s second signature or _mark_ would be required,
peaceably if possible, and besides they wished no physical violence.
They were men of business, not of war.
“Yuh say he agreed tuh take $8,000, did he?” queried Dode, the
actuality of so huge a sum ready to be paid in cash seeming to him
almost unbelievable.
“Yes, that’s right,” replied the prospector.
“Then, by heck, he’s gotta make good on whut he said!” said Dode with
a roll of his round head, his arms akimbo, heavily anxious to see the
money paid over. “Here you,” he now turned to his father and began—for
his prostrate father, having fallen and injured his head, was still
lying semi-propped on his elbows, surveying the group with almost
non-comprehending eyes, too confused and lunatic to quite realize
what was going on or to offer any real resistance. “Whut’s a-gittin’
into yuh, anyhow, Ol’ Spindle Shanks? Git up hyur!” Dode went over
and lifted his father to his feet and pushed him toward a chair at
the table. “Yuh might ez well sign fer this, now ’at yuh’ve begun it.
Whar’s the paper?” he asked of the lawyer. “Yuh just show him whar he
orter sign, an’ I guess he’ll do it. But let’s see this hyur money that
ye’re a-goin’ tuh pay over fust,” he added, “afore he signs. I wanta
see ef it’s orl right.”
The prospector extracted the actual cash from a wallet, having
previously calculated that a check would never be accepted, and the
lawyer presented the deed to be signed. At the same time Dode took the
money and began to count it.
“All he has to do,” observed Giles to the others as he did so, “is to
sign this second paper, he and his wife. If you can read,” he said
to Dode when the latter had concluded, and seeing how satisfactorily
things were going, “you can see for yourself what it is.” Dode now
turned and picked it up and looked at it as though it were as simple
and clear as daylight. “As you can see,” went on the lawyer, “we
agreed to buy this land of him for eight thousand dollars. We have
already paid him eight hundred. That leaves seven thousand two hundred
still to pay, which you have there,” and he touched the money in Dode’s
hands. The latter was so moved by the reality of the cash that he
could scarcely speak for joy. Think of it—seven thousand two hundred
dollars—and all for this wretched bony land!
“Well, did yuh ever!” exclaimed Mrs. Queeder and Jane in chorus. “Who’d
’a’ thort! Eight thousan’!”
Old Queeder, still stunned and befogged mentally, was yet recovering
himself sufficiently to rise from the chair and look strangely about,
now that Dode was attempting to make him sign, but his loving son
uncompromisingly pushed him back again.
“Never mind, Ol’ Spindle Shanks,” he repeated roughly. “Just yuh stay
whar yuh air an’ sign as he asts yuh tuh. Yuh agreed tuh this, an’ yuh
might ez well stick tuh it. Ye’re gittin’ so yuh don’t know what yuh
want no more,” he jested, now that he realized that for some strange
reason he had his father completely under his sway. The latter was
quite helplessly dumb. “Yuh agreed tuh this, he says. Did ja? Air yuh
clean gone?”
“Lawsy!” put in the excited Mrs. Queeder. “Eight thousan’! An’ him
a-walkin’ roun’ hyur all the time sayin’ hit wuz only two an’ never
sayin’ nuthin’ else tuh nobody! Who’d ’a’ thort hit! An’ him a-goin’
tuh git hit all ef he could an’ say nuthin’!”
“Yes,” added Jane, gazing at her father greedily and vindictively,
“tryin’ tuh git it all fer hisself! An’ us a-workin’ hyur year in an’
year out on this hyur ol’ place tuh keep him comfortable!” She was no
less hard in her glances than her brother. Her father seemed little
less than a thief, attempting to rob them of the hard-earned fruit of
their toil.
As the lawyer took the paper from Dode and spread it upon the old board
table and handed Queeder a pen the latter took it aimlessly, quite
as a child might have, and made his mark where indicated, Mr. Giles
observing very cautiously, “This is of your own free will and deed,
is it, Mr. Queeder?” The old man made no reply. For the time being
anyhow, possibly due to the blow on his head as he fell, he had lost
the main current of his idea, which was not to sign. After signing he
looked vaguely around, as though uncertain as to what else might be
requested of him, while Mrs. Queeder made her mark, answering “yes”
to the same shrewd question. Then Dode, as the senior intelligence
of this institution and the one who by right of force now dominated,
having witnessed the marks of his father and mother, as did Jane, two
signatures being necessary, he took the money and before the straining
eyes of his relatives proceeded to recount it. Meanwhile old Queeder,
still asleep to the significance of the money, sat quite still, but
clawed at it as though it were something which he ought to want, but
was not quite sure of it.
“You find it all right, I suppose?” asked the lawyer, who was turning
to go. Dode acknowledged that it was quite correct.
Then the two visitors, possessed of the desired deed, departed. The
family, barring the father, who sat there still in a daze, began to
discuss how the remarkable sum was to be divided.
“Now, I just wanta tell yuh one thing, Dode,” urged the mother, all
avarice and anxiety for herself, “a third o’ that, whutever ’tis,
b’longs tuh me, accordin’ tuh law!”
“An’ I sartinly oughta git a part o’ that thar, workin’ the way I
have,” insisted Jane, standing closely over Dode.
“Well, just keep yer hands off till I git through, cantcha?” asked
Dode, beginning for the third time to count it. The mere feel of it
was so entrancing! What doors would it not open? He could get married
now, go to the city, do a hundred things he had always wanted to do.
The fact that his father was entitled to anything or that, having
lost his wits, he was now completely helpless, a pathetic figure and
very likely from now on doomed to wander about alone or to do his
will, moved him not in the least. By right of strength and malehood he
was now practically master here, or so he felt himself to be. As he
fingered the money he glowed and talked, thinking wondrous things, then
suddenly remembering the concealed eight hundred, or his father’s part
of it, he added, “Yes, an’ whar’s that other eight hundred, I’d like
tuh know? He’s a-carryin’ it aroun’ with him er hidin’ it hyurabout
mebbe!” Then eyeing the crumpled victim suspiciously, he began to feel
in the old man’s clothes, but, not finding anything, desisted, saying
they might get it later. The money in his hands was finally divided: a
third to Mrs. Queeder, a fourth to Jane, the balance to himself as the
faithful heir and helper of his father, the while he speculated as to
the whereabouts of the remaining eight hundred.
Just then Queeder, who up to this time had been completely bereft of
his senses, now recovered sufficiently to guess nearly all of what
had so recently transpired. With a bound he was on his feet, and,
looking wildly about him, exclaiming as he did so in a thin, reedy
voice, “They’ve stole my prupetty! They’ve stole my prupetty! I’ve been
robbed, I have! I’ve been robbed! Eh! Eh! Eh! This hyur land ain’t wuth
only eight thousan’—hit’s wuth twenty-five thousan’, an’ that’s whut I
could ’a’ had for it, an’ they’ve gone an’ made me sign it all away!
Eh! Eh! Eh!” He jigged and moaned, dancing helplessly about until,
seeing Dode with his share of the money still held safely in his hand,
his maniacal chagrin took a new form, and, seizing it and running to
the open door, he began to throw a portion of the precious bills to the
winds, crying as he did so, “They’ve stole my prupetty! They’ve stole
my prupetty! I don’t want the consarned money—I don’t want it! I want
my prupetty! Eh! Eh! Eh!”
In this astonishing situation Dode saw but one factor—the money.
Knowing nothing of the second prospector’s offer, he could not realize
what it was that so infuriated the old man and had finally completely
upset his mind. As the latter jigged and screamed and threw the money
about he fell upon him with the energy of a wildcat and, having toppled
him over and wrested the remainder of the cash from him, he held him
safely down, the while he called to his sister and mother, “Pick up the
money, cantcha? Pick up the money an’ git a rope, cantcha? Git a rope!
Cantcha see he’s done gone plum daffy? He’s outen his head, I tell yuh.
He’s crazy, he is, shore! Git a rope!” and eyeing the money now being
assembled by his helpful relatives, he pressed the struggling maniac’s
body to the floor. When the latter was safely tied and the money
returned, the affectionate son arose and, having once more recounted
his share in order to see that it was all there, he was content to look
about him somewhat more kindly on an all too treacherous world. Then,
seeing the old man where he was trussed like a fowl for market, he
added, somewhat sympathetically, it may be:
“Well, who’d ’a’ thort! Pore ol’ Pap! I do b’lieve he’s outen his mind
for shore this time! He’s clean gone—plum daffy.”
“Yes, that’s whut he is, I do b’lieve,” added Mrs. Queeder with a
modicum of wifely interest, yet more concerned at that with her part of
the money than anything else.
Then Dode, his mother and sister began most unconcernedly to speculate
as to what if anything was next to be done with the old farmer, the
while the latter rolled a vacant eye over a scene he was no longer able
to interpret.
X