"Very well, sir, it's a bargain."
"Which, to save time, we will close immediately. I will go with you
to your house, and pay you five hundred dollars on the whole bill
for a thousand bushels."
The farmer had no objection to this, of course, and invited the
stranger to go to his house with him, where the five hundred dollars
were soon counted out. For this amount of money he wrote a receipt
and handed it to the stranger, who, after reading it, said--
"I would prefer your making out a bill for a thousand bushels, and
writing on it, 'Received on account, five hundred dollars.'"
"It may overrun that quantity," said Ashburn.
"No matter, a new bill can be made out for that. I'll take all you
have."
The farmer saw no objection to the form proposed by the stranger,
and therefore tore up the receipt he had written, and made a bill
out in the form desired.
"Will you commence delivering to-day?" inquired the sportsman, who
all at once began to manifest a marked degree of interest in the
business.
"Yes," replied the farmer.
"How many wagons have you?"
"Two."
"As it is down hill all the way to the canal, they can easily take a
hundred bushels each."
"Oh, yes."
"Very well. They can make two loads apiece to-day, and, by starting
early, three loads apiece on Monday, which will transfer the whole
thousand bushels to the canal. I will go down immediately and see
that a boat is ready to commence loading. You can go to work at
once."
By extra effort, the wheat was all delivered by Monday afternoon,
and the balance of the purchase-money paid. As Mr. Ashburn was
riding home, a neighbour who had noticed his wagons going past his
house with wheat for the two days, overtook him.
"So I see, friend Ashburn, that, like me, you are content to take
the first advance of the market, instead of running the risk of a
decline for a further rise in prices. What did you get for your
wheat?"
"I sold for ninety cents."
"Ninety cents!" exclaimed the neighbour. "Surely you didn't sell for
that?"
"I certainly did. I tried to get ninety-two, but ninety was the
highest offer I could obtain."
"Ninety cents! Why, what has come over you, Ashburn. Wheat is
selling for a dollar and twenty cents. I've just sold five hundred
bushels for that."
"Impossible!" ejaculated the farmer.
"Not at all impossible. Don't you know that by the last arrival from
England have come accounts of a bad harvest, and that wheat has
taken a sudden rise?"
"No, I don't know any such a thing," returned the astonished
Ashburn.
"Well, it's so. Where is your newspaper?--Haven't you read it? I got
mine on Friday evening, and saw the news. Early on Saturday morning
I found two or three speculators ready to buy up all the wheat they
could get at old prices; but they didn't make many operations. One
fellow who pretended to be a fancy sportsman, thrust himself into my
way, but, even if I had not know of a rise in the price of wheat, I
should have suspected it as soon as I saw him, for I read, last
week, of just such a looking chap as him having got ahead of some
ignorant country farmers by buying up their produce, on a sudden
rise of the market, at price much below its real value."
"Good day!" said Ashburn, suddenly applying his whip to the flank of
his horse; and away dashed homeward at a full gallop.
The farmer never sat down to make a regular calculation of what he
had lost by stopping his news paper; but it required no formality of
pencil and paper to arrive at this. A difference of thirty cents on
each bushel, made, for a thousand bushels, the important sum of
three hundred dollars, and this fact his mind instantly saw.
By the next mail, he enclosed two dollars to the publishers of the
"Post," and re-ordered the paper. He will, doubtless, think a good
while, and retrench at a good many points, before he orders an other
discontinuance.