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.”
