Adopting an Abandoned Farm | Page 6

of rubbish, but found, alas! no hidden
treasure, no missing jewels, no money hid away by miserly fingers and
forgotten. Jake Corey, who was doing some work for me, encouraged
me to hope. He said: "I hear ye patronize auctions putty reg'lar;
sometimes there is a good deal to be made that way, and then ag'in
there isn't. I never had no luck that way, but it's like getting married, it's
a lottery! Folks git queer and put money in some spot, where they're apt
to forgit all about it. Now I knew a man who bought an old hat and a
sight of other stuff; jest threw in the hat. And when he got home and
come to examine it ef thar warn't three hundred dollars in good bills,
chucked in under the sweater!"
"You ought to git over to Mason's auction to Milldon, sure. It's day
after to-morrow at nine sharp. You see he'd a fortune left him, but he
run straight through it buying the goldarndest things you ever heerd tell
on--calves with six legs, dogs with three eyes or two tails, steers that
could be druv most as well as hosses (Barnum he got hold o' 'em and
tuk 'em round with his show); all sorts o' curious fowl and every
outlandish critter he could lay his hands on. 'T stands to reason he
couldn't run that rig many years. Your goin's on here made me think o'
Mason. He cut a wide swath for a time.
"Wall, I hope you'll come off better'n he did. He sunk such a pile that
he got discouraged and took to drink; then his wife, a mighty likely
woman she is (one o' the Batchelders of Dull Corner), couldn't stand it
and went back to her old home, and he died ragged and friendless about
a month ago. Ef I's you, I'd go over, just to take warning and hold up in
time."

CHAPTER III.
BUYING A HORSE.
"And you know this Deacon Elkins to be a thoroughly reliable man in
every respect?"
"Indeed, I do," said honest Nathan Robbins. "He is the very soul of
honor; couldn't do a mean thing. I'd trust him with all I have."
"Well, I'm glad to hear this, for I'm just going to buy a horse of him."
"A horse?"
"Yes--a horse!"
"Then I don't know anything about him!"
A TRUE TALE.
After furnishing my house in the aforesaid economical and nondescript
fashion, came the trials of "planting time." This was such an unfragrant
and expensive period that I pass over it as briefly as possible. I saw it
was necessary in conformity with the appalling situation to alter one
vowel in my Manorial Hall. The haul altogether amounted to eighteen
loads besides a hundred bags of vilely smelling fertilizers. Agents for
every kind of phosphates crowded around me, descanting on the needs
of the old land, until I began to comprehend what the owner meant by
"keeping it up." With Gail Hamilton, I had supposed the entire land of
this earth to be pretty much the same age until I adopted the
"abandoned." This I found was fairly senile in its worthless
decrepitude.
My expenditure was something prodigious.
Yes, "planting time" was a nightmare in broad daylight, but as I look
back, it seems a rosy dream, compared with the prolonged agonies of
buying a horse!

All my friends said I must have a horse to truly enjoy the country, and
it seemed a simple matter to procure an animal for my own use.
Livery-stable keepers, complaisant and cordial, were continually
driving around the corner into my yard, with a tremendous flourish and
style, chirking up old by-gones, drawing newly painted buggies,
patched-up phaetons, two-seated second-hand "Democrats," high
wagons, low chaises, just for me to try. They all said that seeing I was a
lady and had just come among 'em, they would trade easy and treat me
well. Each mentioned the real value, and a much lower price, at which
I, as a special favor, could secure the entire rig. Their prices were all
abominably exorbitant, so I decided to hire for a season. The dozen
beasts tried in two months, if placed in a row, would cure the worst
case of melancholia. Some shied; others were liable to be overcome by
"blind staggers"; three had the epizootic badly, and longed to lie down;
one was nearly blind. At last I was told of a lady who desired to leave
her pet horse and Sargent buggy in some country home during her three
months' trip abroad.
Both were so highly praised as just the thing that I took them on faith.
I judge that a woman can lie worse than a man about a horse!
"You will love my Nellie" she wrote.