Walter Harland | Page 5

sorry place to ask charity, as every
one could testify who ever tried the experiment. It was reported that a
poor woman once called at the house and asked for food. The farmer
chanced to be from home, and his wife, thinking he might not return for
a time, ventured to prepare a comfortable meal for the poor traveller;
but, as fate would have it, he returned before the weary traveller had
partaken of the meal prepared for her. As soon as he saw how matters
stood he gave his wife a stern rebuke for "encouraging beggars"; and,
with many harsh words, ordered the woman to leave the house. The
poor woman rose wearily to obey the command, and, as she was
passing from the room, she turned, and fixing her eyes upon Mr.
Judson, said in a stern voice, "I am poor and needy--it was hunger
alone which compelled me to ask charity--but with all your riches I
would not exchange places with you who have the heart to turn from
your door one in need of food; surely, out of your abundance you might
have at the least given food to one in want; but go on hoarding up your
dollars, and see how much softer they will make your dying pillow." It
was said that the farmer actually turned pale as the woman left the
house. Perhaps his conscience was not quite dead, and it may be that a
shadow from the events of future years, even then, fell across his mind.
It would have been difficult to find two natures more unlike than were
those of Mr. Judson and his wife. The former was stingy, even to

miserly niggardliness, as well as ill-tempered, sullen and morose, while
the latter was one of the most kind-hearted and motherly old ladies
imaginable, that is, had her kindly nature been allowed to exhibit itself.
As it was, not daring to act according to the dictates of her own kind
heart, through fear of her stern companion, she had in the course of
years, become a timid broken-spirited woman. In her youthful days she
had been a regular attendant at church, she also was a valuable teacher
in the sabbath-school; but, after marrying Lemuel Judson, she soon
found that all religious privileges of a social nature were at an end.
Poor man, money was the god he worshipped; and so entirely did the
acquisition of wealth engross his mind that every other emotion was
well-nigh extinguished. He seldom, if ever, entered a place of public
worship, and did what he could to prevent his wife from doing so. She
did at the first venture a feeble remonstrance when he refused on
Sundays to drive to the village church, but, as this was her first attempt
at any thing like opposition to his wishes, he determined it should be
her last, for he assailed her with every term of abusive language at his
command, and these were not a few, for his command of language of
this sort was something marvelous too listen to, and, if his words and
phrases were not always in strict accordance with the rules of grammar,
they certainly were sharp and pointed enough to answer his purpose
very well. From the sour expression of his countenance, as well as the
biting words which often fell from his tongue, the village boys applied
to him the name "vinegar face," sometimes varied by "old vinegar
Judson." Like all village boys, they were inclined on holidays and
Saturday afternoons to roam away to the neighbouring farms. Mr.
Judson always drove them from his premises the moment they set foot
hereon, and in a short time he learned that, as the saying is, there was
no love lost between them. He one day gave one of these boys a smart
blow with his horse-whip the boy had ventured into the hayfield among
the laborers. The blow of course caused him to take to his heels, but
from that time the whole band were in league against the farmer. If he
left a horse tied in the village, he would sometimes find him shorn of
his mane, and often a hopeless rent in his buffalo; and, as far as he
could find out, the deed was done by "nobody at all." As he was driving
leisurely homeward on a very dark night he suddenly came upon a
number of boys near the end of the village street, and one of the boys

called out loud enough for him to hear, "there goes old vinegar
Judson;" another emboldened by his companion, next addressed him
with the question; "What's the market price of vinegar, old man? you
ought to know if any one does, for you must drink a lot of it or you
wouldn't