Walter Harland | Page 5

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 be so cross and ugly." It was a very dark night, and the farmer was unable to distinguish one from the other, and horse-whip in