Chapter XXV: Durgenson Demands His Money

"OH, dear! Oh, dear!" wailed Nora, throwing herself on the floor. "What made you shoot? Oh, Mr. Archer! What made you shoot?"

"I hit him!" cried Archer. "I know I did! I'll bet a dollar I did!"

An instant later Ratke rushed to the scene of the disturbance with his trousers in his hand.

"What is it?" he exclaimed. "Is the money safe?"

"It's gone!" said Archer. "He went out of that window, and I shot at him."

Like a school-boy the major jumped through the window and ran down the walk. When he came to the gate, he fancied he saw a man entering the shadow of the horse-barn. He proceeded to the spot, but save himself, no man was in sight. Near the straw-stack he drew on his trousers, which he had till then unthinkingly retained in his hand.

"Get up from that floor, Nora," commanded Mrs. Grippin.

"Oh, I can't," wailed Nora. "I never can get up. Oh, dear!"

"Come," said Mrs. Grippin dragging her to her feet, "I won't have you act so. Nobody is hurt."

"I wouldn't be in that fellow's boots for money, any way," said Archer, tipping his head with an expression of superior wisdom. "If he ain't got some cold lead in him, he's a good one."

The men searched the barns and spread out over the adjacent fields. Realizing that a crisis in their employer's business affairs had come, they entered into the hunt with a zeal which they had never manifested for farm labor.

"It is of no use," said Ratke, as the morning drew near. "The robber and the money are beyond our reach. Go to the club-house and finish your sleep. I cannot give it up yet, even though there is no hope."

Not one of the men would accept his offer. Unanimously they agreed to stand by their employer in his extremity, and to continue their efforts as long as there was hope. Daggett went to Break o'Day, roused a few of the inhabitants, and made such arrangements as he thought were likely to lead to the recovery of the major's stolen property. The remainder of the hands and Ratke were ranging about in the swamp when the ringing of the upright saw in the apple-tree summoned them to breakfast. While they were in the kitchen washing, Daggett returned.

The late misfortune filled the major with a dejection which nothing but the precipitation of his trouble and the destruction of his hopes could create. The Barton hundred and sixty had gone; the homestead must go. The study, the tool-house, the improvements which he had made, were to be his but a day. He told the men that they need not begin work that morning, as he would like to see them in the club-house. When they had gathered with many speculations as to the nature of his announcement, he addressed them in a brief speech.

"My faithful men, it grieves me to communicate to you what it is now necessary that you should know. For years you have been in my service and have performed well the tasks which I have given you. In every exigency you have been my efficient helpers; to all my enterprises you have lent cheerful aid. Distasteful as is the duty, I must tell you that we can no longer maintain the relations of employer and workmen. Another man holds the deed of my farm of which he can take possession whenever he desires. The money with which I could have temporarily satisfied him and paid you has been stolen. I would be doing you injustice if I allowed you to stay, when I am uncertain that I can requite your honest labor. My greatest trouble is that I am already owing you debts which must for the present remain unpaid. I might have avoided this. By leaving unfinished some of my projects I could have given you your wages when they were due. To think that I have wasted the substance which was placed in my hands, to feel that it was not mine, but yours, for you had earned it, is, indeed, the consummation of my misery. But you shall not be defrauded. If I am old, I am yet strong. I will work like a slave until you are paid. My hands shall yet remunerate the honest workmen whom my poor head has unintentionally cheated. I will sell my stock, my farming implements, my breakfast furniture. My creditors shall have their just dues, and you shall be first remembered."

At the close of his speech the men crowded around him with expressions of sympathy. They assured him that they did not care for their pay. It was nothing compared to his loss. If he needed help, they would work for him all the summer and fall, and they would not charge a cent.

"No," said the major, "I can take no such sacrifice. You have lost enough through me."

"This is a sorry day, boys," said Daggett, as they were packing their trunks and valises. "The major's unfinished up. I believe it'll kill him. Did you notice how down in the mouth he looked? If I had it to do over again, I'd put in some rattling days' work for that old man."

Daggett, wishing a home until he could find work, went to live with Osborne, to whose wife he was related. The other men Ratke persuaded to stay to dinner, but at one o'clock none of them were on the farm. Ratke sat in a rocking-chair with his chin resting on his hand and his left leg thrown over the chair-arm. In this position he had studied out most of his inventions.

"Now, I wouldn't mope, James," said Mrs. Grippin. "There's no use of your giving up."

"Give up?" answered the major, jerking his head from his hand, "not while I live. Misfortune may beat me down, may trample on me, may break my bones, but it shall not conquer me. I am not discouraged; I am thinking."

Ratke's despondency was greater than he would admit.

As he rocked back and forth, no reflections would come, except those of the most gloomy character.

"Uncle James," said Manie, thinking to divert his mind from his trouble, "we have a great deal of difficulty with the churning. I wish you would invent a churn for me."

"That I will, my little girl," said the major, again taking his hand from his chin. "Leave me alone awhile. I want to think."

"I have it, Manie!" he exclaimed at the expiration of half an hour. "I have the plan of an invention which will preserve the grain of the butter as well as the swing churn and do the quickest work which is done except by steam or water power. It is a dasher which gives the cream the rotary motion of the swing churn."

"James," interrupted Mrs. Grippin, "you don't know when we'll have to leave here. You better fill up all our ticks with new straw."

"Very well," said the major, rising at once.

He was nearly to the tool-house when Mrs. Grippin called after him, "Why, James Ratke, what do you want that coat on for this hot day? I should think you'd roast."

"I should be more comfortable with it off," said Ratke, who was too miserable to think of petty physical comforts. He went to the stack and pulled out some straw I before he reflected that he had forgotten the ticks. He returned to the house and brought them out, one by one. Then he thoughtlessly emptied them near the path. Mrs. Grippin came to the door, expressed her displeasure at his act and advised him to take a wheel-barrow to carry back the filled ticks. Partly understanding her injunction, he took the wheel-barrow and brought several loads of straw near the pile of ticks.

"Take the ticks out to the straw-stack," called the housekeeper. "You're scattering the straw all over the yard."

Ratke meekly obeyed. He pulled the straw with no thought of what he was doing. He had tried to rivet his attention on the projected churn, but that was for any considerable length of time impossible. He was continually reminded of the farm whose ownership he had allowed to be wrested from him. He missed the clumsy jokes of the men. Archer's monotonous song was not echoing from a distant field. No teams were at work on his fallow. Stagnation had come to his enterprises, his energies, his hopes; and ambition, its clamor for food disregarded, had suddenly died.

"Right at it, Major," said the hearty voice of Durgenson. "I suppose the women got you into that."

"Yes," said Ratke, straightening from his stooping posture over a tick. "You are rather late, Durgenson."

"Yes," said the cattle-buyer, "but you see, I had business so I couldn't come. I hope I haven't made you any trouble by it. Has it made any difference to you?"

"A great difference to both of us," answered Ratke. "The money I had for you was stolen last night."

"What!" ejaculated Durgenson with genuine disappointment. "Stole! I wouldn't think you'd have let it got stole."

"I was up until nearly morning night before last," explained the major, "and last night I had one of my men act as guard. He slept at his post, and the thief came through a window, took the money and got away, I wish you had come yesterday."

"Well, I didn't," said Durgenson testily, "and I couldn't. What are you going to do about it? I've got to have something right away."

"There is nothing I can do," replied Ratke. "I am at your mercy."

"Oh, I won't be hard," said Durgenson. "All I want is what is fair. You can scrape me up a little, maybe, and I can wait on you for the rest."

"There is no more scraping to be done," said the major, "I have paid you all I can."

"You have a fair horse there," said Durgenson. "I'll take him and allow you a thousand dollars for him."

"I cannot possibly do that," said Ratke.

"And why not?" asked Durgenson. "I've got to have something if I wait, you know."

"I owe some debts for farm machinery," said Ratke.

"I owe four hundred dollars to the man of whom I bought Taylor, and I owe my men some hundreds of dollars."

"You can stave them off," said Durgenson, "Of course, they haven't any security, I wouldn't pay them a cent when I was so hard up. I'd wait till I was in better circumstances."

"They must be paid," said the major emphatically, "I promised it to them, and they must have it if I fast."

"But your men," said Durgenson, "they'd wait on you a spell."

"The laborer is worthy of his hire," said Ratke. "My men shall be paid before another creditor has the first dollar."

"You want me to wait until you pay everybody else," cried Durgenson angrily. "You can understand now that I won't do it. You promised me four thousand dollars, and I'm going to have something, or I'll shove you off the place."

"I am not to blame because you failed to come yesterday," said Ratke. "Neither am I to blame because of the theft. Neither am I to blame for wishing to pay my honest hired men first of all."

"Just as you like," returned Durgenson in a fury. "I'll send a man in the morning to shove you out into the street! Your promises are a waste of wind. You've fooled me all you are going to. I did think you was honest."

"Do you mean to say, you liar," cried the major, "that I misrepresented to you?"

"What!" exclaimed Durgenson. "Don't you call me a liar! I won't take that from any man!"

"You are a liar!" said Ratke, advancing and peering into the face of the cattle-buyer. "This is my place for to-day. Now go, or I will kick you off the premises! And do not say one word in leaving! Not one word," he continued, as Durgenson's lips moved.

Durgenson turned and moved slowly toward the road.

"Faster!" commanded Ratke, following close at his heels.

Durgenson quickened his pace, climbed hastily over the fence and stopped in the highway.

"Come over here if you want to fight!" he said. "Come right over here if you dare!"

Durgenson, in the prime of manhood, large and athletic, contrasted strongly with the haggard, white-haired old man who promptly climbed the fence to accept his challenge. Unfastening the top button of his coat and drawing from the garment his right arm, he stood undecided whether to give or to decline battle. As Ratke advanced with an expression of determination, he slipped his arm inside the coat and fastened the button, at the same time saying, "I won't be guilty of fighting with an old man."

"Never mind the guilt," said the wrathful major. "You must either fight or leave, and that immediately."

"I don't like trouble," said Durgenson, making for his buggy. "I'll have you out of here to-morrow," he called, when he had got his horse under a round trot. "You've lied to me all I'm going to stand."

"You ought to have licked him," said Mrs. Grippin, who with the girls had come to the gate, afraid that the major might be harmed by the stalwart cattle-buyer.

"I will not chase a man to fight," said Ratke. "Maria, do you know where the cradle is? The reaper is broken, and the oats must be cut."

"No, I don't," said Mrs. Grippin. "You can't cradle. You never learned how. You had better get some one to cradle them, and you bind them up."

"I have no money to hire," said the major. "I must do the work myself. Manie, have you seen the cradle?"

"Yes," said Manie, "I saw it under the wagon shed. Let me go to Mr. Osborne's and get Mark to cut it, Uncle James. He will wait for his pay till you thresh the oats."

"I am afraid to run in debt any more," said Ratke. "I will do the work alone."

Resolutely he went out to the shed and took down the old turkey-wing cradle, which cut a very wide swath, and was intended to be used by a strong man. He was unused to the work, but he had cared for his health; and his strokes, though poorly directed, were vigorous. He could not keep from hitting the ground with the scythe.

The old turkey-wing struck in high and, like a hawk, swooped down on the outer edge of the swath. Undiscouraged by his awkwardness, he whipped the cradle back and forth, making good time in spite of all difficulties. His face was covered with sweat, he was much fatigued and the upper part of his right fore-arm pained him excessively, yet he did not stop till near sundown. Weary, lame and disconsolate, he went to the house, where he found waiting the supper which he had no desire to eat.

"I must go at the chores," he said. "I had forgotten them."

"No, you don't want to go at any chores," said Mrs. Grippin, "You ought to know when you've done enough. You stay here, and Manie and I will do the chores. Act as though you had some sense. You don't want to be sick. I'll milk the cows, and Manie can look to the horses."

"I'll help," volunteered Nora, who was strangely sober. "I'll milk part of the cows. Aunt Maria."

"We'll go right out," said Mrs. Grippin stepping to the kitchen. "Nora, where did you put those pails?"

"I left them on the shelves," said Nora.

"No, you didn't," said Mrs. Grippin. "They're not here. We'll have to take the water pails. That's all."

Near the barnyard they heard the sound of milk going into a tin pail, and, opening the gate, they saw that Daggett was stripping the last cow.

"Why!" exclaimed Mrs. Grippin, "It was you that got the pails, Mark."

"Yes," said Daggett, "I looked over this way, and I got homesick. I wanted to come and chore around the old barn once more."

"I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Mrs. Grippin. "I hope I can make this up to you, Mark."

"I don't want it made up," said Daggett. "How's the major?"

"He's about sick, and I'm afraid he's going to be. Durgenson was here to-day and talked hard to him. He's going to put us off to-morrow."

"We'll be right on hand if he tries that," said Daggett impetuously, "every man of us. We'll make him and his crowd wish they was somewhere else."

That night the major was restless. Harassed, overworked and overheated, he tossed from side to side in his efforts to find an easy posture. His head throbbed and became the seat of a dull pain. A strange roaring sound was in his ears, but, when he sat up in bed, it ceased. After it had several times recurred, and been dispelled by his assuming an erect position he gave up his attempts to discover its cause. The roaring grew so loud that he again rose to see if it were really an illusion. This time he was astonished to hear the unmistakable crackling of flames and to see sparks of fire flying past his window.