The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 18 March 1915, Page 3

The Storyteller

VALUE RECEIVED He had kept the country store for twenty years. The sign read, ‘C. P. Johns/ but he. was ‘ Unci© Charley to everybody. It was the only store at the village crossroads, and he prospered 4n a modest way.’ After the bad accounts were deducted, his profits were small, but he was able to support his family comfortably. They had a pretty little cottage with some fruit trees in the lot, kept some pigs, a cow, and-a horse and buggy. They had enough, and were contented with that and their good name. Then the old man took his nephew in as partner. They built an addition to the store and bought a big bill of new goods. It put them in debt quite heavily, but their trade increased and at the end of three years, when the farmers had brought in their wheat, they had enough to pay all their debts and a thousand dollars over. The nephew took, the money, three thousand dollars in all, and went to St. Louis to pay off the debts and buy new goods for the fall and winter trade. The goods came promptly but the nephew did not return. He was called South, he wrote. One afternoon, a few days later, the old man received a letter from the wholesale house expressing surprise that he had not remitted for the past due account, and stating that unless such remittance was received by the tenth they would draw on him for the full amount, the new bill included. The supper bell rang three times before the old man stirred. As he came down the walk his wife saw there was something the matter, and met him in the yard. ‘ We are ruined!’ he said, in a lifeless tone, handing her the letter. ‘ Oh, no, not ruined. You can raise it, can’t you?’ she asked, hopefully. ‘ No,’ lie replied, listlessly. ‘ Surely there will be some way out,’ she urged. ‘ There is no way out, he said hopelessly, as he sank into a rocking chair. He looked very old, and his gentle face was blank weariness. ‘ No, there is no way out,’ he repeated, in a monotonous tone. That money was all I could raise it was everything I have made in twenty years.’ ‘ But surely our neighbors will help us raise it. You have always been good to them,’ encouraged his wife, trying to cover her own anxiety. ‘ No,’ said the old man, bitterly, * people never lend you money or go on your note because you have been good to them.’ The next day he mad© the only effort that seemed to offer any hope. He went to Adams, the moneylender of the community, and offered to mortgage everything. ‘ No,’ said Adams. ‘ Your stuff isn’t worth it. It isn’t in my line, anyway. Get some good men who own land on your note, and I can let you have what you need.’ - • The old man went home, a forlorn figure, bent, grey, hopeless, and sat down to wait dully for the end. They sat in the shade of the blacksmith shop. It was an informal gathering of farmers, who, on hearing the news, had ridden in to learn the particulars. ‘Too bad for Uncle Charley?’ said a farmer, digging at the grass beside him, with his pocket knife. ‘Too bad!’ and they all shook their heads. He’s been a great help to this community,’ said another. ‘There never lived a more accommodatin’ man,* added a third. And then they talked of how they had always distrusted the nephew, and how soon the old man would be closed up. They wondered what he would do then for a living. . _ There was one, the poorest and most shiftless man in the neighborhood, who had not spoken.

t Cl i l • 1 . - , * ' • a % ‘ Something ought to be done, men.' He could hardly control his voice.' ‘ It’ll be a low-down shame 'to let Uncle Charley be sold out.’ . Vrv'' ‘ What can we do?’ asked Jones, rather idly. S ‘I don’t know exactly whatwe can do,’ continued Todd, ‘ but let me tell you what he’s done for me. When I came here I didn’t have a red cent, and he trusted me for a whole year’s living, and never asked me for it once. I couldn’t .pay him, but I got ashamed and wouldn’t buy any more. Well, the next fall when I took down with the fever there wasn’t a thing in the house to go on. _ 1 tell you, we were in a mighty bad shape, and didn’t know what in the world would become of us, until one evening Mr. Johns came over and brought the doctor. Says he, “Doc. and I just thought we’d drop in.” And while the doctor was fixin’ me up some medicine, he called my wife to one side and says, “Mrs. Todd, you send one of the boys down, to the store and get what you need, .and Jim can pay when he gets well.” ’ No one spoke for some time. ‘ Now, sec here,’ continued Todd, ‘ I’m a mighty poor man, but Bill says he will give me 100 dollars for my bay mare, and I’m going to sell her and give the money to Uncle Charley to help pay off that debt.’ Several others volunteered to help. ‘I don’t think,’ said Mingus, ‘that it would be best to give him the money. lie wouldn’t feel right about it, you know. It ain’t so much the loss of the money ; he can make that back in three or four years, but it’s just taken all the stiffening out of the old man, and he’s lost all heart. If we could fix it some way so he could go on with the store and see some way to pay out, it would be just the boost he needs.’ ‘ Say, don’t you suppose Adams would loan him the money?’ asked one. ‘ Oh, Adams would loan it to him quick enough, if he can get the security; but how’s he going to get it?’ said Willis. ‘ Well, I never went on a note in my life,’ said Haney, ‘ but I’ll be one to go on old man Johns’ note for three thousand dollars.’ And so said every man there. A note was made out and put in the hands of Haney. The word was quickly passed round, and for two or three days men kept coming in at all hours to sign that note. ‘He lent me fifty dollars when I was hard up,’ said one. ‘ He helped Tog get through school when I was too poor to help him myself,’ said a father who was now well to do. ‘ After working all day many is the time he came over to my house and sat up with me when I was down with the slow fever,’ said a neighbor. ‘ Fifteen years ago,’ remarked a prosperous young man, as he sat down to sign the paper, ‘ I was too worthless to kill. But Uncle Charley called me into the store one day and persuaded me to go to school, got me some books and sold me clothes on credit. Nobody thought he would ever get a cent for it.’ ‘ I want to put my name on that note,’ said a poor widow. ‘ I know it’s not worth anything, but I want it there. Nobody knows, Mr. Haney, how kind Uncle Charley has been to us. The winter after Jim died Lizzie went up to the store one day almost barefooted. He pretended to have her help him count some eL" then he gave her a pair of shoes. He’s done lots of things like that.’ ‘ He is always so jolly and whole-souled you can’t help but feel that he is interested in you and wants you to be happy,’ was another’s tribute. There were but four more daj's of grace. The old man sat crouching in his chair as if shrinking from the coming blow. . The whimsical humor, the independence, the courage were all gone. He was a poor, hopeless old man, down never to rise again. Two or three farmers came in and sat on the edge of the porch. He tried to be sociable, but made a pitiful failure of it. Others came in, and then more, until there were two or three dozen seated on the porch.

The old man knew they had come to sympathise with him, but he could; not bring up the subject ’of his loss.. There was an awkward half-hour in which nobody talked of the important matter. At last Haney nudged Todd, and urged him to speak. Todd shifted his position once or twice, got up awkwardly and stood before Johns, trying to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. Then he fumbled in his pocket, drew out a paper, held it out to the old man, and managed to say : . , - ‘ Maybe it’ll help you.’ The old man tried to speak, but could only call: ‘Mary!’ J ■ ■ His wife came quickly and looked at the paper. Thank em, ma, I can’t!’ said the old man, with a sob in his voice. The tears were running down her face as she turned toward the men. They were all looking away. I can’t, either,’ she said, as she slipped down beside her husband, with her arm round his neck, 1 but they know.’ Looks sorter like rain over in the south-west,’ said Todd. ‘ Guess we’d better be going, boys.’ —Catholic News. s