This was about as rough as March weather; but I knew my man, and perhaps proved that I wasn’t a fool by not parting with him then and there.
“Come now, neighbor,” I said, brusquely, “I know some things that you don’t, and there are affairs in which I could prove you to be as green as I am in this matter. If you came to me I’d give you the best advice that I could, and be civil about it into the bargain. I’ve come to you because I believe you to be honest and to know what I don’t. When I tell you that I have a little family dependent on me, and that I mean if possible to get a living for them out of the soil, I believe you are man enough both to fall in with my plan and to show a little friendly interest. If you are not, I’ll go farther and fare better.”
As I fired this broadside he looked at me askance, with the pipe in the corner of his mouth, then reached out his great brown paw, and said—
“Shake.”
I knew it was all right now—that the giving of his hand meant not only a treaty of peace but also a friendly alliance. The old fellow discoursed vegetable wisdom so steadily for half an hour that his pipe went out.
“You jest let that newfangled truck alone,” he said, “till you get more forehanded in cash and experience. Then you may learn how to make something out of them novelties, as they call ’em, if they are worth growing at all. Now and then a good penny is turned on a new fruit or vegetable; but how to do it will be one of the last tricks that you’ll learn in your new trade. Hand me one of them misleadin’ books, and I’ll mark a few solid kinds such as produce ninety-nine hundredths of all that’s used or sold. Then you go to What-you-call-’em’s store, and take a line from me, and you’ll git the genuine article at market gardeners’ prices.”
“Now, Mr. Bogart, you are treating me like a man and a brother.”
“Oh thunder! I’m treating you like one who, p’raps, may deal with me. Do as you please about it, but if you want to take along a lot of my business cards and fasten ’em to anything you have to sell, I’ll give you all they bring, less my commission.”
“I’ve no doubt you will, and that’s more than I can believe of a good many in your line, if all’s true that I hear. You have thrown a broad streak of daylight into my future. So you see the fool didn’t part with his money, or with you either, until he got a good deal more than he expected.”
“Well, well, Mr. Durham, you’ll have to get used to my rough ways. When I’ve anything to say, I don’t beat about the bush. But you’ll always find my checks good for their face.”
“Yes, and the face back of them is that of a friend to me now. We’ll shake again. Goodbye;” and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground under my feet. At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the “newfangled truck.” I managed, however, that the children should not lose the lesson that a rough diamond is better than a smooth paste stone, and that people often do themselves an injury when they take offence too easily.
“I see it all, papa,” chuckled Merton; “if you had gone off mad when he the same as called you a fool, you would have lost all his good advice.”
“I should have lost much more than that, my boy, I should have lost the services of a good friend and an honest man to whom we can send for its full worth whatever we can’t sell to better advantage at home. But don’t mistake me, Merton, toadyism never pays, no matter what you may gain by it; for you give manhood for such gain, and that’s a kind of property that one can never part with and make a good bargain. You see the old man didn’t mean to be insolent. As he said, it was only his rough, blunt way of saying what was uppermost in his mind.”
VII
Mr. Jones Shows Me the Place
The next day, according to appointment, I went to Maizeville. John Jones met me at the station, and drove me in his box sleigh to see the farm he had written of in his laconic note. I looked at him curiously as we jogged along over the melting snow. The day was unclouded for a wonder, and the sun proved its increasing power by turning the sleigh tracks in the road into gleaming rills. The visage of my new acquaintance formed a decided contrast to the rubicund face of the beef-eating marketman. He was sandy even to his eyebrows and complexion. His scraggy beard suggested poverty of soil on his lantern jaws. His frame was as gaunt as that of a scarecrow, and his hands and feet were enormous. He had one redeeming feature, however—a pair of blue eyes that looked straight at you and made you feel that there was no “crookedness” behind them. His brief letter had led me to expect a man of few words, but I soon found that John Jones was a talker and a good-natured gossip. He knew everyone we met, and was usually greeted with a rising inflection, like this, “How are you, John?”
We drove inland for two or three miles.
“No, I didn’t crack up the place, and I ain’t a-goin’ to,” said my real estate agent. “As I wrote you, you can see for yourself
