HIS SON JIM'S BAY MARE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3051, 6 April 1881, Page 4

HIS SON JIM'S BAY MARE.

" I've come all the way in from Canaan to pit a little law," said a man with a ho - whip under his arm, blue overalls in >> ; - boots, and a grey, stubby beard on his fice as he pntered the Allen house reading-ro•■••>■■. yesterday, where a number of the boys were talking polities. " Mebbe some o' you fellers kin give me the correct thing without the dickering of a lawyer." The speaker was a well-known farmer of the southern part of the county. He and his son Jim are noted for their sharpness at a bargain, and a readiness to trade horses, cows, waggons, farms, or anything that belnnas to them, at any and all times a customer may present himself. Jim lives on a farm a mile from the the old man's. "Ye see boys," continued the speaker, " my boy Jim had a bay mare that he traded a yearlin' bull and a cross tooth harrow fur. She was a good critter -an no mistake. I wanted that mare the wust kind, an' made Jim a heap o good offers for her, but he wouldn't bite". __ Last Wednesday he came to my house, kind o careless like, and sot down on the front stoop. I was chopping' kindlin' wood for mornin.' Jim sot there a lookin' up an down the road whisflin' the "Sweet By an' By" kind o' to himself. When I carried in my kindlin' I sot on the stoop by him. "Jim" I sez, "you better let your old father have that bay mare o' yourn," sez I. Jim had jest started the second verse of the " Sweet By an' By," but he whistled her all the way through afore he answered me. " I ben a thinkin' o' lettin' you have the mare, pap," sez he, " seen's you got jer heart sot on her so," sez he, " pervidin' we kin git up a dicker," sez he. Jim had been goin' to meetin' pooty steady for a week back, and T heerd he was gettin' serious. He hadn't been whistlin' nothin' but hymn tunes for two or three days, an' when he come around so nice on the mare question I made up ray mind that me an' the old woman would see him jinin' the mourners afore long. " Jim, I can stand eighty dollars for the mare," sez T. Jim looked up the road and hummed a verse of " Come ye sinners poor an' needy.' Then he sez .- " Pap," sez he, " I know I orto let you have that mare for them figures," sez | he, " but you know I've refused double that for her," sez he. " Jim," sez I again, " I think I could raise the eighty about twenty more, makin' a hundred," sez I; " but that's all I kin do. Remember, Jim," sez I, " that I'm yer father, and I'm gettin' old, and my heart's sot in the mare," sez I. "Plunged in a gulf of dark despair," hummed Jim, looking plump up to the sky. I guess be got away with two verses afore he said anything to me, an' I didn't interrupt his sragin'. Then he sez : "Pap," sez lie, " I'll tell you what I'll do. Give me a hundred dollars," sez he, "an' throw in in them two Berkshire pigs and the mare is yours," sez ho, "jest as she is." "A bargain !" eoz I. " The pigs is yours, an' I'll be down after the mare to-morrow," sez I. I counted out the hundred an' give it to him. He druv the pigs homo with him. They were worth 15dols. a piece easy. J could hear Jim whistlin' " Hold the Fort " till lie got a mile away. " Jetnima," sez Ito the old woman. "Jemima," sez I, "I never thought Jim'd git pious, did you ? But I've got the bay marc," sez I, " an' what the old boy was thinkin' I can't see. She's worth two hundred and fifty any day in the I week,' sez I. " Religion is makin' a fool o' Jim," soz I. Well, next mornin early I went down to Jim's to git the mare Jim had ' gone to town. I see his wife " I've bought the bay mare, Nancy. I sez. "Yes, I know ye have," sez Nancy, grinnin all over her face. " Where is she ?" I srz. " She's down in the stone lot," sez Nancy grinnin' more'n ever. I thought it was funny that the mare should be down in the stone lot, but I went down to find her Boys, I found her. was laying behind a big stone heap deader'n a doo nail. I went back to the house. " Why, Nancy," s<?z I, " the bay mare's dead!" "Oyes," sez Nancy, laughm' as if she'd split, " she died yesterday mornin' with the colic," sez she. "Boys, for a minute I was mad. 'then T come to, and says to myself, " I'll be glued if I don't git the mare's shoes, anyhow," sez I. So I went back to the stone lot to draw her shoes off. Boys, I'll divide my farm up between ye if Jim hadn't drawed them shoes hisself, an' the mare's feet was as bare as when she was born. Now, I ain't no ways mad at Jim, boys, for it was a fair and square dicker, an' it shows there's stuff in him ; only he mought a left tho shoes on the mare. What I want to know is, can't I git back at the campmcetin' folks some way for damages? If it hadn't a been for them hymn tunes Jim larn't at the meetin's I'd a been lookin' out for him. But they thro wed me awoy off my guard. The way I look at it is that the cainpmeetin' society is responsible for me losin' my hundred dollars and two fifteen dollar pigs. Can't I get at them for trespass, or false pretences, or accessory afore the fact, or soothin' ? Can't Ido it, boys."—New York Hun.