That same morning, too, Tom Edwards came over in haste to tell us, with a very sober face, that their oxen had disappeared mysteriously, and ask us to join in the search to find them. They were a yoke of "sparked" oxen—red and white in contrasting patches. Each had wide-spread horns and a "star" in his face. Bright and Broad were their names, and they were eight years old.
Neighbor Jotham Edwards was one of those simpleminded, hard-working farmers who ought to prosper but who never do. It is not easy to say just what the reason was for much of his ill fortune. Born under an unlucky planet, some people said; but that, of course, is childish. The real reason doubtless was lack of good judgment in his business enterprises.
Whatever he undertook nearly always turned out badly. His carts and ploughs broke unaccountably, his horses were strangely prone to run away and smash things, and something was frequently the matter with his crops. Twice, I remember, he broke a leg, and each time he had to lie six weeks on his back for the bone to knit. Felons on his fingers tormented him; and it was a notable season that he did not have a big, painful boil or a bad cut from a scythe or from an axe. One mishap seemed to lead to another.
Jotham's constant ill fortune was the more noticeable among his neighbors because his father, Jonathan, had been a careful, prosperous farmer who kept his place in excellent order, raised good crops and had the best cattle of any one thereabouts. Within a few years after the place had passed under Jotham's control it was mortgaged, the buildings and the fences were in bad repair, and the fields were weedy. Yet that man worked summer and winter as hard and as steadily as ever a man did or could.
Two winters before he had contracted with old Zack Lurvey to cut three hundred thousand feet of hemlock logs and draw them to the bank of a small river where in the spring they could be floated down to Lurvey's Mills. For hauling the logs he had two yokes of oxen, the yoke of large eight-year-olds that I have already described, and another yoke of small, white-faced cattle. During the first winter the off ox of the smaller pair stepped into a hole between two roots, broke its leg and had to be killed. Afterwards Jotham worked the nigh ox in a crooked yoke in front of his larger oxen and went on with the job from December until March.
But, as all teamsters know, oxen that are worked hard all day in winter weather require corn meal or other equally nourishing provender in addition to hay. Now, Jotham had nothing for his team except hay of inferior quality. In consequence, as the winter advanced the cattle lost flesh and became very weak. By March they could scarcely walk with their loads, and at last there came a morning when Jotham could not get the older oxen even to rise to their feet. He was obliged to give up work with them, and finally came home after turning them loose to help themselves to what hay was left at the camp.
The old Squire did not often concern himself with the affairs of his neighbors, but he went up to the logging camp with Jotham; and when he saw the pitiful condition the cattle were in he remonstrated with him.
"This is too bad," he said. "You have worked these oxen nearly to death, and you haven't half fed them!"
"Wal, my oxen don't have to work any harder than I do!" Jotham replied angrily. "I ain't able to buy corn for them. They must work without it."
"You only lose by such a foolish course," the old Squire said to him.