Nearly everybody in the surrounding country had contributed to the collection at one time or another, and it was being added to constantly.
There were many fine specimens of tomahawk heads, stone axes, and other implements, that had been fashioned with admirable skill. The old man guarded his hoarded treasures with a miser’s solicitude, for they were the solace of his lonely life. He had refused large offers for the collection as a whole, and never could be induced to part with single specimens, except under pressure of immediate necessity.
There are few mental comforts comparable with those of absorbing hobbies. They temper the raw winds and asperities of existence to a wonderful degree, and offer a welcome balm of heart interest to lives weary of continued conflict for mythical goals. We may smile at them in others, but we realize their deep significance when they are our own.
Poor old Shakes was but another example of one made happy by a harmless fad, the joys of which might well be coveted by those whose millions have brought only fear and sorrow. After it is all over the pursuit of one phantom has been as gratifying as the quest of another, for they both end in darkness.
Dick Shakes
After sitting around for awhile, and listening to the enlivened conversation, and the gossip of the neighborhood, that now circulated freely, the old man bought a package of tobacco in the store, for which he said he had “been stung ten cents,” and left us, with the overcoat, from which the cargo had been discharged, hung lightly over his arm.
The assemblage gradually dispersed. Wirrick, Hyatt, and the jaundiced Viking went down to the river bank and departed in their “push boats.” Doc Dust invited Pop Wilkins to ride with him, and they betook themselves into the shadows. Tipton Posey relighted his pipe and Bill Stiles resumed the story of the horse trade.
VI
MUSKRAT HYATT’S REDEMPTION
Except from a picturesque standpoint, “Rat” Hyatt was not an ornament to the river country. Its meager and widely scattered social life, and its average of morality, were more or less affected by his shortcomings. In many communities he would be considered an undesirable citizen. He was looked upon as a good natured “bad egg,” and as one industrious in the ways of sin by his associates at Tipton Posey’s store, but the habitues of that time honored loafing place always welcomed him, for he possessed a reminiscent talent and a peculiar kind of dry wit and repartee that helped to enliven the sleepy days.