An odd sort of an incident happened yesterday morning. None of the scratch players was about, so I accepted an invitation to play a round with LaHume and Miss Lawrence. She is a very pretty girl, though in my opinion she is not to be compared with Miss Harding. LaHume is devoted to her, as much as he can be devoted to any one or anything, and there have been rumours now and then that they were engaged or about to be engaged, but since it has always been possible to trace these reports back to LaHume I have had my doubts of their accuracy. Miss Olive Lawrence has inherited a large fortune, and is the master of it and of herself.
LaHume has been a persistent fortune hunter, and if patience be a virtue he deserves to win. He had a tiff yesterday with Miss Lawrence, and it came about curiously enough.
The Bishop farm adjoins the club grounds on the east, and everyone for miles about knows Bishop. He has little use for anything but work and money, and he always has difficulty in keeping farm labourers, or "hired men," as he terms them.
About a month ago he employed a fellow named Wallace, who admitted that he did not know much about farming, but who said he was strong and healthy and was willing to do the best he could. It was in the haying season and Bishop was short of men, so he gave this chap a chance.
I met Bishop one day shortly after he put Wallace to work, and he told me something about him.
"He's strong an' willin' enough," said Bishop, as we stood talking over the fence, "but he surely is the blamedest, funniest hired man I ever had, an' I've had some that'd make a man quit the church. What do you think he wants?"
I assured him that I could not imagine.
"Soap in his room, and cake soap at that!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't given it to him he'd a quit, so I had to give it to him. He takes a bath every morning, an' shaves. That's what he does! Gets up about four o'clock and goes down to the old swimming hole in the crick, paddles around a while, an' then comes back to the house an' shaves, an' then goes out an' milks an' cleans out the stables. Never saw a man wash his hands so much in my life, but accordin' to his lights he's a mighty good worker. He eats a lot, but then all hired men eats a lot. An' he reads! Brought a big trunk with him, an' in it was a lot of books in French, Dutch or some other language that no white man can understand. And fight! You know Big Dave Cole, that's been with me for years?"
I assured him that I should never forget "Big Dave" Cole. I have known him ever since he went to work for Bishop, and that was when I was a boy. From that day he has been the terror of the neighbourhood, and I have sometimes thought that even Bishop stood in fear of him.
"Wal," he said slowly and impressively, biting the end from a plug of tobacco, "this here Wallace licked the life plumb out of Big Dave no more than yesterday, an' Big Dave is that disgusted he has packed up and quit me."