“It is a fact,” said the old man. “He told me that it would keep me in spending money as long as I lived, and now it has been gone for several years. You had a hundred dollars, and it has lasted until now. You go out to the barn and in about half an hour I will be out there.”
Like one in a dream Nat made his way to the tumble-down building that afforded the cattle a place of refuge in stormy weather, and looked around for something to do while he awaited Mr. Nickerson’s return. If we were to say that he was surprised we would not have expressed it. Was the old man made of money? It certainly looked that way, for when a hundred dollars was gone he simply said “he had expected it” and went out to find more. In a few minutes he returned and placed another package of bills in Nat’s pocket.
“Do you know you told a lie to Jonas every time he asked you about this money?” said Nat.
“No, I did not,” said Mr. Nickerson, earnestly. “I told him that I did not have any more money for him; and I didn’t have, either. I have not got a cent about me.”
Nat was not old enough to remember the form of oath administered by the United States government to all its employees—“do you solemnly promise without any mental reservation”—for if he had been he would have seen how Mr. Nickerson got around it. Jonas did not administer this form of oath, Mr. Nickerson had a “mental reservation” that he had some money hidden but he did not say anything about it. He supposed that he was living up to the truth.
“I did not have a cent,” repeated the old “He could have searched me all over and not found any. When he asked me if I had man. any more concealed somewhere in the bushes, I found some way to avoid it. It is all right. I have not lied to him.”
With a hundred extra dollars in his pocket Nat thought he was able to buy himself a pair of shoes when the weather became cold. He bought them and as we have seen they were taken away from him and given to Caleb, because Caleb went to church and Nat did not. He had to wait a long time before Jonas bought him some foot-wearing apparel out of some of Mr. Nickerson’s money, and then he invested in them because he was fearful that his neighbors would have something to say about the boy’s condition, going about in all that sloppy weather with nothing to wear on his bare feet. This brings us down to the time when our story begins, when Jonas got into his wagon and drove toward town and Nat went to the potato patch to finish picking and digging and Caleb to the barn to complete his task of shelling corn.
We left Mr. Nickerson sitting in company with Jonas’s wife, bemoaning his loss of tobacco and trembling for fear of something he had said in regard to what he would do with his money in case he were done with it.
“I wish I had some money so that I could give you some of it when I am gone,” whined the old man. “For I shall not last much longer.”
“Oh, yes you will,” returned Mrs. Keeler. “You will last many years yet. There is Mr. Bolton who is almost a hundred years old.”