Vandemark's Folly

by Herbert Quick

I think these days must have been anxious ones for Rucker, greedy as he was for my little fortune, ignorant as he was of the depth of the ignorance of the silent stupid boy with whom he was dealing--and a boy, too, who had made that one remark about his way of living and traveling that seemed to show a knowledge of just what he was doing, and had done. I could see after that, that he thought me much sharper than I was. Lawyer Jackway haunted the hotel, and was spending more money--Rucker's money, I know. He had bought a new overcoat, and was drinking a good deal more than was good for him; but he wormed out of me something about my desire for a farm, and after having had a chance to see Rucker he began talking of a compromise.

"The old swindler," said he, "has all the evidence in his own hands; and he and that red-headed spiritual partner of his will swear to anything. As your legal adviser," said he, "and the legal adviser of your sainted mother, I'd advise you to take anything he is willing to give--within bounds, of course, within bounds."

So the next time Rucker sidled into the tavern, and began beslavering me about the way the money left by my mother was being eaten up by expenses and debts, I blurted out: "Well, what will you give me to clear out and let you and your red-headed woodpecker alone?"

"Now," said he, "you are talking sensibly--sensibly. There is a little farm-out near Blue Mounds that I could, by a hard struggle, let you have; but it would be more than your share--more than your share."

This was forty acres, and would have a mortgage on it. I waited a day or so, and told him I wouldn't take it. What I was afraid of was the mortgage; but I didn't give my reasons. Then he came back with a vacant lot in Madison, and then three vacant lots, which I went and looked at, and found in a swamp. Then I told him I wanted money or farm land; and he offered me a lead mine near Mineral Point. All the time he was getting more and more worried and excited; he used to tremble when he talked to me; and as the winter wore away, and the season drew nearer when he wanted to go on his travels, or deal with the properties in which I had found out by this time he was speculating with my mother's money, just as everybody was speculating then, in mines, town sites, farm lands, railway stocks and such things, he was on tenter-hooks, I could see that, to get rid of me, whom he thought he had given the slip forever. Finally he came to me one morning, just as a warm February wind had begun to thaw the snow, and said, beaming as if he had found a gold mine for me: "Jacob, I've got just what you want--a splendid farm in Iowa."

And he laid on the table the deed to my farm in Vandemark Township, a section of land in one solid block a mile square. "Of course," said he, "I can't let you have all of it--'but let us say eighty acres, or even I might clean up a quarter-section, here along the east side,"--and he pointed to a plat of it pinned fast to the deed.

"The whole piece," said I, "is worth eight hundred dollars, and not a cent more--if it's all good land. That ain't enough."

"All good land!" said he--and I could see he was surprised at the fact that I knew Iowa land was selling at a dollar and a quarter an acre. "Why, there ain't anything but good land there. You can put a plow in one corner of that section, and plow every foot of it without taking the share out of the ground."

"All or nothing," said I, "and more."

Next day he came back and said he would let me have the whole section; but that it would break him. He wanted to be fair with me--more than fair. People had set me against him, he said, looking at Jackway who was drinking at the bar; but nobody could say that he was a man who would not deal fairly with an ignorant boy.