"Come, daddy L.," spoke up a free and easy specimen of Young America, "tell us about that great law-suit of yours. I never heard all the particulars."
"Wal, young man," returned L. solemnly, "I'll tell you all about it, hopin' it'll be a warnin' to you never to have nothin' to do with the law.
"About fifteen, mebbe sixteen year ago, afore you'd got through hollerin arter your mammy, I used to keep considerable of a lot of sheep, and one year I bought a ram that I'd taken a fancy to jest because he was sech an all-fired big feller, and had sech thunderin' curly horns. I got him pretty cheap, and arter I'd had him awhile, I found out the reason on't. He was the darndest buttin', jumpin' feller that ever I see. There couldn't a calf nor a colt nor nothin' about his size come into the pastur where he was, but what he'd be arter it and knock it into a cocked hat if he could git a lick at it. Fact, he pretty much killed two or three likely calves that I had, but the colts was mostly too lively for him. He couldn't often hit 'em.
"Wal, I kinder hated to kill the feller, he was such a buster, so I shet him up in a little three-cornered lot so's to have him out of the way till the calves was killed off or had got bigger. But what did the rascal du but go to buttin' agin the stone wall that kep him out of neighbor Bliss's patch o' rye; and afore he'd bin there tew days, he knocked a hole in't and got into the rye. It was a kinder out of the way place where the lot was, so he had a chance to stay there all night, and 'praps a little longer. Anyhow, when Bliss found it out, he was hoppin' mad.
"He's rether techy any time, but he'd bin a braggin' on this ere field o'rye, how he was goin' to beat the hull town on it, and to have that old ram a nibblin' and trottin' threw it, and a spilin on't, sot his dander up. I was willin' to a' paid him suthin' for damages, but his charges was tew hot for me. Told him I'd see him darned afore I'd be imposed upon in that shape. Wal, he said he'd sue me, and sure enuff he did.
"We kept a lawin' on it considerable of a spell. Fust the court gin him his damages; then I 'pealed, and the case kept a gettin' put over somehow or other, till the 'all wool suit,' as the lawyers got to callin' it, come to be a standin' joke, and I was heartily sick on't. Wal, finally we contrived to settle it, and arter payin' Bliss about what he fust asked, I had my costs to see tu, and I went to Squire Sharp, my lawyer, to see what he was a goin' to charge me for his sarvices, as he called it. He was jest as smilin' and clever as a baskit o' chips.
"'Take a seat, Mr. L.' says he, 'I'll find your little account in a minit. Pleasant mornin', sir, good growin' weather.'
"Wal, I set down and found out purty soon that I'd got 'bout fifty dollars to pay for his sarvices,—blame 'em!
'Now,' says I, 'Squire, that air's a good deal o' money for a man like me tu pay, and I don't blieve I can raise it all tu wonst. P'raps you'd take part out in produce, jest ter 'commodate.'
"'Oh, yes,' says he, 'Mr. L., I'll take anything you've a mind to bring.'