He might have owned a large plantation had he wished to own one, for a long life of persistent, intelligent work had left him with a comfortable fortune in his old age; but he preferred the farm on which he lived contentedly and raised an abundance to meet his modest wants.
He went down to the orchard, where a couple of men were busying themselves in setting out a line of young fruit-trees.
“Tut, tut, tut!” They were doing it all wrong; the line was not straight; the holes were not deep. It was strange that he had to come down there and discover such things with his old eyes!
He poked his head into the kitchen to complain to Prudence about the ducks that she had not seasoned properly the day before, and to hope that the accident would never occur again.
He tramped over to where a carpenter was working on a gate; securing it—as he meant to secure all the gates upon his place—with great patent clamps and ingenious hinges, intended to baffle utterly the designs of the evil-disposed persons who had lately been tampering with them. For there had been a malicious spirit abroad, who played tricks, it seemed, for pure wantonness upon the farmers and planters, and caused them infinite annoyance.
As Dr. John-Luis contemplated the carpenter at work, and remembered how his gates had recently all been lifted from their hinges one night and left lying upon the ground, the provoking nature of the offense dawned upon him as it had not done before. He turned swiftly, prompted by a sudden determination, and re-entered the house.
Then he proceeded to write out in immense black characters a half-dozen placards. It was an offer of twenty-five dollars’ reward for the capture of the person guilty of the malicious offence already described. These placards were sent abroad with the same eager haste that had conceived and executed them.
After a day or two, Doctor John-Luis’ ill humor had resolved itself into a pensive melancholy.
“Marsh,” he said, “you know, after all, it’s rather dreary to be living alone as I do, without any companion—of my own color, you understand.”
“I knows dat, sah. It sho’ am lonesome,” replied the sympathetic Marshall.