“What a pretty place it is!” thought I, for the first time feeling something like a local interest in the spot, springing up in my heart. “How I wish those odious people would give us possession of the home which for some time has been our own.”
The log hut that we were approaching, and in which the old woman, R——, resided by herself—having quarrelled years ago with her son's wife—was of the smallest dimensions, only containing one room, which served the old dame for kitchen, and bed-room, and all. The open door, and a few glazed panes, supplied it with light and air; while a huge hearth, on which crackled two enormous logs—which are technically termed a front and a back stick—took up nearly half the domicile; and the old woman's bed, which was covered with an unexceptionally clean patched quilt, nearly the other half, leaving just room for a small home-made deal table, of the rudest workmanship, two basswood-bottomed chairs, stained red, one of which was a rocking-chair, appropiated solely to the old woman's use, and a spinning wheel. Amidst this muddle of things—for small as was the quantum of furniture, it was all crowded into such a tiny space that you had to squeeze your way through it in the best manner you could—we found the old woman, with a red cotton handkerchief tied over her grey locks, hood-fashion, shelling white bush-beans into a wooden bowl. Without rising from her seat, she pointed to the only remaining chair. “I guess, miss, you can sit there; and if the others can't stand, they can make a seat of my bed.”
The gentlemen assured her that they were not tired, and could dispense with seats. Mr. —— then went up to the old woman, and proffering his hand, asked after her health in his blandest manner.
“I'm none the better for seeing you, or the like of you,” was the ungracious reply. “You have cheated my poor boy out of his good farm; and I hope it may prove a bad bargain to you and yours.”
“Mrs. R——,” returned the land speculator, nothing ruffled by her unceremonious greeting, “I could not help your son giving way to drink, and getting into my debt. If people will be so imprudent, they cannot be so stupid as to imagine that others can suffer for their folly.”
“Suffer!” repeated the old woman, flashing her small, keen black eyes upon him with a glance of withering scorn. “You suffer! I wonder what the widows and orphans you have cheated would say to that? My son was a poor, weak, silly fool, to be sucked in by the like of you. For a debt of eight hundred dollars—the goods never cost you four hundred—you take from us our good farm; and these, I s'pose,” pointing to my husband and me, “are the folk you sold it to. Pray, miss,” turning quickly to me, “what might your man give for the place?”
“Three hundred pounds in cash.”
“Poor sufferer!” again sneered the hag. “Four hundred dollars is a very small profit in as many weeks. Well, I guess, you beat the Yankees hollow. And pray, what brought you here to-day, scenting about you like a carrion-crow? We have no more land for you to seize from us.”
Moodie now stepped forward, and briefly explained our situation, offering the old woman anything in reason to give up the cottage and reside with her son until he removed from the premises; which, he added, must be in a very short time.
The old dame regarded him with a sarcastic smile. “I guess, Joe will take his own time. The house is not built which is to receive him; and he is not a man to turn his back upon a warm hearth to camp in the wilderness. You were green when you bought a farm of that man, without getting along with it the right of possession.”