Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 1, March, 1906

by Various

So Sunday after Sunday he drove to his “Farm”, week by week he carried out his neighbors and his friends. He planted trees and he dug a well. He worked and planned and planted and dreamed out on his “patch” beyond the great town ever reaching farther and farther toward the cherished spot.

Well, the dreams and plans of man all go for naught in the presence of the blind forces that control the world, and one day Henry was startled by the cry of fire. In the twinkling of an eye his warehouse was in flames and all of his tobacco at once turned into smoke, without so much as the aid of a single pipe. When Henry awoke from his stupor, all Chicago was a smoldering heap of ashes, and he was a ruined man. The only thing that escaped the flames was the little green patch so far away on the prairies that even the fire scorned to search it out.

Henry no longer had the strength and energy of twenty years before, but he did the best he could. He built a little cigar store in place of the great warehouse that was once his pride. He still went back and forth on Sundays to his patch of ground, and now he dreamed only of a little house out there on the farm where he might keep a cow and some chickens, and return to the simple life that his childhood years had known. But there was one man who found his patch, and this was the tax gatherer. No land was ever yet too far away for him. Year by year, the assessor put a value on his farm, and the little cigar store could not yield the revenue to pay. Of course, he never dreamed of selling the land to some one else; no one does. Deep in the soul of man is planted the old inborn desire to own a portion of the earth.

When Henry had no money to pay the tax, some of the “patch” was sold. With never failing regularity the assessment came, and with almost equal regularity a piece of the “patch” was sold to a buyer of tax-titles. Finally, one Sunday in the early spring, Henry drove down to his little farm. It was the first visit since the fall. Here and there a swale filled with the rain of early spring stood in his path. Now and then the black mud of the rich prairie held his buggy fast, but finally, after much time and trouble, he reached the farm, and there, plain before his eyes, was a high, tight board fence which barred him out. His first impulse was to go back and get a gang of men to tear down the fence; his next was to hire a lawyer. After some search he found a lawyer that he thought would do. The lawyer knew more about the case when it was done than when he started bravely in. Of course, Henry had no money, else the taxes would have been paid, so the lawyer took the case on shares and agreed to pay the costs, and then they started in to get the “patch.”

No one familiar with the courts would expect me to tell the history of this case. It is familiar to even the common lawyer who reads the State reports. It was about the year 1880 that Henry’s lawyer filed the first papers in the court. The lawyer was young and full of hope—full of the hope that is the heritage of all the young; the hope that gives courage to live and fight and endure in the vain belief that it all counts for something; the hope that keeps alive while years and adversity, with their deadening, staggering blows, teach that all strivings are equally vain. But Henry’s lawyer was young. He had the money to commence the suit and he thought that this would be enough. Both Henry and his lawyer could see the fence fall down and the farm platted and sold and their money in the bank, while Henry’s life was in the early autumn and the lawyer’s in the first green of summer time. But the days and weeks and months and years went by.

At first they lost the case, but they were not cast down. There were other courts that were better because they were higher up, and besides all this, the law provided that in a contest for real estate each side had the right to try his case twice, and the right to go each time to the highest court of the State. Had Henry’s life been at stake he could have had but a single chance and no right to go to a higher court, unless the judges graciously granted him permission, and then only on the showing that he was innocent of the crime. But land is one thing and life is another. And this is quite right, for the amount of land upon the earth is fixed, while there is no limit to human life.

Well, in a year or two the Supreme Court reversed the case, and then Henry and his lawyer had another chance. In the meantime two more years were passed in waiting and the case came on again. This time Henry won. It was the turn of the other side to find a higher court. But the Supreme Court found a flaw and sent it back to be tried again. Two or three more years were spent in waiting before the case was reached. At last it came again. Henry had grown old and white and feeble; his clothes, too, were shabby and unkempt. His little cigar store had dwindled until only his old comrades came to loaf and talk of the grand old days “before the fire.” Henry never doubted that he would win. Through it all he had held the same faith in final victory that he had ever cherished about the future of his “patch.” He had lived to see cable cars run past his land, to see crosstown electric cars on each side of the little farm, and to see the elevated road stretching slowly down in anticipation of the sub-division that would one day come.

Henry took the stand and told the story of his “patch,” of his early years when he drove out on the raw prairie and fixed the stakes; of his Sunday pilgrimages with his many friends; of his well, and grove and green hedge; of the high board fence that he found on the spring day so long ago. He looked like a patriarch as he sat bent over in the witness chair, and his voice and story was that of some long-forgotten day.

The jury could not resist the old man’s case and again he won. Once more the other side took it to the higher court, but found no relief. Still, under the rules of the law, they had the right to one more trial, because a piece of real estate was involved. So, of course, they took the last chance that the wisdom of the law held out to them.

In the meantime, Henry’s lawyer had spent $5,000 and waited twelve long years. He was no longer young, and most of the illusions and dreams of early life had passed away. He was fighting now from habit, and because he had learned that there was really not much else in life. He knew that one fights for the sake of fighting, not for the hope of any reward that falls to the victorious cause. Two years more dragged on. Henry, of course, grew older and more shabby year by year; then, too, disease had come with age; poverty and age and disease often travel hand in hand. This is when poverty comes in the latter part of life. When it comes in youth the lucky victim misses age. Henry had an iron will, and then he had a life’s ambition which seemed to defy years and poverty and disease. But time is the only warrior that never knows defeat, and it was plain that age and sickness were to triumph even here.