American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-03-25
THE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.
BY REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

1arrytOWn, ike every Otner GennSyl-
vania village, had its great man and its
town fool. People boosted of the magni-
tude of the one and measured themselves |
by the littleness of the other. In any |
case they were complacent. Let what |
might come, Tarrytown was always |
complacent. The great man was Judge |
Samuel Rice. He was never on the
bench, but every body called him Judge. |
The little man was Johnny Twit; bap-
tized John, no doubt, but every body |
called him Johnny. Judge Samuel
stood six feet two in his stockings-gray
yarn stockings. '.None of yer fancy
silk for me, though I've got two hun
dred thousand dollars to pay for 'em, if
like" he used to say, slapping his
breaches pockets. His head and Shout
ders were broad and heavy as those of
his own oxen, his hair and beard long
and snow-white, his voice sonorous,
with a cruel creak in it like the crack of
a whip You could not find better
figure-head for town-meeting, or for
a public dinner, or for a church. For
forty years he presided in all and drove
the Tarrytownists here and there as he
pleased. II they rebelled, he slapped
his breaches pockets and beloved and
gored and trampled them down, OK
like. He was known all through the
State as the public-spirited Judge Rice.
He was regarded as the foundation of
Tarrytown, its one under-pinning.
When he was taken away, the whole
thing would tumble down. All this
without the gift of one of his dollars to
any public enterprise. He paid his
taxes and church dues; but not penny
over. He paid every body to an exact
fraction; and on the ground of the
money he kept in his breeches pocket
he bullied all poorer men. "Look at
mel" he used to roar at a town meet
ing. az began without cent. and
could buy out Tarrytown! Do I have
Brussels carpets on my floorsP They're
bare and my da 'arters scrub 'em. Do
hang fal-lal picters on my wall? 1 leave
picters and pianos and china jimcracks
to some men 1 could name, whose
pockets are as lean as their wits. You
know what they've got in bank, and you
know what I've got. There's my argy-
ment.'
While his own table was niggardly
and his floors bare, he was always will
ing to squander unlimited money on his
son, who lived in Ohio. Once year he
went to Columbus, to see tom" in the
Senate; would wait all day in the gallery
to hear him vote, or sit in their gorgeous
drawing-room at night to watch Toms
wife entertain her guests. He was apt
to choose somebody to whom to confide
his delight, and would nudge him and
chuckle as they sat apart on the sofa:
"She's high-fyer-Tom's wife--I tell
you! Knows how to make the money
GO! 1t all comes from me. 1 armed
every dollar of it. Began, sir, breakin'
stones for the pike. When think how
1 used to work in the blazin' sun in the
buff to my waist, and look at Toms
wife and her cloes, it shows, sir, how
honesty and virtue pays in this coun-
try"
One day the Judge died, and there
was very hurly-burly of lamentation.
The papers and Toms wife went into
mourning. The town. house was draped
with black muslin. Sermons were
preached, muffied drums beat, unend-
ing funeral parades went up and down.
Remembering how he had fought for
the dogmas of his church, how he had
harried the village with his loud-mouth-
ed merit for nigh half a century, it really
did seem as if, in the words of the editor
of the Standard, 'sVirtue 'for moment
babe the world farwell.'" At the end
of month Tom Rice withdrew his
fathers money from the bank. When
it was gone the gap suddenly healed
over which the Judge had left, and peo-
pie began to wonder if that was all that
there had been of him. Was it the
5000, 900 in his breeches pocket that had
ruled them SO long? Was the public
spirit and the honesty and blatant vir-
tue mere frothy bubble, and the money
the realityP
At the end of the year nobody ever
spoke of the Judge but Johnny Twit.
To Johnny he was still a modern Cato,
Franklin, smaller Washington. Twit
had his photograph hanging up in his
Office, with an autograph letter below.
GA good and great man." he would
say, shaking his little bald head. 81
am proud to have known him." John
ny, people said, was more "cracked"
than ever.
Tarrytown was settled by thrifty,
hard, Scotch-Irish stock. Not the kind
of folk to have much patience with
man who had lived to be fifty-four
and, had not laid away dollar; could
barely manage, indeed, to keep body
and soul together. 1t was the intent of
charity in them to pass over Johnny's
shortcomings on the ground of crack
ed brain. "The fellow" they would
tell you, chad good birth Ga matter of
weight in Tarrytewn) and good educa-
ton. He studied law. Why, Johnny
could give you the points of a case or
precedents as well as any man in larry
town. But he'd take to chasing the SUBJ
ject through the books like hound af-
ter hare, and there was an end of all
practical good of him for month. Or,
if you wanted deed, he'd go to ferret
ing out the title back to the tomahawk
claims, and to hunting up the history
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