The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-11-15

MNA" of THE thrifty lit
> tie city of Mar
A ion, Ohio. 1t is
always business trip, but at the Same
time my chief pleasure of twelve
month. George and | were seatmates
in the log schoolhouse. Now he raises
blooded horses for the city market and
] buy them. He is strictly honest and
not q bit sporty, and his standing re-
fusal of his stock in my favor has
thrown many hundreds of dollars my
way. But George can afford it. He is
worth half million My trip this year
landed me at his hospitable door on the
evening of Tuesday, the 18th. That
evening we sat on the broad south
porch of his handsome house, looking
across forty-aere meadow that sloped
gently TO the adjoining grove. Across
this meadow, along a private roadway
connecting the river road on the west
with a pasture on the east, several
farm hands were leading the $50, 900
worth Of stock / had come to claim.
They looked nice, of course, but George
ard had fully discussed them by mail.
and he never was fond of stable or pad
dock talk IN a leisure hour.
you asked me at supper how came
to give up graduating, and why didn't
study law" he observed. You see
that furry white object moving along
the river road? Well, that covers the
IMAM who wrought the change. That's
old Parson Baker. Sophia Barnett's
pastor, emeritus, of Three Locust
Methodist Episcopal church. He's
mothers beneficiary and pensioner,
End he'll be mine if mother goes before
he does. He came into this country
sixty years ago, as an exhorter, and he
has ridden these roads more or less
steadily ever since. He whaled father
at the raising of bis first log church for
try ing to make him take drink of
whisky, and they were the thickest
kind of chums until father died. Fa-
Their didn't marry until he was forty,
and am tho only child. By the time
] arrived father had accumulated what
in those days was a fabulous fortune,
three hundred thousand dollars, and he
made it four hundred thousand dollars
before / was of age. He wanted to
mat1o me horse breeder. but | wanted
law, and there we hitched About a
year before / should have finished at
college, he wrote me a brief letter
the only one l ever had from him-con-
Veying the information that if ! knew
what was good for me l would be mar
ried before l was twenty-o one. That
letter bothered me great deal, be-
cause father was no bully, If he did
try to have a little fun with the
preacher, and l couldn't quite see the
point between matrimony and stock
raising. The letter contained not
word about education or tho law. Any
NOW my birthday and commencement
day occurred the same week, and l
thought would risk the undesirable
consequences of waiting, whatever
they were
Two days before commencement
father was stricken with apoplexy. He
was unconscious when / got to the
farm, and lived only few hours. His
last few months had been marked by
total inoapacity for business and moth
er was nearly worn out with looking
after things We buried him on the
day l was to have graduated, and two
days befors my twenty-first birthday.
Old Pap Baker was away down on the
other end of the circuit, and mother or
dered that . simple burial service
should be said by q local exhorter of
our Deighborhood, leaving tho funeral
sermon to DO preached by Pappy Baker
on his next appointment, as was often
done IN those days, for there was not
another Methodist circuit rider within
forty miles that we knew of.
That afternoon mother sent me to
town after fathers lawyer, who was
also custodian of the will, of the con-
tents Of which ! knew nothing, and
mother scarcely more. The lawyer
could not come out until the afternoon
of the next day, which was the eve of
my twenty-tirst birthday. When the
will was opened it almost knocked me |
cut 1t left everything to mother, in
trust for me on the sole condition that |
/ was to be married within twenty |
four hours after my graduation. If |
did not graduate / was to be married |
by twelve o'clock noon on the day l |
became twenty-one years old. More
over, II Oh arson bdkeT was allVe ne /
was to do the job. In the event of my |
failure, for any cause, to meet these |
condition / was to have one thousand |
dollars, and the rest, after mothers |
death, was to go to fathers three |
nephews, who were plodding farmers |
in an adjacent county.
Now here was nice layout. / /
wasn't incIssoiubly attached to the
idea Of a legal career, but neither was
i engaged, and the girl whom | had
thought of IN this connection was the
daughter of widow living down the
road about two miles. whose face / had
washed with snow and no had spelled
me down in district school. both times
innumerable. / had not seen her for a
year and half until she came to the
funeral, but, as my good luck had it,
she was then in the house. The lawyer |.
assured me that the viii was perfectly
valid. as my father had been notorious
ly too smart for any other man in the
county as bargain driver. and 10 jury
could be found to declare him of I'M
sound mind
"Parson Baker lived ia little village