The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-12-19

Tut, tut, mlC00ri / mJuu "u0A y0
were a wee BARN yourself; and who
says ye're not a comedy body moor"
said the sturdy old Stotchman.
Mrs. Mallory delighted witha compli-
pliment from her husband, went about
her work remembering the days Of her
girlhood in far away Scotland, when
handsome Andy Mallory, in his Sun
days best came to court herself, Mar
rian Harvey.
That Annie Harvey should have
other views than her aunt concerning
herself is not strange. She was lmpa
tient for the time to come when she
could assume the long dresses and the
accompanying airs OF ripper years, and
already she had faint dreams of the
delights of beaus, parties. dancing, and
ina browning delight, flirting.
Little Annie Harvey had become
Miss Harvey. she was exceedingly
pretty, and she knew it. She also
knew she was heiress to the lands and
money of her prudent though odd
father, and she had been told that the
money had been doubled and quad
rupled in the careful hands of uncle
Mallory.
But another thing she had not been
told, that would have been pleasanter
to her ears than all this. she certainly
had lovers, but they were such milk
and-water fellows, that she could not
for the life of her uncIe's oxen, great,
harmless, good natured animals-good
enough, but so dull.
Among the friends of Peter Harvey
was Robert Wallace, an honest hard
working man, but singularly unfor-
tunate. If a COW became choked eat
ing turnips, it was his COW; if a boy
went to sleep in meeting, and was
marched out in disgrace, or warned
from the pulpit it was sure to be his
boy. When the minister's bees swarn4ed
on Sunday and refused to go into the
nice new hive, out of a hundred heads
present they selected his bend, and
fought sharply for a resting place
there.
His wife nailed a horseshoe over the
door, and he drove his oxen and'horses
with a witch hazel rod, but still the
troubles came. Finally old Kizzie
Brock threw salt in his we'll and
from that day forward his troubles
ceased.
Within an hour after old Kizzie had
settled the witches in the well, Peter
Harvey came riding down the lane
singing his ~favorite song, Coming
through the Rye" a sign he was in an
excellent good humor.
After stopping to have chat, and
taking a drink of "Glenlivat" with a
drop of water from the we'll, he pro
posed to Robert Wallace to sell a few
animals and other things he could not
take with him and emigrate to Illinois
and drawing out his well-flled pocket
book, he counted him four hundred
dollars for the journey.
Great was the joy of the Wallaces at
this unexpected act of friendship.
But" said Peter Harvey, when he
had written out a note for the money,
made payable when convenient, ''you
must give me security, and I'll just
take a mortgage on this colt. And he
cIapped his hand on the head of one of
the half dozen lads who called Robert
Wallace father.
With true Scotch humor the mort
gage was executed and recorded, and
Robert Wallace with his household
started for distant Illinois. Like an
emigrant to a new country, he had his
troubles, but in the end prospered. He
owned broad acres, and cattle and
horses in abundance; and after eight
years on the prairie, he said to his
wife:
"When the crops are secured, we
will go back-to old Ryegate, and take
a look once more at the green hillockf
of Vermont"
"And mind you cancel that mort
gage, and make me a free man." said
John Wallace, now a young lawyer in
Peoria.