The Dermott news., 1919-03-13
CHAPTER V.
The Great Stranger


 Some strangers came along the road those days-hunters. peddlerS and the like-and their coming filled me with joy which mostly went away with them. I regret to say. None of these however, appealed to my imagination as did old Kate But there was one stranger greater than she-grcater indeed. than any other who came into Rattleroad. He eatHe rarely and would not be long detained. How curiously we looked at him. knowing his fame and power. This great stranger was Money.
 l shall never forget the day that my uncle showed me n dollar hlll and q little shiny. gold com and three pieces of silver. nor can I forget how carefully he watched them while they lay in my hands and presently put them back into his wallet. That was long before the time of which l am writing. l remember hearing him say. one day of that year. when l asked him to take us to the Caravan of Wild Bcusts which Was coming to the village:
 I'm sorry, but It's been n hundred Sundays since l had dollar in my wallet for more than ten minutes
 1 have hls old account book for the years of 1s37 and 1888. Here are some of the entries:
 Balanced accounts with I. Doro- thy and gave him my note for S2.15 to be paid in salts January l. lSiS. Sold ten bushels of wheat to l.. Miner at eO cents. to be paid In goods.
 'Sold two sheep 10 Flayius Curtis and took his note for s6. payable in boots on or before March the first"
 Only one entry in more than a hundred mention money and this was the sum of eleven cents received in balance from neighhor.
 So 1t will be seen that a spirit ot mutual accommodation served to help us over the rough going. Mir. Grlmshaw, however. demanded hIS pHy in cash and that I find was main ly the habit of the money-lenders.
 Me were poor but our poverty was not like that of these days in which am writing. It was proud and cleanly and well-fed. Our fathers had seen heroic service in the wars and We knew 1t.
 l was twelve years old when I be- gun to be the reader for our little family. Aunt Deel had long com plained that she couldn't keep up with her knitting and read SD much. We had not seen Mir. Wright for nearly two years, but he had sent us the novels Of Sir Walter Scott and had led them heart deep Into the creed battles of Old Mortality.
 Then came the evil days of 1887, when the story of our lives began to quicken its pace and excite our inter- est in its coming chapters. It gave us enough to think of. God knows
 Wild speculations In land and the American paper-money system had brought us into rough going. The banks of the city of New York had suspended payment of their notes They could no longer meet their en- agreements As usual. the burden fell heaviest on the poor. IL was hard to get money even for black salts.
 Uncle Peabody had been silent and depressed for q month or more. He had signed note for Rodney Barnes, cousin. long before and was afraid that he would have to pay it. l didn't know what note was and I remem- Der that one night, when lay think ing about it, decided that II must he something in the nature of horse colic. My uncle told me that note was trouble which attacked the brain instead of the stomach.
 One autumn day in Canton Uncle Peabody traded three sheep and twen- ty bushels of wheat for cook stove and brought it home in the big wagon. Rodney Barnes came with him to help set up the stove. He was big giant of man with the longest nose in the township. have often wondered how any one would solve the problem of kissing Mir. Barnes in the immediate region of his nose. the same being in the nature of a defense.
 That evening l was chiefly inter ested in the stove. What a joy 1t was to me with Its damper and grid