Year: 1877

During the day or two which fol-
lowed his interview with Tappelmine,
Father Baguss was consumed with
conflicting emotions. He could not
deny that his offer to help Tappelmine
had taken an unpleasant load off of his
own heart; but ii was equally certain
that the contemplation of the possible
results of the arrangement gave him a
sense of possible results of oppression,
which differed from the first i'm quail
ty, but Of which the quantity was far
too great to be endured with comfort.
To find way of getting out of the
whole matter was suggestion which
came frequently to the heart of the old
man, and was not as rigidly excluded
as it would have been from that of the
reader; but fortunately for the honesty
| Of Father Baguss, his ingenuity was
of the lowest order conceivable, so he
did as thousands of his betters have
done when unabled, by any abandon
ment of self-respect, to avoid the in
evitable: he submitted, and groaned
frequently to the Lord. Sometimes
those efforts before the Unseen increas-
ed the old mans righteousness; at
other times, I, song come to his rescue
followed by a troop of its own kind;
but so uncertain were his moods that
Mrs. Baguss, who never before had
occasion to suppose that there was a
single nerve in her husbands body.
began to complain that she didn't
"believe IN this thing of lookin' out
for other folks, if ii makes you cranky
with your own


The old mans trouble increased on
the third day, for Tappelmine dropped
in AM hinted vagely that it was not
yet too late to plant winter wheat. The
old man went into Tappelmine's field
with his own team, and plowed; he
worked his horses longer hours than
he ever did on his own ground; lac
lent an extra horse to work with Tap
pelmine's own before a harrow; he
himself sowed the wheat, casting now
plentifuliy; n he thought of what
Tapnelmine might owe him by harry
thought of what might be his own
fate if the crop should be troubled with
rust or blight or rain or drought. And
all the while, as he followed his hor-
ses, the old man kept uttering short
petitions for Tappelmine and himself;
and all the while his soul was full of
unspoken prayers for heavy rains or
sudden cold, so that the work might
be stopped by the hand Of providence
himself. But no such fortune berell
the good old man: such an open fall
had not been known since the settle
ment of Barton; even the Indian sum
mer lasted SO long that the poet of the
Barton Register found opportunity
to publish" in three successive weekly
numbers, "odes" which could be read
in the weather which suggested them.
When heavy rain at last put an end
to field work, there were twenty
seven acres in wheat on the Tappel-
mine estate. Father Baguss ached III
soul and body, but the wheat-field
work was but the beginning of sorrow.
The Tappelminc larder was baroness
itself: there was not a porker in the
Tappelmine pen; there was not even
corn enough in the Tappelmine crib to
feed the family horse, let alone to send
to mill and be ground into the meal
which the Tappelmines fortunately
preferred to fine flour; Father Baguss
sold the necessities of life in small
quantities to his neighbor, with the
understanding that they were to be
paid by the labor ofTappelmines, who
was TO get out material for barrel
slaves and wheelwright's spokes on
the old mans woodland; but by the
time the wheat was planted, Tappel-
mine. who under the eye of Baguss,
did more work in month than he
had i'm the whole of the year which
precedeu, and who during the month
had been pretty effectually kept from
his accustomed stimulant, fell sick.
Then the cup of misery which Father
Baguss has put to his own lips was
full; as the old man, in his homely
way, explained to his own pastor, il
didn't run over, and that was just the
trouble; he had to drink it all. He
sought for sympathy among his
neighbors and acquaintances, but
without much success; the Barton
post master expressed the sentiment
of the township, when he said that"ne
one but thick k-headed blunderer like
Baguss would attempt to reform
dead-and-gone soaker like Tappel
] mine" Besides most Of the inhabt