“What can we do?”
“Mr. Ross says he may agree to receive payment by installments from my pension.”
“He shan’t get a cent of your pension, mother!” said Andy, indignantly.
“Or else,” continued the widow, “he may levy on our furniture.”
“Did Mr. Ross say that?” asked Andy.
“Yes.”
“I begin to think,” thought Andy, “that Mr. Ross himself is interested in this matter. In spite of what he says, I believe he means to punish us for what passed between Herbert and myself.”
If this was the case, Andy felt that matters were getting serious. All the more diligently he hunted for the lost receipt, leaving not a nook or cranny of the little cottage unexplored, but his search was in vain. The receipt could not be found.
“Mother,” said he, as he took the candle to go to bed, “there’s only one thing left to do. To-morrow is Saturday, and I shan’t need to go to school. I’ll call on Mr. Starr, and see if I can’t shame him into giving up his claim on us.”
“There’s no hope of that,” said Mrs. Gordon. “You don’t know the man.”
“Yes, I do! I know he is a mean skinflint, but I can’t do any worse than fail. I will try it.”
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. STARR’S INVOLUNTARY RIDE
The farmhouse of Mr. Joshua Starr was situated about a mile from the village. It was a dilapidated old building, standing very much in need of paint and repairs, but the owner felt too poor to provide either.
Mr. Starr had never married. From early manhood to the age of sixty-nine he had lived in the same old house, using the same furniture, part of the time cooking for himself.
At one time he employed a young girl of fourteen, whom he had taken from the poorhouse to do his household work. She was not an accomplished cook, but that was unnecessary, for Mr. Starr had never desired a liberal table. She could cook well enough to suit him, but he finally dismissed her for two reasons. First, he begrudged paying her seventy-five cents a week, which he had agreed with the selectmen to do, in order to give the girl the means of supplying herself with decent clothes; and, secondly, he was appalled by her appetite, which, though no greater than might be expected of a growing girl, seemed to him enormous.
At the time of which we speak, Mr. Starr was living alone. He had to employ some help outside, but in the house he took care of himself.
It was certainly a miserable way of living for a man who, besides his farm, had accumulated, by dint of meanness, not far from ten thousand dollars, in money and securities, and owned his farm clear, in addition.
Andy went up to the front door, and used the old brass knocker vigorously, but there was no response.
“I suppose Mr. Starr is somewhere about the place,” he said to himself, and bent his steps toward the barn.
There he found the man of whom he was in search.
Joshua Starr was attired in a much-patched suit, which might have been new thirty years before. Certainly he did not set the rising generation a wasteful example in the matter of dress.
The old man espied Andy just before he got within hearing distance, and guessed his errand.
“Howdy do, Andy Gordon?” he said, in a quavering voice.
“All right!” answered Andy, coolly.
If it had been anyone else, he would have added, “thank you,” but he did not feel like being ordinarily polite to the man who was conspiring to defraud his mother.
“I’m tollable myself,” said Joshua, though Andy had not inquired. “The rheumatiz catches me sometimes and hurts me a sight.”
“You ought to expect it at your age,” said Andy.
“I ain’t so very old,” said Mr. Starr, uneasily.
“How old are you?”
“Sixty-nine.”
“That seems pretty old to me.”
“My father lived to be nigh on to eighty,” said Joshua. “He wa’n’t no healthier than I be, as I know of.”
“You might live to be as old, if you would eat nourishing food.”
“So I do! Who says I don’t?”
“Nancy Gray, the girl that worked for you, says you didn’t allow yourself enough to eat.”
“That girl!” groaned the old man. “It’s well I got red on her, or she’d have eaten me out of house and home. She eat three times as much as I did, and I’m a hardworking man and need more than she does.”
“I suppose you know what I’ve come to speak to you about, Mr. Starr,” said Andy, thinking it time to come to business.
“Have you come to pay that note I hold agin’ your mother?” asked the old man, with suppressed eagerness.
“My mother owes you nothing,” said Andy, firmly.
“You’re mistaken, Andy. She owes me a hundred dollars and interest, and I’ve got the dockyment to prove it.”
“You know very well, Mr. Starr, that my father paid you that money long ago.”
“When did he pay it?”
“Just before he started for the war. You needn’t ask, for you know better than I do.”
“Yes, I do know better’n you do,” said the old man. “Ef he paid it, why didn’t he get the note? I’d like to know that, Andy Gordon.”
“That’s easily answered. It was because you pretended you had mislaid it, and you asked him to take a receipt instead.”
“That ain’t a very likely story, Andy. Still, ef you’ve got the receipt to show, it may make a difference.”
“We haven’t been able to find the receipt,” said Andy.
“Of course you ain’t, and a good reason why. There never was any receipt. You don’t expect I’d give a receipt when the note wasn’t paid.”
“No, I don’t; but we both know the note was paid.”
“Then, all I can say is you was mighty shif’less to lose it,” said the old man, chuckling.
“An honorable man wouldn’t take advantage of such a loss, Mr. Starr. He wouldn’t be willing to defraud a poor widow, even if he had the power to do it.”
“You’re wandering from the p’int, Andrew. Ef the money was paid, you can show the receipt, and then I won’t have another word to say.”
“I am afraid my father must have taken the receipt with him when he went to the war.”
“Jes’ so – jes’ so!” chuckled Mr. Starr, his chuckle bringing on a fit of coughing.
“What do you mean to do?” asked Andy, a little anxiously.
“Waal, I want to collect my money. A hundred dollars is a good deal of money. I can’t afford to lose it.”
“We don’t owe it.”
“The law says you do.”
“At any rate, we can’t pay it. We have no money.”
“Ain’t your mother got her pension, Andrew?”
“Yes, she has, and she will keep it! Not a cent will you get out of it!”
“Then I’ll have to take your furniture,” said Mr. Starr, placidly.
“I believe you are the meanest man in town!” said Andy, indignantly.
“I want my own property,” said the old man, doggedly, “and you may tell your mother