Vandemark's Folly Part 8

"Jacob T. Vandemark," said I.

"Why, d.a.m.n me," said he, looking again at his book, "it _is_ a 'T.'

Lawyer's writing, Jacob, lawyer's writing--notoriously bad, you know."

I sat thinking about the expression, "the interests of Jacob T.

Vandemark," for a long time; but the truth did not dawn an me, my mind working slowly as usual.

"What interests?" I asked finally.

"The interest," said he, "of her only child in the estate of Mrs.

Rucker."

Then there recurred to my mind the words in my mother's last letter; that the money had been paid on the settlement of my father's estate, and that she and Rucker were coming out West to make a new start in life. I had never given it a moment's thought before, and should have gone away without asking anybody a single question about it, if this scaly pettifogger, as I now know him to have been, had not sidled up to me.

"The estate," said my new friend, "is small, Jacob; but right is right, and there is no reason why this man Rucker should not be made to disgorge every cent that's coming to you--every cent! I know Doctor Rucker slightly, and I hope I shall not shock you if I say that in my opinion he would steal the Lord's Supper, and wipe his condemned lousy red whiskers and his freckled claws with the table-cloth! That's the kind of pilgrim and stranger Rucker is. He will cheat you out of your eye teeth, sir, unless you are protected by the best legal talent to be had--the best to be had--the talent and the advice of the man to whom your late lamented mother went for counsel."

"Yes," said I after a while, "I think he will."

"That is why your mother," he went on, "advised with me; for even if I have to say it, I'm a living whirlwind in court. Suppose we have a drink!"

I sat with my drink before me, slowly sipping it, and trying to see through this man and the new question he had brought up. Certainly, I was ent.i.tled to my mother's property--all of it by rights, whatever the law might be--for it came through my father. Surely this lawyer must be a good man, or my mother wouldn't have consulted him. But when I mentioned to my new friend, whose name was Jackway, my claim to the whole estate he a.s.sured me that Rucker was the legal owner of his share in it--I forget how much.

"And," said he, "I make no doubt the old scoundrel has reduced the whole estate to possession, and is this moment," lowering his voice secretively, "acting as executor _de son tort_--executor _de son tort_, sir! I wouldn't put it past him!"

I wrote this, with some other legal expressions in my note-book.

"How can I get this money away from him?" said I, coming to the point.

"Money!" said he. "How do we know it is money? It may be chattels, goods, wares or merchandise. It may be realty. It may be _choses in action_. We must require of him a complete discovery. We may have to go back to the original probate proceedings through which your mother became seized of this property to obtain the necessary information. How old are you?"

I told him that I was sixteen the twenty-seventh of the last July.

"A minor," said he; "in law an infant. A guardian _ad litem_ will have to be appointed to protect your interests, and to bring suit for you. I shall be glad to serve you, sir, in the name of justice; and to confound those with whom robbery of the orphan is an occupation, sir, a daily occupation. Come up to my office with me, and we will begin proceedings to make Rucker sweat!"

3

But this was too swift for a Vandemark. In spite of his urging, I insisted that I should have to think it over. He grew almost angry at me at last, I thought; but he went away finally, after I had taken the hint he gave and bought him another drink. The next morning he was back again, urging me to proceed immediately, "so that the property might not be further sequestrated and wasted." He did not know how slow I was to think and act; and suspected that I was going to some other lawyer, I now believe; for I noticed him shadowing me, as the detectives say, every time I walked out. On the third day, while I was still studying the matter, and making no progress, Rucker himself came into the tavern, with his neck bandaged and his head on one side, and in his best clothes; and sitting on the edge of his chair between me and the door, as if ready to take wing at any hostile movement on my part, he broached the subject of my share in my mother's estate.

"I want to deal with you," said he in that dangerous whine of his, "as with my own son, Jacob, my own son."

There was nothing to say to this, and I said nothing. I only looked at him. He was studying me closely, but had never taken pains to learn my peculiarities when I lived with him, and had to study a total stranger, and a person who was too old to be treated as a child, but who at the same time must be very green in money matters. I was a puzzle to him, and my lack of words made me still more of a problem.

"You know, of course," he finally volunteered, "that the estate when it was finally wound up had mostly been eaten up by court expenses and lawyers' fees--the robbers!"

I could see he was in earnest in this last remark: but of course lawyers' fees and court expenses were all a mystery to me. I did not even know that lawyers and courts had anything to do with estates. I did not know what an estate was--so I continued to keep still.

"There was hardly anything left," said he.

I was astonished at this; and I did not believe it. After thinking it over for a few minutes, earnestly, and without any thought of saying anything to catch him up, I said: "You traveled in good style coming west on the ca.n.a.l. You took a steamer up the Lakes. You have been dressing fine ever since the money came in; and you're keeping a woman."

He made no reply, except to say that I did not understand, but would when he showed me where every cent of the estate money had gone which he had spent, and just how much was left. As for his daughter--he supposed I knew--but he never finished this speech. I rose to my feet; and he left hurriedly, saying that he would show me a statement in the morning. "I expect to pay your board here," said he, "for a few days, you know--until you decide to move on--or move back."

For a week or so I refused to talk with Rucker or Jackway; but sat around and tried to make up my mind what to do. To hire Jackway would take all my savings; and the schedules which Rucker brought me on legal-cap paper I refused even to touch with my hands. I am sure, now, that Rucker had sent Jackway to me in the first place, never suspecting that the matter of the estate had been so far from my mind; and thereby, by too much craft, he lost the opportunity of stealing it all. Jackway kept telling me of Rucker's rascalities, so as to get into my good graces and confidence, in which he succeeded better than he knew; and urging me to pay him a few dollars--just a few dollars--"to begin proceedings to stay waste and sequestration"; but I did not give him anything because it seemed a first step into something I had not understood.

4

I began calling on land agents, thinking I might use what little money I had left to make a first payment on a farm; but the land around Madison was too high in price for me. Two or three of these real estate agents were also lawyers; and I caught Rucker and Jackway together, looking worried and anxious, when I came from the office of one of them who very kindly informed me that, if he were in my place, he would go across the Mississippi and settle in Iowa. He had been as far west as Fort Dodge, and described to me the great prairies, unbroken by the plow, the railroads which were just ready to cross the Mississippi, the rich soil, the chance there was to get a home, and to become my own master. I began to feel an interest in Iowa.

I think these days must have been anxious ones for Rucker, greedy as he was for my little fortune, ignorant as he was of the depth of the ignorance of the silent stupid boy with whom he was dealing--and a boy, too, who had made that one remark about his way of living and traveling that seemed to show a knowledge of just what he was doing, and had done.

I could see after that, that he thought me much sharper than I was.

Lawyer Jackway haunted the hotel, and was spending more money--Rucker's money, I know. He had bought a new overcoat, and was drinking a good deal more than was good for him; but he wormed out of me something about my desire for a farm, and after having had a chance to see Rucker he began talking of a compromise.

"The old swindler," said he, "has all the evidence in his own hands; and he and that red-headed spiritual partner of his will swear to anything.

As your legal adviser," said he, "and the legal adviser of your sainted mother, I'd advise you to take anything he is willing to give--within bounds, of course, within bounds."

So the next time Rucker sidled into the tavern, and began beslavering me about the way the money left by my mother was being eaten up by expenses and debts, I blurted out: "Well, what will you give me to clear out and let you and your red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r alone?"

"Now," said he, "you are talking sensibly--sensibly. There is a little farm-out near Blue Mounds that I could, by a hard struggle, let you have; but it would be more than your share--more than your share."

This was forty acres, and would have a mortgage on it. I waited a day or so, and told him I wouldn't take it. What I was afraid of was the mortgage; but I didn't give my reasons. Then he came back with a vacant lot in Madison, and then three vacant lots, which I went and looked at, and found in a swamp. Then I told him I wanted money or farm land; and he offered me a lead mine near Mineral Point. All the time he was getting more and more worried and excited; he used to tremble when he talked to me; and as the winter wore away, and the season drew nearer when he wanted to go on his travels, or deal with the properties in which I had found out by this time he was speculating with my mother's money, just as everybody was speculating then, in mines, town sites, farm lands, railway stocks and such things, he was on tenter-hooks, I could see that, to get rid of me, whom he thought he had given the slip forever. Finally he came to me one morning, just as a warm February wind had begun to thaw the snow, and said, beaming as if he had found a gold mine for me: "Jacob, I've got just what you want--a splendid farm in Iowa."

And he laid on the table the deed to my farm in Vandemark Towns.h.i.+p, a section of land in one solid block a mile square. "Of course," said he, "I can't let you have all of it--'but let us say eighty acres, or even I might clean up a quarter-section, here along the east side,"--and he pointed to a plat of it pinned fast to the deed.

"The whole piece," said I, "is worth eight hundred dollars, and not a cent more--if it's all good land. That ain't enough."

"All good land!" said he--and I could see he was surprised at the fact that I knew Iowa land was selling at a dollar and a quarter an acre.

"Why, there ain't anything but good land there. You can put a plow in one corner of that section, and plow every foot of it without taking the share out of the ground."

"All or nothing," said I, "and more."

Next day he came back and said he would let me have the whole section; but that it would break him. He wanted to be fair with me--more than fair. People had set me against him, he said, looking at Jackway who was-drinking at the bar; but n.o.body could say that he was a man who would not deal fairly with an ignorant boy.

"I've got to have a team, a wagon, a cover for the wagon, and provisions for the trip," I said, "and a few hundred dollars to live on for a while after I get to Iowa."

At this he threw his hands up, and left me, saying that if I wanted to ruin him I would have to do it through the courts. He had gone as far as he would go, and I would never have another offer as generous as he had made me. The next day I met on the street the red-headed girl, who went by the name of Alice Rucker, and was notorious as a medium. She stopped me, and asked why I hadn't been to see her--carrying the conversation off casually, as if we had been ordinary acquaintances. All I could say--for I was a little embarra.s.sed, was "I do' know"--which was what I had told Rucker and Jackway, in answer to a thousand questions, until they were crazy to know how to come at me.

"Let me tell you something," said she. "If you want that Iowa farm, pa--"

"Who?" said I.

"Rucker," said she, brazening it out with me. "He'll give you the land, and your outfit. Don't let them fool you out of the team and wagon."

"Thank you for telling me," said I; "but I guess I'll have to have more."

"If you go into court he'll beat you," said she, "and I'm telling you that as a friend, even if you don't believe me."

"I'm much obliged," I said; and I believed then, and believe now, that she was sincere.

"And when you start," said she, "if you want some one to cook and take care of you, let me know. I like traveling."