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It need only be said that when Shelby's men rode gayly home again, John Appleman was not in their company. He had met an old friend in the turbulent City of Mexico; had, with due permission, abandoned the ranks of the wild riders, and had fled away to where were supposable peace and quiet. There was something of cowardice in his action now.
Of what else happened at this meeting I do not know. The reunion was at least good, and John Appleman was a very happy man. But the practical phases of life are prompt in asserting themselves. It was not long before John Appleman knew the problem he had to face. There was a mortgage nearly due for eleven hundred dollars on the farm, and he had in his possession only about three hundred dollars.
The man answered in the affirmative. "Well," said John, "I want you to go up to the house and say to her that her husband has come back and will be there in a few minutes." The man started for the house. Appleman sat down on the edge of the bridge and let his legs dangle above the water, just as he had done many years ago when he was a barefooted boy and had fished for minnows with a pin hook.
To utilize these aids, to keep up with the farming procession, required a degree of capital, and no surplus had accrued upon the Appleman farm. Mrs. Appleman was compelled to borrow when she bought her mowing-machine, and the slight mortgage then put upon the place was increased when other necessary purchases were made in time.
Appleman regrets the disappearance of the deer, wild turkey and ruffed grouse, but the quail are abundant, and the flowers bloom as brightly and the birds sing as sweetly as in the days before the war. Time, just as it improved the whisky, has improved his wife, and she has a mellower flavor. He prefers Michigan to Mexico. I have read somewhere that there is a moral to the life of every man.
As a half idler in Guaymas he tried, casually, mescal and aguardiente and all Mexican intoxicants, but cast them aside as things unnecessary. More years passed, and finally fear of Mrs. Appleman became to an extent attenuated, while the scent of the clover-blossoms gained intensity.
He crossed the bridge above the creek which flowed through his own farm, and saw a man engaged in cutting away the willow bush which had assumed too much importance along the borders of the little stream. He called the man to him, and did what was a wise thing, something of which he had thought much during his long railroad journey. "Are you working for Mrs. Appleman?" he asked.
I have myself had various adventures, but I know of no experience more odd than that of an old schoolmate of mine named John Appleman. John was born in Macomb County, southeastern Michigan, in the year 1830. His father owned a farm of one hundred acres there. John's mother died when he was but a lad, and after that he lived alone with his father upon the farm. In 1855 John's father died.
Certain men of a certain quality, worried and hampered, are liable to resort to stimulants; the same sort of men, unhampered, need no stimulants at all. To such as these pure air and nature are stimulants sufficient. Whoever heard of a drunken pioneer and facer of natural difficulties, from Natty Bumpo of imagination to Kit Carson of reality? John Appleman as a soldier did not drink.
He applied his nose judicially to the auger-hole in the barrel's top. He estimated the amount of spirits in each. "I wouldn't have believed it," he said, "if I hadn't seen it. It's because you varnished the barrels. That made evaporation slow. I'll give you twenty dollars a gallon for all there is of it." "I'll take it," said John Appleman.
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