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All I could say for I was a little embarrassed, 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.
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.
But when I mentioned to my new friend, whose name was Jackway, my claim to the whole estate he assured 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!
Nobody ever hired Jackway to care for his interests, said he, without having his interests taken care of. "You can go out," said he to a peaceful-looking man who stood watching him, "into the street there, and stab the first man you meet, and Jackway'll get you clear. I'm a living whirlwind!
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.
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.
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 nobody could say that he was a man who would not deal fairly with an ignorant boy.
I had not yet seen why I ought to do him harm; and along the road to Iowa, I was all the time wondering why I got madder and madder at Jackway; and that rhyme kept running through my mind, oftener and oftener, as I drew nearer and nearer my journey's end: "Sold again And got the tin, And sucked another Dutchman in!" It was in the latter part of March.
So, aside from Buck Gowdy, I was the first of his fellow-citizens of Monterey County to become acquainted with N.V. Creede. He reminded me at first of Lawyer Jackway of Madison, the guardian ad litem who had sung the song that still recurred to me occasionally "Sold again, And got the tin, And sucked another Dutchman in!"
Rucker and Jackway might have given me a check on the tow-path; but yet I felt hopeful that I was to make a real success of my voyage of life to a home and a place where I could be somebody. There was pleasure in looking back at my riches in the clean, hard-stuffed straw-tick, the stove, the traveling home which belonged to me.
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