Part 20 (2/2)
”You knows it--just a mile and a half 'tother side Warwick, by the crick side? I guess it will have to be sold anyhow next April; leastways the old man's dead, and the heirs want the estate settled up like.”
”Suit me!” cried Harry, ”by George! it's just the thing, if I recollect it rightly. But how much land is there?”
”Twenty acres, I guess--not over twenty-five, no how.”
”And the house?” ”Well, that wants fixin' some; and the bridge over the crick's putty bad, too, it will want putty nigh a new one. Why, the house is a story and a half like; and it's jist an entry stret through the middle, and a parlor on one side on't, and a kitchen on the t'other; and a chamber behind both on 'em.”
”What can it be bought for, Tom?”
”I guess three thousand dollars; twenty-five hundred, maybe. It will go cheap, I reckon; I don't hear tell o' no one lookin' at it.
”What will it cost me more to fix it, think you?”
”Well, you see, Archer, the land's ben most darned badly done by, this last three years, since old 'squire's ben so low; and the bridge, that'll take a smart sum; and the fences is putty much gone to rack; I guess it'll take hard on to a thousand more to fix it up right, like you'd like to have it, without doin' nothin' at the house.”
”And fifteen hundred more for that and the stables. I wish to heaven I had known this yesterday; or rather before I came up hither,” said Harry.
”Why so?” asked the Commodore.
”Why, as the deuce would have it, I told my broker to invest six thousand, that I have got loose, in a good mortgage, if he could find one, for five years; and I have got no stocks that I can sell out; all that I have but this, is on good bond and mortgage, in Boston, and little enough of it, too.”
”Well, if that's all,” said Forester, ”we can run down tomorrow, and you will be in time to stop him.”
”That's true, too,” answered Harry, pondering. ”Are you sure it can be bought, Tom?”
”I guess so,” was the response.
”That means, I suppose, that you're perfectly certain of it. Why the devil can't you speak English?”
”Englis.h.!.+” exclaimed Frank; ”Good Lord! why don't you ask him why he can't speak Greek? Englis.h.!.+ Lord! Lord! Lord! Tom Draw and Englis.h.!.+”
”I'll jist tell Archer what he warnts to know, and then see you, my dear little critter, if I doosn't English you some!” replied the old man, waxing wroth. ”Well, Archer, to tell heaven's truth, now, I doos know it; but it's an etarnal all-fired shame of me to be tellin' it, bein' as how I knows it in the way of business like. It's got to be selled by vandoo in April*. [*Vendue. Why the French word for a public auction has been adopted throughout the Northern and Eastern States, as applied to a Sheriff's sale, deponent saith not.]
”Then, by Jove! I will buy it,” said Harry; ”and down I'll go to-morrow.
But that need not take you away, boys; you can stay and finish out the week here, and go home in the Ianthe; Tom will send you down to Nyack.”
”Sartain,” responded Tom; ”but now I'm most darned glad I told you that, Archer. I meant to a told you on't afore, but it clean slipped out of my head; but all's right, now. Hark! hark! don't you hear, boys? The quails hasn't all got together yit--better luck! Hush, A--- and you'll hear them callin'--whew-wheet! whew-wheet! whe-whe-whe;” and the old Turk began to call most scientifically; and in ten minutes the birds were answering him from all quarters, through the circular s.p.a.ce of Bog-meadow, and through the th.o.r.n.y brake beyond it, and some from a large ragwort field further yet.
”How is this, Frank--did they scatter so much when they dropped?” asked Harry.
”Yes; part of them 'lighted in the little bank on this edge, by the spring, you know; and some, a dozen or so, right in the middle of the bog, by the single hickory; and five or six went into the swamp, and a few over it.”
”That's it! that's it! and they've been running to try to get together,”
said the Commodore.
”But was too skeart to call, till we'd quit shootin'!” said Tom. ”But come, boys, let's be stirrin', else they'll git together like; they keeps drawin', drawin', into one place now, I can hear.”
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