The Progressive Farmer

SAM'S STRATEGY.

Farmer Kendrick had brought in a pile of snow-covered logs, and as he banged them down on the hearth, Carrie started up.

"Five o'clock! Oh, I had no idea it was so late. I must be going,"

"Allow me to accompany you, Miss Brown."

"Let me see you home, Carrie?"

Captain Logan and Fred Jones both spoke at once.

"I prefer to walk alone," she said, smiling on both cavaliers.

"About the sleighing party to-morrow night," said Fred, anxiously.

"I-I have promised Captain Logan," said the village beauty, a rose tint suffusing her cheeks.

"But, Carrie, I thought it was settled between you and I weeks ago!" exclaimed Fred with a frown.

"Was it?"

"You know it was."

"I'm sure I had forgotten."

Fred was silent. Captain Logan's soft voice broke the silence,

"I exact no promises," he said gallantly, "but if I am not punctual to the hour and the spot, Miss Brown may draw her own conclusions."

Carrie was silent.

Fred Jones had loved this pretty, bright-eyed damsel ever since they were children together, and Captain Logan, who had come down to spend the holidays with his cousins, the Kendricks, had become so fond of those bright blue eyes and that golden hair that he had prolonged his visit into January.

"Pon my word, she's a regular beauty," said the captain, staring through the tiny window pane at the retreating figure of Miss Brown.

Fred Jones glanced quickly up at him, as if he would have liked to knock him over into the fireplace; but he refrained from any such demonstration.

"A beauty," went on the captain, "and it's a thousand pities she should be wasted on any pumpkins that vegetate in this wilderness. Sam, you young villain, are my boots blacked yet?"

The farmer's hired boy, who had just come in to warm his purple hands at the merry red blaze, looked glum.

"No, they ain't," said Sam.

"Why not?"

"Cause I 'ad no time."

"See you find time, then, and that quick," said the captain.

Sam glowered after him as he went gaily up stairs.

The next night was perfect for sleighing and love-making. The roads were glistening, and silver crescent shone brightly.

"Couldn't be better weather," said the captain. "Sam, where are the sleigh bells?"

"Dunno. There's them old jingles in the garret that used to belong to Deacon Joe Kendrick, of 1776, and there's the two cow-bells that Mary Jane might scour with ashes—"

"Pshaw! what do you take me for? There is a pretty little string somewhere for I saw them when my cousin went out yesterday."

"I ain't seed nothin' on 'em," said the boy stolidly.

"Come, come, Sam, don't make yourself out any more stupid than you are by nature," said the farmer, laughing nevertheless, for the captain's airs were wearing out his welcome.

"I guess they are out in the barn chamber. You better go with him, captain, if you expect to find 'em; our Sam's dreadful thick-headed when he chooses to be."

"Come along my fine fellow," said the captain, coloring and marching him off in the direction of the old, red barn. "We don't need any lantern in the moonlight, that is one comfort. Where are the stairs?" demanded the captain, as they entered the barn.

"Ain't none," said Sam. "It's a ladder."

"Up with you, then," said Logan, but Sam shrank back.

"I wouldn't not for fifty dollars," said Sam. "Old John Kendrick hung himself from the middle beam fourteen years ago, and folks say he stands up there with a rope around his neck every moonlight night."

"Stuff and nonsense," cried the captain in accents of contempt.

"You cowardly lout, stay where you are, then, and I'll go myself."

He sprang lightly up the rounds of the ladder and disappeared through the trap door.

"Where is it?" he called.

"The ghost? Right under the middle beam by the window was the place where—"

"Blockhead! I mean the string of bells."

"Look for 'em yourself," said Sam sulkily. "I don't know where they be, and what's more, I don't care."

"I'll settle with you my fine fellow when I come down," said the captain, threateningly, as he groped about in the dim light which came through a cobweb-draped window at either end of the barn chamber.

"Don't hurry yourself, cap'n," rejoined Sam in a jeering tone.

As the captain plunged into a dark corner there was a jingle, and the string of bells, suspended from a nail, hit him exactly on the neck, so like the grasp of death's cold fingers that he could not but start.

"Oh!" said the captain, nervously.

"Here they are. Catch 'em, Sam! Hal-lo! where's the trap door?"

And it took the worthy captain fully sixty seconds or more to realize that the trap-door was closed and fastened on the lower side. He ran to the window and threw it up, only to see Sam speeding up the hill.

"Hal-lo-o-a!" yelled Captain Logan. "Come back, you scoundrel! you ill-conditioned lout! you imp of evil!"

Sam turned around and executed that peculiar gyration of the fingers in connection with the nasal organ, which is supposed to express the extremity of scorn.

"You will find the ladder on the barn floor, cap'n," shouted this young rebel, "an' don't be afraid o' the ghost: it's very harmless if you let it alone."

"But, Sam—Sam, come back! I'm to be at Mr. Brown's at half-past seven."

"Don't worry!" bawled Sam. "Miss Carrie won't have to wait long before Mr. Fred'll be on hand."

The captain danced up and down on the floor in an ecstasy of rage as Sam disappeared over the crest of the hill. He knew very well if he possessed the lungs of Boreas he could make no one hear.

He sat shivering down on the hay, starting nervously at the sound of horses' feet below, and thinking how disagreeably a bar of moonlight, which streamed down from a crack in the roof, resembled a tall, white figure standing under the center beam. He could almost fancy the rope around its neck. Pshaw! And the captain jumped up again, with starting dew on his brow, even in the freezing atmosphere of the barn chamber.

What was to be done? he asked himself, and echo, if echo had any common sense, would have answered: "Just nothing at all."

Sam had outwitted him. And pretty Carrie, and Fred Jones, with his red cutter and great chestnut-colored horse! The captain was wild at the thought; surely he was vanquished.

"I won't wait another minute for him," said Carrie Brown, coloring up, with the tears in her blue eyes. "Go on, girls, I shall spend the evening at home."

"There's plenty of room for you in our sleigh, Carrie," coaxed her brother.

"Bessie Brown would be glad to have you along."

"No she won't, either," pouted Carrie.

"As if I would spoil all her fun! No: if I can't have an escort of my own, I'll stay at home and mend stockings, and I never, never will speak to Captain Logan again."

Charlie Brown was on the point of arguing the matter with his sister, when the door opened and in walked Fred Jones.

"Not gone yet, Carrie?" "Where is the captain?"

"I don't know," said Carrie, tartly.

"and I do not care. Am I Captain Logan's keeper?"

"Will you go with me?"

"Yes, I will," said Carrie, her eyes lighting and shy smiles dimpling her lips.

"Of course," said Fred, "I can't expect to make myself as agreeable as the city captain, but—"

"The captain, the captain," cried Carrie, a little irritably, "I am sick of the sound of his name. I never want to see him again. What a nice new cutter this is, and how easy the wolf robes are."

"Carrie," whispered Fred, as he touched up the horse and felt her nestling close to him, "is it for always?"

"Yes, always," she answered.

"Jerusalem!" said Farmer Kendrick.

It was past ten o'clock at night, and the old gentleman had come out, as usual, before retiring to rest, to see that the dumb members of his family were all safe. "I do believe that's old John Kendrick's ghost come to life again, poundin' like all possessed on the barn-chamber floor!"

"It's me! It's me!" yelled the captain. "Unfasten the trap door and let me out!"

Slowly the farmer lifted the ladder to its place. With rheumatic awkwardness he climbed the cracking rounds and undid the hook from the hasp.

"How in all creation came you here?" he demanded. "Why, I thought you was out a sleigh-ridin' with the gals?"

"It was all the doing of that villain Sam!" gasped the infuriated captain, his teeth chattering with rage and cold. "I won't stand this sort of a thing. I'll leave this place to-morrow."

"As you please," said the farmer, to whom the prospect of losing his guest was not unpleasant. "I'll talk seriously to Sam."

"So will I," gnashed the captain.

"I'll break every bone in his body."

But Sam was nowhere to be found, and the first ones of the returning party brought the news that the engagement of Fred Jones and Carrie Brown had been announced.

The captain left for home next day, and pretty Mrs. Fred Jones has never seen him since. When the wedding came off Sam received a piece of wedding cake big enough to give him the dyspepsia for a week.—Waverly Magazine.