Rock Island Argus

DAILY SHORT STORY
THE MAN WHO CAME BACK.
[Copyright, 1905, by McClure, Phillips & Co.]

People who could remember Samuel Hastings as a boy and a young man and Nancy Lee as a girl and a young woman could not recall that either of them was particularly disputatious or obstinate.

When the two got married it was called a good match, and all seemed to go well for three or four months. Then it was known that argument and dispute were the order of the day.

About a year after marriage and after they had had numerous disputes and separations Samuel came up from the potato field one day and said:

"Ding my buttons, but them potato bugs are just going for the vines to beat all creation. I wonder why they have so many more legs than a bug."

"They haven't," replied the wife.

"Yes, they have. They've got sixteen legs, and you can't find a bug with over twelve."

"They haven't got but ten legs. I was looking at one this afternoon."

"Sixteen, Nancy."

"Only ten, Samuel."

I was a boy twelve years old and working for the family, and I heard the dispute. There was no anger in it, but each party was mulish and determined. They kept up the dispute for three hours, and at length the husband said:

"Nancy, I'm not going to stand any more of this. If you insist that a tater bug has only got ten legs, I'll leave the house."

"I say ten and shall stick to it, and if you want to leave you can."

Next morning Samuel left. He had about $10 in money and a bundle of clothes, and he did not say where he was going - in fact, he walked off without a word, and the wife stood in the door and saw him go and made no effort to detain him. It was a small farm, and when he had been gone a week she hired a man to do the heavy work, and things went on as usual.

One day, a year and a half later, the missing husband walked into the house. He looked about as usual, and hung his hat up in the same old place as if perfectly at home.

"Howdy, Nancy?" he saluted, and she saluted him the same way.

Dinner was just ready, and he sat down at the head of the table. They talked about the farm and the crops and the weather, and when he was through eating he shoved back and said:

"Well, Nancy, are you ready to give in that a tater bug has sixteen legs?"

"Nope. I know they have only ten,"

she replied.

"Are you going to stick to it?"

"Till I die."

"And I shall stick to sixteen."

He picked his teeth for awhile without anything more being said and then rose slowly up, walked outdoors and was not seen or heard of again for over two years. His own people did not know where he was and held no correspondence with him. The matter was of course known to everybody for five miles around, and there were many who thought it their duty to wrestle with Nancy. She would listen to all they had to say, and when they had finished her reply was:

"Just as long as Sam Hastings can stick to sixteen I can stick to ten, and he may stay away and be hanged to him."

Samuel's home coming on the second occasion was a good deal like the first. His wife sat on the veranda sewing one summer afternoon when he turned in from the dusty highway with a bundle on his shoulder. She knew him as soon as she saw him, but she made no fuss over it. When he had reached the veranda he laid down his bundle and said:

"Well, Nancy, I don't see that you have changed much."

"Nor you either."

"Feeling purty well?"

"First rate."

"So'm I."

Then they discussed the neighbors for an hour, and she said:

"I suppose you will stay to supper?"

"Oh, I guess so."

He stayed, but when the meal was finished he asked:

"About them tater bugs?"

"They have still got ten legs," she replied.

"Couldn't make 'em sixteen, could you?"

"Not if I was to be burned at the stake. Samuel, you know what a determined woman I am."

"What a mule, you mean."

"Then you are just as big a one. Just as long as you stick to sixteen I shall stick to ten."

"Then goodby to you."

Three minutes later he was out of the gate and going down the road, and things went on in the old routine again. This time five long years passed away. Then the Widow Hastings, as she had long been called, got up one morning to find Samuel sitting in a chair by the kitchen stove. He had entered the house some time during the night without disturbing anybody. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, but she knew him at a glance.

"So you are home again?" she asked.

He made no reply.

"I suppose you still stick to sixteen legs?"

No answer.

"Because if you do"

She had gone closer to him and saw that he was dead. His hair had become gray, he was thin and poor in flesh and there were signs that he had been ill a long time.

"I was going to split the difference with you this time and call it twelve!"

she said as she laid her head down on the table and wept.

M. QUAD.