The Argosy, Vol. 82, No. 3 — page 192: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

566 He thinks it is all right to say nothing about that money what he found, and to buy that clock for himself. Then the money would be his absolutely, under- stand. “Did you fix that clock?” Hartmann asks. “Yah. Hear it go? Maybe now it would run for a hundred years again. Would you like to sell that clock, Heze- kiah? My woman she likes to have this old furniture around the house. She’s crazy for it, she is. Why, only last week she got it a chest of drawers with glass knobs what is more than a hunnerd years old.” Hartmann shook his head. “T have had that clock for a long time, Asa. I don’t like to sell it.” “Tl give you a goot price.” “ How much?” “Oh, twenty dollars.” Hartmann laughed. ‘““T wouldn’t part from that clock for a cent under one hundred and one dollars. And even then I don’t want to sell.” ‘One hundred and one dollars! Why, I seen it a clock like that go for forty-five already. And why is the price one hun- dred and one dollars? What for is the one?” “Tt’s one hundred and one _ dollars, Asa,” Hartmann says, ‘‘ because that’s one dollar more than one hundred. And if you seen it as goot a clock as that for forty- five dollars, go buy it. Now come in the kitchen, Asa, and we would have some cider.” While they were drinking the cider, Wolfinger was thinking all the time about that seven hundred and fourteen dollars. But he hated like blazes to pay one hun- dred and one dollars for the clock. That would leave him only six hundred and thirteen dollars mit a clock he didn’t want. ‘“T would give you fifty dollars for the clock,” he said, “‘ and only that much be- cause my wife is foolish about grandfather clocks. I would like to please her.” - ““T know a relic-hunter what will give me eighty dollars any day for it,” said Hartmann. ‘ He said to me, ‘ When you want eighty dollars any time, you just bring me that clock.’ But I don’t want to sell it. Still, if that relic-hunter said one hundred and one, I would part from it.” Well, they argued back and forth for an hour, and all the time Wolfinger is afraid THE ARGOSY. that relic-hunter will offer one hundred and one and get the money hidden in the clock. Finally he gives up. ‘All right, Hartmann,” he says. “It ain’t fair to trim me like that. But I will pay your price so my wife can have the clock. Will you take a promissory note?” Hartmann says he will take the note, so Wolfinger writes it, and they get Hart- mann’s hired man for witness. Then they put the clock on the back of Wolfinger’s buckboard. When Wolfinger gets home he carries the clock into the house, and his wife says: “Oi, ol, oi, papa! What did you pay for that clock?” ‘““ Never mind,” he says. ‘‘ Go away.” ‘You must be crazy to get a clock like that.” ‘“T ain’t so crazy what I look,” Asa snaps. ‘‘ Get me something to eat.” When his wife is gone away Wolfinger takes out the money and hides it in his pocket. But then he got a worry to know how he was going to bank that money. A neighbor of his once found some money sewed in a mattress what he bought at a sale. It made a sensation, you betcha, and everybody was running around to auction sales buying old mattresses. If Wolfinger put that money in his own bank when his neighbors heard how he bought the old clock, they would think nacherly he found the money in it. He decides to put it in a bank in Phila- delphia. So next morning he goes down to Philadelphia to a bank on Chestnut Street, and hands the seven hundred and fourteen dollars to a teller and says: ‘“Open me an account, please.” The teller takes the bills and looks over them, and then looks up at Wolfinger funny like. ‘Where did you get these?” he asks. ‘““Never mind where I got them, young man. Open me my account.” “But these bills are not United States money,” says the teller. ‘“Not United States money!” Asa hol- lers. ‘‘ Why, you must be crazy!” “Maybe I am, but I am not so crazy as to take these bills for good money,” the teller says, hot unter the collar. “TI tell you these bills weren’t issued by the Uni- ted States government. They are Confed- erate money, put out by the government at Richmond, Werginia, during the war.” Go _OOK mie (E@)