the rain turned to a kind of sleet that rattled on the window-glass like shot. The room was lighted by two candles in tall brass candlesticks. They stood at each end of the mantelpiece, smeared with tallow. The wind whopped and spat into the chimney; and now and then a puff of wood-smoke blew out and mounted up along the blackened fireboard.
Abner and the hunchback talked of the price of cattle, of the "blackleg" among yearlings—that fatal disease that we had so much trouble with—and of the "lump-jaw."
Gaul said that if calves were kept in small lots and not all together the "blackleg" was not so apt to strike them; and he thought the "lump-jaw" was a germ. Fatten the bullock with green corn and put it in a car, he said, when the lump begins to come. The Dutch would eat it—and what poison could hurt the Dutch! But Abner said the creature should be shot.
"And lose the purchase money and a summer's grazing?" cried Gaul. "Not I! I ship the beast."
"Then," said Abner, "the inspector in the market ought to have it shot and you fined to boot."
"The inspector in the market!" And Gaul laughed. "Why, I slip him a greenback—thus!"—and he set his thumb against his palm. "And he is glad to see me. 'Gaul, bring in all you can,' said one; 'it means a little something to us both.'" And the hunchback's laugh clucked and chuckled in his throat.
26
