Page:06-24-1920 -The Story of the Jones County Calf Case.pdf/15

 after his assets were depleted, he came down to see me. In the meantime, and during the Calf Case, he would borrow forty cents of me, or one dollar, or five dollars; maybe twenty-five when we were away trying his Calf Case, and of course I was just as much interested as Bob was, and so it had run along until Bob said he owed me about fifteen hundred dollars for borrowed money, and he had been earning money and paying his other creditors, and we sat down on the floor as all thieves do to divide the loaves and fishes, and Bob didn't have any loaves and fishes except a spavined stallion—a cheap horse, and spavined—and one hundred and thirty dollars. So he handed them over to me and said that he would pay me the balance as he got it. And I said, "Bob, I have been a thousand times repaid. I didn't have any clients; I didn't have anything to do when you came to me twenty-five years ago, and I have made an acquaintanceship, and that has done me good, and you don't owe me another dollar." And so we shook hands and looked the other way, and Bob went back to Anamosa.

After Bob got through house cleaning and paying up his debts, he was elected mayor of Anamosa, the town where he had been indicted forty years before for grand larceny, in the county where it was claimed that he had stolen the Foreman calves. He became mayor and, I believe, served two or three terms with credit. He worked hard; he saved his money; and when he died, sitting quietly in his chair an old, old man in his own little home, with his wife and son present, he had paid for his home and had some property besides that, I don't know how much.

Now, there were a number of incidents that happened during that long litigation that were illustrative of Bob. He was a queer man. He gave up all that he had, including twenty-five years of the best part of his life to, as he always said, "Get my character back." He always called country "kintry [sic]", and he always said, I did so and so "in my weakness".

Gentlemen, it is said that the minds of old people dwell in the past. Mine does. And after forty-six years I want to describe Bob Johnson to you as he looked to me when I first saw him.