Uncle Obed—we omit his family name for various reasons—lived away down east, in a small but flourishing village, where he occupied a snug house, and what with a little farming, a little fishing, a little hunting, and a little trading, contrived, not only to make both ends meet at the expiration of each year, but accumulated quite a little property.
In personal appearance he was small, but muscular and wiry. He was far from handsome; a pug nose, set between a pair of gooseberry eyes, a long, straight mouth, a head of hair in which sandy red and iron gray were mixed together, did not give him a very fascinating aspect. He rarely smiled, but when he did, his smile was expressive of the deepest cunning.
Uncle Obed had one grievous fault—an unhappy propensity for acquiring the property of others—"a natural proclivity," as General Pillow says, to stealing. The Spartans thought there was no harm in stealing—in fact that it was rather meritorious than otherwise, providing that it was never found out; and both in theory and practice, Uncle Obed was a thorough Spartan. A few of his exploits in this way will serve to show his extraordinary 'cuteness.
A neighbor of his had a black heifer with a white face, which occasionally made irruptions into Uncle Obed's pasturage. One evening, Obed made a seizure of her, and tied her up in his barn. He then went to the owner of the animal.
"Mr. Stagg," said he, "there's been a cantankerous heifer a breaking into my lot, and I've been a lookin' for her, and I've cotched her at last."
"Well," said the unconscious Mr. Stagg, "I 'spose you're going to drive her to the pound."
"No, I ain't," answered Uncle Obed, with the smile we have alluded to, "I know a trick worth two of that. I'm going to kill her; and if you won't say nothing to nobody, but'll come up to-night and help me, you shall hev the horns and hide for your trouble."
"Done," said Mr. Stagg. "I'll come."
In the mean time, Uncle Obed took a pot of black paint, and covered the white face of the heifer, so as to prevent recognition. The neighbor came up at night, and helped despatch his own "critter," receiving the horns and hide for his pay, and laughing with Obed to think how cleverly the owner had been "done."
The next day he missed his heifer, and called on Obed to ask if he had seen her.
"I hain't seen her to-day," replied Uncle Obed, "but if you'll go to the tannery, where you sold that hide, and 'll just take the trouble to overhaul it, Mr. Stagg, prehaps you'll find out where your heifer is."
Prehaps he did.
On another occasion Uncle Obed appropriated—we scorn to charge him with stealing—a cow which had had the misfortune to lose her tail. Stepping into a tannery, he cut off a tail, and sewed it on to the fragment which yet decorated the hind quarters of the stolen animal. He then drove her along towards the next market, and having to cross a ferry, had just got on board the boat with his booty, when down came the owner of the missing cow, "bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," and took passage on the same boat.
He eyed his cow very sharply, while Uncle Obed stood quietly by, watching the result of the investigation.
"That's a pretty good cow, ain't it?" said Uncle Obed.
"Yes," replied the owner, "and if her tail was cut off, I could swear it was mine."
Uncle Obed quietly took his knife out of his pocket, and cutting the tail short off above where the false one was joined on, threw it into the river.
"Now, neighbor," said he, triumphantly, "can you swear that's your cow?"
"Of course not," said the owner. "But they look very much alike."
After stealing something or other, we forget what, Uncle Obed was observed, and the sheriff was sent in pursuit of him, in hot haste, mounted on a fine and very fast horse. After a hard run, Uncle Obed halted at the edge of a rough piece of ground, pulled off his coat, and pulled down about a rod of stone wall, then quietly went to work building it up again, as if that was his regular occupation.
Presently the sheriff came riding up on the spur, and reining in, asked Obed if he had seen a fellow running for his life.
"Yes," said Obed, "I see him jest now streakin' it like a quarter hoss in that direction," pointing off. "But he was pretty nigh blown, and I 'xpect you can catch him in about two minnits."
"Well, just hold my horse," said the sheriff, "and I'll overhaul him."
The sheriff scrambled over the stones and through the bushes in the direction indicated, and the moment he was out of sight, Uncle Obed jumped on the horse and rode off at the top of his speed. He rode his prize to a town a good ways off, and sold the horse for a hundred and fifty dollars.
For some similar exploit, he was arrested and committed to jail in Essex county, to await his trial. But the prison being then in a process of repair, Uncle Obed, with other victims of the law, was incarcerated in the fort in Salem harbor. He made his escape, however, by crawling through the sewer, as Jack Sheppard did from Newgate prison. The sentinel on duty saw a mass of seaweed floating on the surface of the water. Now, this was nothing extraordinary, but it was extraordinary for seaweed to float against the tide. Uncle Obed's head was in that floating mass. He was hailed and ordered to swim back. He made no answer. A volley of musketry was discharged at him, but no boat being very handy, he got off and made his escape, very much after the manner of Rob Roy at the ford of Avondow.
Uncle Obed had a famous black Newfoundland dog, worth from sixty to eighty dollars. When hard up, he used to take the dog about fifty or a hundred miles from home, where he was unknown, and sell him. No matter what the distance was, the dog always came back to his old master, who realized several hundred dollars by the repeated sales of him.
Such were a few of the exploits of this departed worthy, actually vouched for by contemporaries. His passion for stealing was undoubtedly a monomania, for he was known in many cases to make voluntary restitution of articles that he had purloined, and his circumstances did not allow him the plea of necessity which palliates the errors of desperately poor rogues in every eye except that of the law.
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