The Corduroy Pants

Two weeks after he had sold his farm for twelve hundred dollars and the Mitchells had moved in, Bert Fellows discovered that he had left his other pair of corduroy pants up attic. When he had finished hauling his furniture and clothes to his other place, he was sure he had left nothing behind, but the morning that he went to put on his best pair of pants he could not find them anywhere. Bert thought the matter over two or three days and decided to go around and ask Abe Mitchell to let him go up attic and get the corduroys. He had known Abe all his life and he felt certain Abe would let him go into the house and look around for them.
Abe was putting a new board on the doorstep when Bert came up the road and turned into the yard. Abe glanced around but kept working.
Bert waited until Abe had finished planing the board before he said anything.
“How are you, Abe?” he inquired cautiously.
“Hell, I’m always well,” Abe said, without looking up from the step.
Bert was getting ready to ask permission to go into the house. He waited until Abe hammered the nail into the board.
“I left a pair of corduroys in there, Abe. You wouldn’t mind if I went up attic and got them, would you?”
Abe let the hammer drop out of his hands and fall on the step. He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and turned around facing Bert.
“You go in my house and I’ll have the law on you. I don’t care if you’ve left fifty pair of corduroys up attic. I bought and paid for this place and the buildings on it and I don’t want anybody tracking around here. When I want you to come on my land, I’ll invite you.”
Bert scratched his head and looked up at the attic window. He wished he had not been so forgetful when he was moving his belongings down to his other house.
“They won’t do you any good, Abe,” he said. “They are about ten sizes too big for you. And they belong to me anyway.”
“I’ve already told you what I’m going to do with those corduroys,’’ Abe replied, going back to work. “I’ve made my plans for those corduroys. I’m going to keep them, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Bert turned around and walked toward the road, glancing over his shoulder at the attic window where his pants were hanging. He stopped and looked at Abe several minutes, but Abe was busy hammering nails into the new step he was making and he paid no attention to Bert. Bert went back down the road, wondering how he was goingto get along without his other pair of pants.
By the time Bert reached his house he was quite mad. In the first place, he did not like the way Abe Mitchell had ordered him away from his old farm, but most of all he missed his other pair of corduroys. And by bedtime he could not sit still. He walked around the kitchen mumbling to himself and trying to think of some way by which he could get his trousers away from Abe.
“Those Democrats never were no good,” he mumbled to himself.
Half an hour later he was walking up the road toward his old farm. He had waited until he knew Abe was asleep, and now he was going to get into the house and go up attic and bring out the corduroys.
Bert felt in the dark for the loose window in the barn and discovered it could be opened just as he had expected. He had had good intentions of nailing it down, for the past two or three years, and now he was glad he had left it loose. He went through the barn and got into the house.
Abe had gone to bed about nine o’clock, and he was sound asleep when Bert listened at the door.
Bert found the corduroy pants, with no trouble at all. He struck only one match up attic, and the pants were hanging on the first nail he went to. He had taken off his shoes when he climbed through the barn window and he knew his way through the house with his eyes shut. Getting into the house and out again was just as easy as he had thought it would be. And as long as Abe was asleep, he was safe.
In another minute he was out in the barn again putting on his shoes and holding his pants under his arm He had played a good joke on Abe Mitchell, all right. He went home and got into bed.
The next morning Abe Mitchell drove his car up to the front of Bert’s house and got out. Bert saw him from his window and went to meet Abe at the door. He was wearing the other pair of corduroys, the pair that Abe had said he was going to keep for himself.
“I’ll have you arrested for stealing my pants,” Abe announced as soon as Bert opened the door, “but if you want to give them back to me now I might consider calling off the charges. It’s up to you what you want to do about it.’’
“That’s all right,” Bert said. “When we get to court I’ll show you that I’m just as big a man as you think you are. I’m not afraid of what you’ll do. Go ahead and have me arrested, but if they lock you up in place of me, don’t come begging me to go your bail for you.”
“Well, if that’s the way you think about it,” Abe said, getting red in the face, “I’ll swear out a warrant right now and they’ll put you in the jail before bedtime tonight.”
“They’ll know where to find me,” Bert said, closing the door. “I generally stay pretty close to home.”
Abe went out to his car and got inside. He started the engine, and promptly shut it off again.
“Come out here a minute, Bert,” he called.
Bert studied him for several minutes through the crack in the door and then went out into the yard.
“Why don’t you go and swear out the warrant? What are you waiting for now?”
“Well, I thought I’d tell you something, Bert. It will save you and me both a lot of time and money if you’d go to court right now and save the cost of having a man come out here to serve the warrant on you.”
“You must take me for a fool, Abe Mitchell,’’ Bert said. “Do I look like a fool to pay ten dollars for a hired car to take me to a jail?”
Abe thought to himself several minutes, glancing at Bert.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Bert’’ he proposed. “Get in my car and I’ll take you there and you won’t have to pay ten dollars for a hired car.’’
Bert took out his pipe and tobacco. Abe waited while he thought the proposition over. Bert could not find a match, so Abe handed him one.
“You’ll do that, won’t you, Bert?’’ he asked.
“Don’t hurry me — I need plenty of time to think this over in my mind.”
Abe waited, bending nervously toward Bert. The match broke and Abe promptly gave Bert another one.
‘‘I guess I can do it for you this time,’’ he said, at last. “Wait until I lock up my house.”
When Bert came back to the car Abe started the engine and turned around in the road towards the town. Bert sat beside him sucking his pipe. Neither of them had anything to say to each other all the time they were riding. Abe drove as fast as he could, because he was in a hurry to get Bert arrested and the trial started.
When they reached the courthouse, they went inside and Abe swore out the warrant and had it served on Bert. The sheriff took them into the courtroom and told Bert to wait in a seat on the first row of benches. The sheriff said they-could get a hearing some lime that same afternoon. Abe found a seat and sat down to wait.
In an hour Bert’s case was called to trial. Somebody read out his name and told him to stand up. Abe sat still, waiting until he was called to give his testimony. -
Bert stood up while the charge was being read to him. When it was over, the judge asked him if he wanted to plead guilty or not guilty.
“Not guilty,” Bert said.
Abe jumped off his seat and waved his arms.

“He’s lying!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “He’s lying — he did steal my pants!”
“That’s the man who swore out the warrant,” the clerk said. “He’s the one who claims the pants were stolen from him.”
“Well, if he yells out like that again,” the judge said, “I’ll swear out a warrant against him for giving me a headache. And I guess somebody had better tell him there’s such a thing as contempt of court. He looks like a Democrat, so I suppose he never heard of anything like that before.’’
The judge rapped for order and bent over towards Bert.
“Did you steal a pair of corduroy pants from this man?” he asked.
“They were my pants,’’ Bert explained. “I left them in my house when I sold it to Abe Mitchell and when I asked him for them he wouldn’t return them to me. I didn’t steal them. They belonged to me all the time.”
“He’s lying!” Abe shouted again, jumping up and down. “He stole my pants — he’s lying!’’
“Ten dollars for contempt of court,” the judge said, “and the case dismissed for lack of evidence.’’

Abe got red in the face. He looked first at the judge and then around the courtroom at the strange people.
“You’re not going to make me pay ten dollars, are you?” he demanded angrily.
“No,” the judge said, standing up again. “I made a mistake. I forgot that you are a Democrat. I meant to say twenty-five dollars.’’
Bert went outside and waited at the car until Abe paid his fine. In a quarter of an hour Abe came out of the courthouse.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to give you a ride back home,’’ he said, starting the engine. “But what I ought to do is to leave you here and let you ride home in a hired car.”
Bert said nothing at all. He sat down beside Abe and they drove out of town toward home.
It was almost dark when Abe stopped the car in front of Bert’s house. Bert got out and shut the door.
“I’m very much obliged for the ride,’’ he said. “I’ve been wanting to take such a trip for a year or more. I’m glad you asked me to go along with you, Abe, but I don’t see how the trip was worth twenty-five dollars to you.”
Abe started the engine and turned around down the road toward his place. He left Bert standing beside the mailbox rubbing his hands over his corduroy pants.
“Abe Mitchell ought to have better sense than to be a Democrat,’’ Bert said, going into his house.

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	\|	I. Read the story. Find the situations in which the following expressions were used.

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