By Lee Pitts

We were all just sitting around the coffee shop lying to one another when for some reason the subject of pinching pennies came up. (Perhaps it was because the check had been sitting on the table for 30 minutes without any of my tightfisted friends with low pockets and short arms making a move for it). One by one we went around the table telling stingy stories about the biggest cheapskates we had ever known. Present company excluded, of course.

Ernie nominated a miserably miserly man he had purchased cattle from in the past. Despite the fact this skinflint was known to carry a wad of cash in his pocket large enough to choke a cow, he was famously frugal.

"I had known this guy for years," recalled Ernie, "and I swear he’d have given me the sleeves off his vest if I’d have asked. In addition to being a rather substantial cattleman he also owned hundreds of acres of citrus. I remember one year we had to drive to several small pastures to see the cattle he had for sale and next to every one was an orange orchard. It was hot, we didn’t have any water with us and I was wilting like an old maid’s wedding bouquet. So at our first stop I asked if I might pick an orange from one of the trees. The tight-fisted cattleman replied, "Not here."

"This happened at each of our next three stops," recalled Ernie. "Always it was the same reply: Not here. Finally we looked at the last set of steers and the cheapskate finally plucked a couple oranges from a tree and gave one to me. By now my curiosity was killing me and so I asked him why we had to wait until we came to this particular orchard? What was so special about these oranges?"

"They belong to my neighbor," the cheap cattleman told Ernie.

Back at the breakfast table Richard replied, "I know who you’re talking about, Ernie. As I recall that fellow later died from a nasty tumble when he fell off his wallet. And while that may be an interesting story, that old cuss had nothing on a guy I used to buy cattle from.

"About once a year he’d call me to come out to his ranch to buy his cull cows. It was the same ritual every year. I’d arrive at the ranch early and join the owner and all his cowboys for breakfast. I always enjoyed talking to Happy, the highly regarded top hand of the outfit, " recalled Richard. "But on this particular day he was not in attendance."

"The parsimonious ranch owner had made his money the "hoard" way, by squeezing every nickel till the buffalo screamed in pain," continued Richard. "And he was not about to fritter away his money, which was always tied up in ready cash, on foolish things like good horses, extravagant salaries or decent food for breakfast."

"After we all had taken a seat at the long breakfast table the coffee was poured and a copy of the morning newspaper was placed in front of the ranch owner," recalled Richard.

"Much to the owner’s dismay, on the front page of that paper was a picture of one of his ranch trucks with his brand and name painted on the door, hanging over an embankment. The caption indicated that the driver of the vehicle was Happy, the top hand, who was currently incarcerated, thus explaining his absence from the table."

"The old rancher was fighting mad," said Richard, "and demanded a phone be brought to him immediately. All of us at the table were quite interested in the phone conversation that followed, although we could only hear half of it. The old rancher said to the policeman on the other end, "I have it on good authority that you are holding one of my men. I’ll have you know he is a deeply valued employee, a vital part of my ranch operation and like a family member to me. I don’t know how we will get our work done without him. I was wondering how much it would cost to bail him out immediately?"