Joshua had never before made such a long speech in all their married life, and his wife, fairly awed by his earnestness, said no more, but turning away, took the private pathway homeward that led through the meadow and garden, closing the gap in the wall with brush as she went, for soon now she would have no longer any right to come and go.
That afternoon as Lammy came home from school he saw in the distance his father and the ox-team taking the last load along the highway, and as he realized how soon the auction would take place, his heart sank and his feet dragged heavily along. Turning to take a short cut through the lane, he came face to face with an old coloured man with snow-white, woolly hair, who was scratching up the leaves with his cane, in search of chestnuts.
His name was Nebuchadnezzar Lucky, or Old Lucky, as he was called for short, and he was the husband of Dinah, who was general factotum of the village, and supported her man, who was double her age, by cooking, nursing, or housecleaning, as the season or circumstances demanded, absolutely taking pride in the fact, as if it was his right and his due. For was not Old Lucky a superior being who made charms, brewed herb medicines, and told fortunes, in addition to having turns of “seeing things,” which caused him to be regarded with awe by children and the credulous of all ages, even in this prim New England town where witches were once burned?
“Howdy, Massa Lammy? ’Pears like the squir’ls and chippin monkeys has got all the chestnuts this season, and dey ain’t left one for old Uncle Lucky to bile soft so’s him can eat ’em. You ain’t got a handful laid up you could spare ’thout missin’, I reckon now?” And the old man gave a persuasive, yet terrifying leer with eyes that were so badly crossed that they fairly seemed tangled.
An idea struck Lammy, as the tales of Lucky’s power came back to him, for even the practical folk who scoffed, allowed that there was something queer in it. He would consult the old man as to what hecould do to get the fruit farm and Bird back at the same time. But stop! Where was the money to come from? For it was well known among his customers that Lucky could not “see things” until he had rubbed his eyelids with a piece of silver. Lammy’s money was all in the bank. Ah! he had it! John O’More’s silver dollar that was hidden away in Bird’s paint-box!
Away he flew like a scurrying rabbit, leaving Old Lucky muttering in amazement, and in a half-hour returned, carrying a salt-bag full of chestnuts in one hand and the coin wrapped in paper in the other.
The old man, by this time having grown tired of his useless hunt for nuts, had gone home, and Lammy followed him to his cabin that was perched on the edge of the bank overhanging the mill stream. Lucky was sitting in an arm-chair by the window when Lammy entered and stammered out his wish and request for advice, at the same time offering his bag of nuts and the coin which he first polished on his trousers.
If Lucky was surprised at the size of the offering, his usual fee being a quarter, while he never refused a dime, he did not show it, but felt the money carefully, passed it across his dim eyes, munched a nut or two, and falling back in his chair, covered hishead with a red and yellow handkerchief and began to mutter, beckoning Lammy to come near and listen, which he did, scarcely daring to breathe. The mutterings went on for several minutes, and then took the form of words.
“Take—a—shotgun,” said the voice in a tone meant to be hollow, but which stopped at being cracked, “load him wif bullets you make umsself, go up on de churchyard hill and shoot der shadder of a Christmas tree on a—black,—dark night,—an’ den,—an’ den—”
“Then what?” besought Lammy, in an agony of suspense.
“Den you’ll hear sumpfin’!” shouted Lucky, suddenly pulling the handkerchief from his face and fixing Lammy with a cross-eyed stare that was paralyzing.
“But recommember,” Lucky added, shaking his forefinger ominously, “make dem bullets out o’ sumpfin’ yo’ find, not bought nor lead uns, but sumpfin’ white like silver, or dis year charm hit won’t work.”
“Butwhereshall I find it?” gasped Lammy, so much in earnest that he did not realize the absurdity of what the old man said.
This question seemed to take the magician outof his depth, and annoyed him not a little. After casting his eyes helplessly about, they chanced to rest on the stream below the window, when he quickly closed them and whispered, “Yo’ must look in water—not in a pond, but in running water!” after which he refused to say another word.
When Lammy reached home, his mother was setting the supper on the table, while his father and brothers were going over the same old arguments as to the possibility or impossibility of buying the fruit farm. Lammy smiled to himself as he lifted Twinkle to his shoulder and then put the dog on a chair beside him, his usual place at meal-times, where he waited, one ear up and one down, until it was time to be fed.
No one noticed how red the boy’s cheeks were and how his eyes shone, as he hurried from supper to learn his lessons, that he might have time in the morning to begin his search for metal for the magic bullets before going to school. He thought if he had the material, all else would be easy, for there was an old bullet-mould in the workroom in the barn, where mending was done, also an iron pot that had been used for melting solder.
He did not tell his mother of his plan, not that he meant in any way to deceive her; but if sheknew nothing, the surprise at the result would be all the greater.
For the next two or three days Lammy went up and down the river banks from the Mill Farm to the upper fork, apparently as aimlessly as in the time that he was dubbed “Look-out Johnny,” and the neighbours nodded, and said, “The brace he got fightin’ didn’t last,—he’s trampin’ again,” while his mother took it to heart and thought it was because he was grieving for Bird, as they had heard nothing definite or satisfactory from her for more than a month, and then only a few words on a card inquiring for Twinkle.
When Saturday came, Lammy started off in the morning early, asking his mother for a lunch to carry with him, which was nothing unusual. This day, instead of heading downstream, he started above the mill and followed the river up toward the woods. All the forenoon he looked here and there, and after eating his luncheon came out of the woods near where the highway branched and crossed the ford on the way to the bog dumping ground.
He stood there a few minutes, idly watching the dead leaves swirl along, and an occasional fish dart by, when his eyes became fixed upon an objectlying close under a big stone in mid-stream; it glistened as the sun shone upon it, and then turned dull again. Whatever it was, it fascinated him strangely, and jumping from stone to stone, he soon reached it. “Only an old tin pan,” he muttered in disgust; “that won’t make bullets.”
As luck would have it, the stone upon which he stood turned, making him jump splash into the water, kicking the pan as he went. When he recovered himself, he looked about for footing, and there where the pan had been, to his amazement, lying almost at his feet, was the pewter tea-pot!
“However did that get here?” he exclaimed; but the answer was so simple that he guessed it at once. The tea-pot, in company with the pan, had been jolted from the ox-cart in crossing the ford on its way to the dump, and so escaped being swallowed.
“Hurrah!” cried Lammy, picking up the treasure and making his way to land, where he danced about in glee. “This ’ll melt into bullets first rate, and it’s kind of white like silver if it’s cleaned. When it’s melted, pop can’t call it ‘an eyesore’ or a ‘moniment,’ so it’s no harm for me to take it home.”
He could not tell why, but he took off his coatand wrapped it carefully around the tea-pot, and then slipped from the highway into the woods again.
When he reached home, it was still early afternoon. His father was cutting wood in the upper lot, and his mother had gone to Northboro with eggs for her Saturday customers, so Lammy had the place to himself.
First he buried the tea-pot deep in the feed bin, and taking the key of the house from its hiding-place under the door-mat, stole up to his room for dry shoes and socks, as it was a cold day and his sopping feet were already making him shiver and feel tight in the throat. Somehow the possession of the tea-pot gave him an uneasy feeling. Did it really belong to him? He hung about the house for a time, then walked straight out the gate and down to the Squire’s office in the town house. This same “Squire” was a man of education as well as a lawyer, and Lammy’s knock was answered by a cheery “Come in!” which he did, saying, all in one breath and quite reckless of grammar, “Please, sir, if I find anything that’s been took to the dump, but fell off and not been swallowed, would it be mine to make bullets of?”
The Squire looked up from under his bushyeyebrows and smiled at the lad encouragingly. “Certainly it would be yours, my boy; what is intentionally thrown away is fair plunder for any one.” And with a hasty “Thank you, sir,” Lammy was off again with an easy conscience, to find an old axe, break up the tea-pot, and melt it if possible before his parents’ return. Ah, but Lucky’s charm was surely working.
“Strange child that,” said the Squire, looking after him; “he’ll either turn out a fool or a genius. There is no middle path for such as he. I must keep my eye on him.”
WhenLammy reached home he hurried into the barn, carefully closing both door and windows. In looking about for an old axe whose edge would not be hurt by chopping metal, he stumbled over a rusty anvil that was half buried in litter. This he managed to drag into the light; then digging the tea-pot from the feed bin, he began his work.
First he wrenched off the cover and battered it into small pieces, which he put into the solder pot. Chop, chop! the handle gave way next, then the queer sprawling legs. He made several blows at the thick, clumsy, curved spout without hitting it, for his hands trembled with excitement combined with the chill of his wet feet.
Finally he landed a square blow a little above where the spout joined the body, but instead of cutting the metal quite through, the blade wedged, so he dropped the axe and seizing the tea-pot, proceeded to wrench off the spout.
“It’s got tea leaves stuck in it,” he said to himself, as he pulled and twisted at it. “Nope, brown paper,” as a small roll of paper, the size, thickness, and length of a cigarette fell to the floor. To this he paid no attention, but continued to chop at the tea-pot until it was all in bits, tightly packed in the solder pot, and covered with an old plate.
As he went to push back the anvil he stepped on the little bit of rolled-up paper and idly picking it up, turned it between his fingers, but with his mind wholly filled with the making of the magic bullets. It was too late to melt the pewter now; he would have to wait until Monday afternoon. How could he ever eat two more breakfasts, dinners, and suppers with the precious stuff in his possession?
As his hands worked, the stout oiled paper between his fingers unrolled by their warmth, as a leaf unfolds in the heat, and showed something green inside.
Lammy looked, and his heart almost stopped beating, while the sun, moon, and stars seemed to be floating past, trailing cloud petticoats and dancing, for the green stuff was money,—clean, crisp banknotes rolled as hard as a pencil!
Lammy sank down all in a heap on a pile of straw, his eyes closed and his fist clutching thelittle bundle like a vice. It was several minutes before he could steady himself sufficiently to part the tightly twisted roll and count his treasure, which was so compact that he had to use great care. Fortunately the oil paper had kept the money dry in spite of the bath in the river, in addition to a bit of cork that had been rammed tightly into the spout, but which Lammy had not noticed as it dropped out at the first chop.
At last a bill peeled from the roll. Lammy smoothed it out, and rubbed his eyes. Could it be? He had never seen a bank bill for a larger sum than twenty dollars before, but five hundred was printed on this. Then he fell to work in earnest, and after many stops to moisten his fingers, twelve of the green, damp-smelling bits of paper lay spread upon the barn floor, while Lammy was saying over to himself, “Twelve times five are sixty—sixty hundred dollars—ten into sixty six times—six thousand dollars! Oh, mother—Bird—the fruit farm!” he fairly shouted. This then was what Aunt Jimmy’s will had meant, after all.
Gathering the bills into his grimy handkerchief, blackened by polishing the tea-pot, he buttoned them inside his shirt and rushed into the house at the moment his mother was getting out of the chaiseand bringing in the week’s supply of groceries, for which she had traded her eggs.
His father having come home from the wood lot, took the horse to the barn, fed and bedded him immediately,—for old Graylocks never went fast enough to become heated,—and then came to the kitchen sink to make his toilet for supper.
Lammy sat waiting his time by the stove with his feet in the oven door, trying to suppress the shivers that ran through him. Would his mother ever put the things away and stop bustling? They could not have supper until late that night, for the shop where his brothers worked was running over time, and they would not be home before seven.
Mrs. Lane put the potatoes on to fry, arranged the steak in the broiler (she was the only woman in Laurelville who did not fry her meat), and then sat down to rest, keeping one eye upon the clock. Presently she caught sight of Lammy’s face, and promptly jumped up again to grab one of his hands and ask anxiously: “Be you feelin’ sick, Lammy Lane? Your hands is frogs and your cheeks hot coals. I do hope and pray it ain’t goin’ to be a fever spell o’ any kind.”
“Spell be blowed!” said Joshua, who was now seated by the lamp, enjoying his weekly paper.“He’s been a-traipsin’ round all day among them soggy marshes that fairly belches chills in fall o’ the year, on a snack o’ cold food. What he needs is a lining o’ hot vittles; likewise do I.”
But Lammy had left the stove and stood by the table, his hands clasped tightly, and such a strange expression on his face that both his parents were startled.
“I ain’t sick—that is, not much,” he began, “though I’m awfully hungry, but I’ve got something to tell out first.”
Then he began slowly, and told about his visit to Old Lucky and his search for bullet material.
Here his father interrupted him with, “Shucks, Lammy Lane, ain’t you got better sense than to throw away dollars?” but his mother gave Joshua a look, and said: “Don’t you shet him off the track until he’s through. I knew he wasn’t working in his mind like he’s done lately for nothing.”
When he told of chopping up the tea-pot, his father chuckled, but his mother shivered and broke in with, “How could you ever set an axe in it? It seems to me ’bout as bad as cuttin’ up poor Aunt Jimmy for sausages!”
When he came to the end, and pulling out his handkerchief, spread the contents before his parents,Mr. and Mrs. Lane stood grasping the table edge and staring white and wide eyed, until Joshua broke the silence with “Jehosophat! Nancy Hanks! but I’m kneesprung dumbfounded!”
“And you’d better be!” snapped Lauretta Ann, as nearly as shecouldsnap at her husband; “after all you’ve said against the memory of sainted Aunt Jimmy, and sneered and snipped at her will and meanings! Don’t you see now how she fixed things so’s I’d get the farm by biddin’ it in fair without bein’ hashed over in public for gettin’ more’n my equal share?Shetrusted me to fetch that pot home and, by usin’ it daily, find it wouldn’t pour out, as I would have did and diskiver the money. Oh, Joshua, Joshua, let this be a lesson to you an’ all husbands not to browbeat their trustin’ wives, as women’s allers the furthest seein’ sect.”
“Fur seein’, shucks!” snorted Joshua, who had enjoyed his recent authority too well to part with it; “between you and Aunt Jimmy yer’d made a fine mess o’ it, and it took a male, though not a full-grown one, to pull yer out of it, for yer allowed yer’d only stick up the pot for a moniment an’ not use it on account o’ its taste tainting the tea. It sartinly took us men folks to dig yer out o’ it; didn’t it, Lammy?
“Now as we know Aunt Jimmy’s intentions was that this be kept close, close it’ll be kept, and we’d better pack up them bills until we can bank ’em Monday, in case Mis’is Slocum should be drawd to look in the winder to see if we are havin’ a hot or cold supper, and real or crust coffee.”
“But mother,” said Lammy, as soon as he could be heard, “when shall we get Bird back? Need we wait until the auction?”
“Sakes alive, child, I’ll write as soon as I get my head, but there’s two letters unanswered now, and I’m afeared they’ve moved again. Somehow, with all we’ve got to face just now, I think ’twould be better waitin’ until everything’s settled up certain and we’ve got the place safe and sound. Then pa and me and you could kind er celebrate, and take a trip to N’York and get her. I ain’t never been there but onct in my life, an’ that was to a funeral when it wasn’t seemin’ fer me to look about to see things, and it rained and I spoiled my best bunnit. I reckon, now we can afford it, ’twould set us all up to go on a good lively errand o’ mercy, and maybe see a circus too if there’s any there, and eat a dinner bought ready made. Seems to me I should relish some vittles I hadn’t cooked, and to step off without washing the dishes.”
“Say, Lauretta Ann,” drawled Joshua, presently, when Lammy, hugging Twinkle and telling him the news, had gone upstairs to look at Bird’s paint-box, and sit in the dark and think of the bliss of going to New York and surprising her his very self, “who do you calkerlate owns themsix thousand dollars?” rolling the words about in his mouth like a dainty morsel.
“Why, me,—that is we, of course!” she gasped. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong in takin’ it? Ah, Joshua, youdon’tthink there’s any wrong in takin’ it?”
“Yes and no, not that egzactly; but as the Squire gave Lammy the law about things that’s been throwed out, it ’pears to me the find is hisn.”
“Well, if it is, I’m glad, and it’s the Lord’s doin’ anyway. We can put the deed in Lammy’s name, and earn him good schoolin’ out o’ it along o’ little Bird, for nobody knows how I’ve missed that youngster a runnin’ in and out these last months and feeling her head on my shoulder times when she was lonesome, and I mothered her in the rocker before the fire. What with the high school, and the painting school, and the female college over at Northboro, there’s all the eddication she’ll need for years close handy, and it’s no wrong to theothers, for there’s this place for them to divide, and they’re strong and likely.”
“Remember the auction ain’t took place yet, Lauretta Ann, and don’t set too sure.”
“Joshua, the Lord has planned this out; it can’t go astray now.”
“Amen,” said Joshua; “but how about Old Lucky’s spell? and supposin’ Mr. Clarke takes a fancy to bid on the fruit farm. I hear he’s been for land hereabout.”
“Father, I’mshockedat you, and you nephew-in-law to a deacon!”
Mrs. Lane went upstairs to look for Lammy and found him lying across his bed in an uneasy sleep, with Twinkle keeping guard by him, while his fatigue and the soaked boots in the corner told the cause for the illness that was creeping over him.
“Pa,” called Mrs. Lane down the backstairs, in a husky whisper, “do you go for Dr. Jedd without waiting for the boys to come in. Lammy’s chilled and fevered and sweatin’ all to onct, and I can’t read nothing out of such crossway sinktoms. Dear me suz, it does never rain but it pours! Say, Joshua, you’d best fetch that money up here to be put in the iron maple-sugar pot afore you go.”
By the time Dr. Jedd arrived Lammy was in aheavy sleep, from which he roused at the physician’s firm touch on his pulse, and began to talk wildly.
At first he seemed to think that Dr. Jedd was Old Lucky, for he cried, “I gave you the silver dollar and I made the bullets, but when I went to shoot them, they turned into polliwogs and went downstream.” Then raising himself, he shook his pillow violently, saying, “You were a bad man to tell me lies. How could I shoot the shadow of a Christmas tree on a dark night? Cause when it’s dark there are’nt any shadows.”
Next he seemed to imagine that he was tramping over the hills with the surveyors, and he had an argument with himself, as to whether feet made rods or rods feet, and then mumbled something abouta+bthat they could not understand for they did not know that one of his new friends had started him in Algebra.
“He is tired out,” said Dr. Jedd, presently, “and in his mind more than his body. The professor over at the camp told me that he had a great head for mathematics, and was always asking questions and working out sums and things on every scrap of paper he came across, and that when paper gave out he’d smooth a place in the dirt and scratchaway on that with a nail. Said that it was a pity that he couldn’t go to the Institute at Northboro and be fitted for the School of Mines in New York. Told me if he ever did, he could put him in the way of free tuition at least.”
“The pewter tea-pot! Take Bird out of the pewter tea-pot; she’s stuck in the spout, and when you chop it off, it will kill her!” shrieked Lammy, jumping out of bed.
Dr. Jedd gave him some quieting medicine, and he soon sank back among the pillows, with a burning red spot of fever on each cheek.
“Is it typhoid?” asked Mrs. Lane, her face white and drawn; “Janey died of that.”
“It is a fever, but I cannot be quite sure of exactly which one,” said the doctor, opening a little case he carried and taking out a fine needlelike instrument and a bottle of alcohol. “If I wait to know until it develops, we shall be losing time; if I prick his finger and send a drop of blood to Dr. Devlin in Northboro, who makes a study of such things, he will look at it through his microscope and tell me in the morning exactly where we stand.” So after washing a spot clean with alcohol he took the little red drop that tells so much to the really wise physician and prevents all the mistakes ofguess-work, and then began to prepare some medicines and write his directions for the night.
“Is there any one you would like me to send up to stay with you, Mrs. Lane?” the doctor asked as he prepared to leave. “This may be a tedious illness, and it won’t do for you to wear yourself out in the beginning.”
“Byme-by, perhaps,” Mrs. Lane replied “but not jest now while he talks so wild. You know, doctor, how the best of folks will repeat and spy. Joshua ain’t overbusy, and he’ll help me out.”
“What is that thing hanging round Lammy’s neck by a string under his shirt that he has such a tight hold of?”
“It’s the key of the lower one of his chest of drawers; he keeps odds and ends in it that he sets store by, and I guess he’s lost it so many times that he’s took to hanging it on safe by a string.”
The next afternoon when Dr. Jedd came, the smile on his face reassured Mrs. Lane even before he said: “No, it isn’t typhoid—merely plain malaria, and his worrying so much about Bird has made him light-headed. What has become of the child? Tired as she was in the spring, I would not answer for her little wild-wood ladyship after a hot summer in the city.”
Then Mrs. Lane told sadly of the frequent invitations and the unanswered letters.
“I’m going to town for a little vacation after the holidays, and I will look her up myself,” said the doctor, cheerily.
******
It was many weeks after the night that Lammy chopped up the pewter tea-pot and made his wonderful discovery before the fever left him, and then he felt so limp and weak that after sitting up a few minutes he was glad to crawl into bed again. His mind had only wandered during the first two or three days, but frequently he would wake up with a start from troubled sleep and ask his mother anxiously if it was really true about the tea-pot or only a dream. He was bitterly disappointed when the night before the auction came and the doctor told him that he must not go, even though his big brother Nellis had offered to put the great arm-chair in the cart and take him down in that way, all wrapped in comfortables. For the doctor said the excitement of thinking of the matter was enough without being there.
On his way out, Dr. Jedd spent a few moments before he went home, chatting to Joshua in the kitchen.
“To-morrow the tug of war is coming, Joshua,” said the doctor; “all of your neighbours wish you well and set great store by your wife, and we hate to think of seeing strangers in the fruit farm. If you can think up any way that we could accommodate or help you out to buy it, why, just speak out. If the two thousand dollars Miss Jemima left my wife would make any difference to you, she bid me say that, as she knows your dread of mortgages, she would loan it on your note of hand,” at the same time holding out his own toward Joshua as if it already held the proffered money.
Joshua’s honest face flushed with pleasure at the implied trust, yet he could hardly keep the smile from his lips and a mysterious twinkle from his eyes as he shook the doctor’s hand heartily and answered: “We’re much obleeged, and we’ll never forget that you and Mis’is Jedd held us well enough in esteem to make the offer, but I reckon the only way we could come to own the fruit farm would be by buying it out fair and square. I don’t say but I’d be downhearted to see it go by me, especially to ’Biram Slocum, for they’ve been days, doc, when I’ve even kind o’ pictured out the two farms, ourn and it, joined fast by your sellin’me that wood bluff that runs in between from the highway. But you know the sayin’, doc, ‘Man proposes, woman disposes,’ and all that.”
This time the doctor caught the wink that Joshua’s near eye gave in spite of itself, but thought that it referred to Aunt Jimmy’s peculiarities.
“Well,” said the doctor, deliberately, a genial smile spreading over his features, “one thing I’ll do to help out your picturing, as you call it. If luck should turn so that you buy the fruit farm, I’ll sell you the wood knoll for what I gave for it, and that’s the first time I ever considered parting with it, though I’ve had no end of good offers.”
“Here’s the boys jest come home in time to witness that there remark o’ yourn. Ain’t yer gettin’ kind er rash ’n’ hasty, doc?”
“No, Joshua, the more witnesses, the better,” and the two men went out the door, toward the fence where the doctor’s chaise was tied, laughing heartily.
As to the boys, they were completely bewildered, for not a word did they know, or would until after the auction, and they had not the remotest idea that their father even dreamed of bidding on the fruit farm.
Thestrain that Lammy had been under ever since the reading of Aunt Jimmy’s will had told on him in a way that only his mother understood, and after the stubborn malarial fever itself was routed, he felt, as he said, “like the bones in my legs is willer whistles,” so Dinah Lucky was engaged to stay with him on the morning of the long talked of auction sale. He would have preferred some one else, for Dinah was a great talker, and his head still felt tired, but she was the only trustworthy person in the entire neighbourhood who for either friendship or money would consent to miss the auction.
According to the terms of the notice that had appeared in the local papers and been posted in a ten-mile circuit from Milltown to Northboro, the sale conducted by Joel Hill, auctioneer, was to be held on the fruit farm itself at ten o’clock on the morning of Thursday, December the ninth, “by order of Joshua Lane, Executor.”
When the day came, it was bitterly cold, though clear; a two-days old snow-storm followed by sleet had crusted well, and the walking and sleighing were both good, yet Joshua Lane was surprised when he went down to the fruit farm at nine o’clock in the morning to sweep off the porch and light a fire in the kitchen stove, which still remained on the premises for cooking chickens’ food, to see many teams already hitched to the fence, the horses well muffled in blankets. People afoot were also going toward the barn, where a Hungarian, who was retained to tend the stock and act as watchman, had a room and fire which, together with what information they could extract from him, was what they sought.
As the man said, “Yah! ha!” equally loud to every question, Joshua thought no harm could come from that quarter, and proceeded to open the blinds of the kitchen windows and make such preparations as he could for protecting the audience from the cold.
By half-past nine the kitchen, sitting room, north parlours, all bare of furniture, and the stairs were packed with standing people, and when, at a few minutes before ten, the auctioneer and the Northboro lawyer, Mr. Cole, who had made Aunt Jimmy’s will, appeared together, they had to push their way into the house.
Mrs. Slocum had been on hand early, of course,—she always was,—and kept dropping mysterious remarks and pursing up her lips. She began by cheapening the entire place, saying the house was not in as good repair as she had been led to think, that the wall papers were frights, and that everything needed paint, that four thousand dollars would be a high price for the property, and she didn’t know who’d buy it anyway. Then the next minute she was requesting those about her not to crowd up the stairs, as they might bend the hand rail, which would be just so much out of the pocket of whoever bought the house, adding that red Brussels carpet was her choice for the north room.
To the surprise of all, the two out-of-town Lane brothers, Jason and Henry, were not there. The “all in due time” policy that had always, and would always, keep Henry poor, caused them to start for the auction so late that the delay on the road caused by a broken trace detained them until nearly eleven, when they turned about and went home again so as not to be late for dinner.
After reading the description of the property and the cash terms of the sale, Joel Hill stood up on a soap-box that he might overlook the assembly and called out, “What am I bid, to start?”
There was complete silence for a few moments. Then the door opened, and Mr. Brotherton, one of Mr. Clarke’s agents from Northboro, entered, causing a flutter of speculation as to what his presence might mean and making Mrs. Lane’s heart thump painfully. Dr. Jedd and his wife, the minister and his lady, together with Mrs. Lane, who were occupying a bench that had been brought from the barn, and were the only people seated, looked at the stove in front of them, so that those who expected a bid from that quarter were disappointed.
Joshua Lane, hands behind him, leaned against the chimney front and gazed steadily at a wire that held the stove-pipe in place.
“What am I bid, to start?” repeated the auctioneer. Abiram Slocum, scanning the various groups with his ferret eyes, moved uneasily, moistened his lips, and, as his wife gave him a prod with her umbrella that exactly hit the “funny bone” of his elbow, jerked out, “Five hundred dollars.”
“One thousand,” said a clear, distinct, but unfamiliar, voice at the back of the room. There was a unanimous turning of heads and twisting of bodies toward the bidder, who proved to be Mr. Cole the lawyer from Northboro, who made a very impressive appearance, clad as he was in a handsome fur-linedovercoat and a shiny silk hat. As he was also often employed by Mr. Clarke, the mystery deepened.
Abiram Slocum gasped as if some one had poured a pail of water over him at this unexpected competitor, and then called, “One thousand two hundred and fifty.”
“Two thousand,” from the lawyer.
“Two thousand and fifty,” shrieked Abiram.
“Why waste time with small change a cold morning like this?” called the auctioneer.
“Three thousand,” said the lawyer.
“Three thousand three hundred,” snapped Abiram, vainly endeavouring to get out of range of the faces and gestures his wife was making at him.
“Four thousand five hundred,” jumped the lawyer, beginning to button his coat and draw on his gloves, as if the end were well in sight.
Abiram Slocum seemed bewildered, and glancing at his wife, failed to read her signal aright, and resorted to a hoarse whispering in the middle of which she shook him off and shouted with an air of triumph, “Five thousand dollars!”
Mrs. Lane was seen to moisten her lips nervously, and the colour in her cheeks deepened, but then by this time the wood-stove was sending forth red-hotair as only a sheet-iron stove working full blast knows how.
“Five thousand two hundred and fifty,” bid the lawyer. Then followed an altercation between Mr. and Mrs. Slocum. Vainly the auctioneer rapped; they paid no attention, and upon the lawyer saying that any further delay would cause a withdrawal of his bid, the final “Going, going, gone, at five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars” was called, and it was not until fully twenty seconds after the final bang of the hammer that the Slocums came to, and Abiram fairly yelled, “Six—thousand—dollars!”
Of course it was too late, and the fault was nobody’s but his own. He tried to protest and was actually hissed down, Laurelville folk preferring to see the property go anywhere so long as Mrs. Slocum was not mistress of the fruit farm.
“Name of buyer?” asked the auctioneer; “self or client?”
“Client,” said the lawyer, slowly adjusting his eyeglasses and glancing at a slip of paper, while dead silence again prevailed, and the Slocums glared forked lightning at each other and the world in general.
“The purchase is made by Lauretta Ann Lane,as guardian for her son, Samuel Lane, and she is prepared to deposit the price in cash, pending searching of the title and transfer of deed.”
There was a shuffle as the people, released from the strain, shifted from one numb foot to the other, and then cheers broke out, for above curiosity and all other feeling was one of joy that their kind, hard-working neighbour had in some mysterious way received what they firmly believed to be her due.
When the applause had subsided and the general handshaking ceased, Lauretta Ann Lane pulled a large new wallet from some mysterious place in her dress, and counting out eleven clean five-hundred-dollar bills held them toward the auctioneer, saying, “I’ll trouble you for the change, please,” adding in a low yet perfectly distinct voice to an irate figure who was elbowing her way out, and meeting many obstacles in so doing, “That change ’ll come in right handy for new papers, paint, and furnishings that you said was needful, and I think a red Brussels carpetwouldliven up that north room wonderful. That same was your choice, waren’t it, Mis’is Slocum?”
How it all came about the village never discovered; for whatever the lawyer knew orthought, hekept it to himself and said the opposite, which is, of course, what lawyers are for.
Dr. Jedd was the only one who suspected in the right direction; for soon after the Lanes had moved into their new home, and curiosity had subsided, he was looking on the parlour mantel-shelf for the matches, and discovered the chopped remains of the pewter tea-pot reposing in a handsome china jar that was bought in New York. But Dr. Jedd only chuckled as the whole thing flashed across him, and he said to himself, “Surely enough, man proposes and woman disposes, and there’s a various lot of human nature in woman, especially Aunt Jimmy, who was a blessed, good, spunky, old fool.”
One final sensation was given the neighbourhood when it was found that, after the payment of the legacies and other charges against the estate, there was enough surplus to give the three Lane brothers over three thousand dollars each, legal allotment.
AsMrs. Lane was hurrying home from the auction, that Lammy need not be kept in suspense a moment longer than was necessary, she bumped into Abiram Slocum, who was trudging moodily along the road. His wife had left the house first, and in her anger appropriated the cutter and gone home, leaving him to walk.
Mrs. Lane intended to go by without speaking, and merely gave a civil nod, but he would not allow it; his ugly mood must find vent in words, and as she passed he squared about, saying:—
“You’ve no cause to feel so hoity toity if yerhevgot the fruit farm;there’s underhand business been goin’ on here in Laurelville, if the light o’ truth was let in. Moreover, it’s time that husband o’ yourn as Minstrator of that Irish O’More’s debts should pay me the rent due; the fact of the furniture being burned don’t release him a copper cent’s worth, as he well knows. Tell him from me he’dbest come down and settle up; ter-morrow I reckon to be at the tax office all forenoon, or”—with an evil sneer—“mebbe, as you seem to hold the purse, you’d like to pay the debt out of charity to the girl you bragged o’ being fond of, to save her the name of pauper.”
Mrs. Lane grew hot and cold by turns, and a torrent of words rose to her lips, but the thought of Lammy waiting so patiently checked her in time, and she merely said, “Yes, Abiram Slocum, you’ll hear from us to-morrer.”
As she reached the home gate, she saw Dinah Lucky, who was stationed at the window to give the first word of her return, and at the same time a wild-looking tawny head and a pair of big questioning gray eyes appeared above her fat shoulder, as Lammy steadied himself by the window-frame. Quick as a flash she pulled off her red knitted shawl and waved it joyfully, so that Lammy knew at least two minutes before she could have reached his room to tell him.
Once upstairs, she was obliged to begin at the beginning and tell him the story of the morning in every detail, holding his hand the while as if to convince him that she was real and what she told the plain truth.
Presently Dinah slipped downstairs, saying she would get the dinner and bring them both some upstairs, for she was sure “Missy Lane” must be clear tuckered out.
And so she was, though she had not realized it until that moment and sinking back in the homemade arm-chair, she closed her eyes in a state of perfect peace, and must have dozed, for she awoke with a start to hear Lammy say, “This sort of makes up for the Thanksgiving dinner I missed,” and there upon the various chairs and the bedstand Dinah had spread a dinner tempting as only a coloured “born cook” knows how to make it, while the clashing of knives and forks below told her that Joshua and the boys were provided for (they had all staid at home from the shop to attend the auction) and that this afternoon at least was her own.
After dinner Lammy lay for a long time, looking at the wood fire flickering through the open front of the stove, planning how they would fix Aunt Jimmy’s—or ratherhis—house, as his mother called it, and when they would move. Of course, Lammy wished to go at once—even a week seemed a long delay. Mrs. Lane hesitated, for she had thoughts of waiting until spring; yet, on the other hand, she could not well leave the house empty ortravel up and down to tend the chickens. Aunt Jimmy’s house was by far the easier to heat, and now as they must keep a hired man permanently, he could be put into their present house and everything settle down for a comfortable winter of work, rest, and planning, so she said, much to Lammy’s joy, that she thought they could be in by Christmas and then make the improvements at their leisure.
“Yes, we can wait to paper the rooms—that is, all except Bird’s,” he added. “I’d like to have hers fixed up for her when she comes, white and a paper with wild roses—that’s what she likes, and she made a pattern for one once and was going to send it to the wall-paper man when her father finished the red piney pattern, only he never did.” And Lammy told his mother of Bird’s hopes about her work, ending by taking the string that held the key from about his neck and saying:—
“Please unlock my lower drawer and give me Bird’s bundle that her uncle would not let her take with her; if I can’t see her, I can look at her things. I know she wouldn’t mind, because I went back in through the cellar with her that last day and tied them up; only I didn’t do it very well because there was no good paper and string. I’d like to fix them better and put up the paint-boxby itself,” he said, fumbling with the knots, as his mother, much interested, took a fresh sheet of paper from the press closet behind the bed.
As she reseated herself, the string broke, and the contents of the hastily made bundle were scattered about the bed. Lammy picked up the water-colour drawings carefully, one by one, and smoothed them out with the greatest care. There were a couple of dozen of them, besides those of the wild roses and the peony design, which Mrs. Lane at once recognized from its spirit, even though it was unfinished.
Suddenly Lammy cried out in delight, for there before him was a pen-and-ink sketch of Bird herself, much younger and happier than when he had last seen her, but still his little friend to the life.
“Oh, mother,” he said, as soon as he had feasted his eyes on it, “do you think there could be any harm in putting this up on the mantel-shelf where I could look at it—just for a few days until we go to get Bird back?” And of course his mother assured him that there could be no possible harm. Then, completely satisfied, he laid the sheets of drawing-paper together again and prepared to make them into a neat, flat package.
“You’ve dropped this out,” said his mother,reaching across the bed to pick up something that had slid down between the coverlid and the wall, and laid what seemed to be a letter in a long, heavy, brown manila envelope tied with pink tape in front of Lammy.
“I don’t know what that is,” he said, looking it over; “it must have been between the pictures when we pulled them out of her father’s box, because those were all I saw when I made the bundle up. See, there’s writing on this side,” and holding it up to the light, for the winter twilight was setting in, he read slowly:—
“‘Papers concerning the Turner Mill Farm Property,—to be recorded.’ I wonder what that means.”
Mrs. Lane’s eyes fairly bulged, and great drops of sweat stood on her forehead as she answered: “Means? It means, Lammy Lane, that the Lord don’t forget the orphan, and if Bird O’Moreisin New York, he’s lookin’ after her business right here in Laurelville.