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A Jerome, Poor Man: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 17 |
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_ Chapter XVII The paper which Lawyer Eliphalet Means, standing at the battered and hacked old desk whereon Cyrus Robinson made out his accounts, drew up with a sputtering quill pen--at which he swore under his breath--was as fully elaborated and as formal in every detail as his legal knowledge could make it. Apostrophizing it openly, before he began, as damned nonsense, he was yet not without a certain delight in the task. It was quite easy to see that Simon Basset, whatever motive he might have had in his proposition, was beyond measure terrified at its acceptance. With his bristling chin dropping nervously, and his forehead contracted with anxious wrinkles, he questioned Jerome. "Look at here," he said, with a tight clutch on Jerome's sleeve, "I want to know, young man. There ain't no property anywheres in your family, is there? There ain't no second nor third nor fourth cousins out West anywheres that's got property?" "No, there are not," said Jerome, impatiently shaking off his hand. "Your father didn't have no uncle that had money?" "I tell you there isn't a dollar in the family that I know of," cried Jerome. "I have nothing to do with all this, and I want you to understand it. All I said was, and I say it now, if in any way any money should ever fall to me, I would give it away; and I will, whether anybody else does or not." "You don't mean money you earn; you mean money that falls to you--" "I mean if ever I get enough money in a lump to make me rich," replied Jerome, doggedly. "I want to know how much money you are goin' to call rich," demanded Simon Basset. "Ten thousand dollars," replied Jerome, whose estimate of wealth was not large. Simon Basset cried out with sharp protest at that, and Doctor Prescott evidently agreed with him. "Any man might scrape together ten thousand dollars," said Basset. "Lord! he might steal that much." The amount of wealth which the document should specify was finally fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars, which was, moreover, to come into Jerome's possession in full bulk and during the next ten years, or the obligation would be null and void. Basset also insisted upon the stipulation that Jerome, in his giving, should not include his immediate family. "I've seen men shift their purses into women folks' pockets, an' take 'em out again, when they got ready, before now," he said. "I ain't goin' to have no such gum-game as that played." That proposition met with some little demur, though not from Jerome. "Might just as well say I wouldn't agree not to give mother and Elmira the moon, if it fell to me," he said to Squire Merritt. The Squire nodded. "Let 'em put it any way they want to," he said; "it can't hurt you any. Means knows what he's about. I tell you that old fox of a Basset feels as if the dogs were after him." The Squire was highly amused, but Jerome did not regard it as quite a laughing matter. He wondered angrily if they were making fun of him, and would have flown out at the whole of them, with all his young impetuosity, had not Squire Eben restrained him. "Easy, boy, easy," he whispered. "It won't do you any harm." The instrument, as drawn up by Lawyer Means, also stipulated, at Simon Basset's insistence, that the said twenty-five thousand dollars should come into Jerome's possession within ten years from date, and be given away by him within one month's time after his acquisition of the same. Lawyer Means, without objection, filed carefully all Basset's precautionary conditions; then he proceeded to make it clearly evident, with no danger of quibble, that "in case the said Jerome Edwards should comply with all the said conditions, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, Esquire, of Upham Corners, do covenant and engage by these presents to remise, release, give, and forever quitclaim, each of the aforesaid, one-quarter of the property of which he may at the time of the acquisition by the said Jerome Edwards of the said twenty-five thousand dollars, stand possessed, to all those persons of adult age residing within the boundaries of the town of Upham Corners who shall not own at the time of said acquisition homesteads free of encumbrance and the sum of twelve thousand dollars in bank, to be divided among the aforesaid in equal measure. "In witness whereof we, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, have hereunto set our hands and seals," etc. This document, being duly signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of the witnesses John Jennings, Eben Merritt, Esquire, and Cyrus Robinson, was stored away in the pocket of Lawyer Eliphalet Means's surtout, to be later locked safely in his iron box of valuables. Simon Basset's writing lore was limited, being, many claimed, confined to the ability to sign his name, and even that seemed likely in this case to fail him. Simon Basset faltered as if he had forgotten either his name or his spelling, and it was truly a strange signature when done, full of sharp slants of rebellion and curves of indecision. As for Doctor Seth Prescott, who had sat aloof, with a fine withdrawn majesty, all through the discussion, when it was signified to him that everything was in readiness for his signature he arose, went to the desk amid a hush of attention, and signed his name in characters like the finest copper-plate. Then he went out of the store without a word, and the minister, forgetting his quarter of tea, slid after him as noiselessly as his shadow. Lawyer Means, when once out in the frosty night with his three mates, bound at last for cards and punch, shook his long sides with husky merriment. "I tell you," he said, "if I were worth enough, I'd give every dollar of the twenty-five thousand to that boy before morning, just for the sake of seeing Prescott and Basset." "Of course, when it comes to a question of legality, that document isn't worth the paper it's written on," the Colonel said, chuckling. "Of course," replied the lawyer, dryly. "Basset didn't know it, though, nor Jerome, nor scarcely a soul in the store beside." "Doctor Prescott did." "I suppose so, or he wouldn't have signed." "Do you think the boy would live up to his part of the bargain?" asked the Colonel, who, being somewhat gouty of late years, limped slightly on the frozen ground. "I'd stake every cent I've got in the world on it," cried Squire Eben Merritt, striding ahead--"every cent, sir!" "Well, there's no chance of his being put to the test," said Lamson. "Chance!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Good heavens! You might as well talk of his chance of inheriting the throne of the Caesars. I know the Edwards family, and I know Jerome's mother's family, root and branch, and there isn't five thousand dollars among them down to the sixth cousins; and as for the boy's accumulating it himself--where are the twenty-five thousand dollars in these parts for him to accumulate in ten years? You might as well talk of his discovering a gold-mine in that famous wood-lot. But I'll be damned if Basset wasn't as much scared as if the poor fellow had been jingling the gold in his pocket. If Jerome Edwards _does_, through the Lord or the devil, get twenty-five thousand dollars, I hope I shall be alive to see the fun." "Hush," whispered John Jennings; "he is behind us, and I would not have such a generous young heart as that think itself spoken of lightly." "Would he do it?" Colonel Lamson asked, short-winded and reflective. "I'll be damned if he wouldn't!" cried the lawyer. "By the Lord Harry, he would!" cried Squire Eben, each using his favorite oath for confirmation of his opinion. Jerome, following in their tracks with his uncle Ozias, heard perfectly their last remarks, and lagged behind to hear no more, though his heart leaped up to second with fierce affirmation the lawyer and the Squire. "Keep behind them," he whispered to Ozias; "I don't want to listen." "Think you'd give it away if you had it, do ye?" his uncle asked, with his dry chuckle. "I don't _think_--I _know_." "How d'ye know?" "I _know_." "Lord!" "You think I wouldn't, do you?" asked Jerome, angrily. "I'd be more inclined to believe ye if I see ye more generous with what ye've got to give now." Jerome started, and stared at his uncle's face, which, in the freezing moonlight, looked harder, and more possessed of an inscrutable bitterness of wisdom. "What d'ye mean?" he asked, sharply. "What on earth have I got to give, I'd like to know?" Ozias Lamb tapped his head. "How about that?" he asked. "How about the strength you're puttin' into algebry an' Latin? You don't expect ever to learn enough to teach, do ye?" Jerome shook his head. "Well, then it's jest to improve your own mind. Improve your mind--what's that? What good is that goin' to do your fellow-bin's? I tell ye, Jerome, ye ain't givin' away what you've got to give, an' we ain't none of us." "Maybe you're right," Jerome said, after a little. After having left his uncle, he walked more slowly still. Soon the Squire and his friends were quite out of sight. The moonlight was very full and brilliant, the trees were crooked in hard lines, and the snow-drifts crested with white lights of ice; there was no softening of spring in anything, but the young man felt within him one of those flooding stirs of the spirit which every spring faintly symbolizes. A great passion of love and sympathy for the needy and oppressed of his kind, and an ardent defence of them, came upon Jerome Edwards, poor young shoemaker, going home with his sack of meal over his shoulder. Like a bird, which in the spring views every little straw and twig as towards his nest and purpose of love, Jerome would henceforth regard all powers and instrumentalities that came in his way only in their bearing upon his great end of life. On reaching home that night he packed away his algebra and his Latin books on the shelf in his room, and began a new study the next evening. _ |
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