________________________________________________
_ During three days the couple walked upon air, with their heads in
the clouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings;
they saw all things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped
in dreams, often they did not hear when they were spoken to;
they often did not understand when they heard; they answered confusedly
or at random; Sally sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard,
and furnished soap when asked for candles, and Aleck put the cat
in the wash and fed milk to the soiled linen. Everybody was stunned
and amazed, and went about muttering, "What CAN be the matter
with the Fosters?"
Three days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy turn,
and for forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been booming.
Up--up--still up! Cost point was passed. Still up--and up--
and up! Cost point was passed. STill up--and up--and up!
Five points above cost--then ten--fifteen--twenty! Twenty points
cold profit on the vast venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers
were shouting frantically by imaginary long-distance, "Sell! sell!
for Heaven's sake SELL!"
She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said,
"Sell! sell--oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth!--
sell, sell!" But she set her iron will and lashed it amidships,
and said she would hold on for five points more if she died for it.
It was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic crash,
the record crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom fell out
of Wall Street, and the whole body of gilt-edged stocks dropped
ninety-five points in five hours, and the multimillionaire was seen
begging his bread in the Bowery. Aleck sternly held her grip
and "put up" as long as she could, but at last there came a call
which she was powerless to meet, and her imaginary brokers sold
her out. Then, and not till then, the man in her was vanished,
and the woman in her resumed sway. She put her arms about her
husband's neck and wept, saying:
"I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it. We are paupers!
Paupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings will never come off;
all that is past; we could not even buy the dentist, now."
A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: "I BEGGED you to sell,
but you--" He did not say it; he had not the heart to add a hurt
to that broken and repentant spirit. A nobler thought came to him
and he said:
"Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested
a penny of my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized future;
what we have lost was only the incremented harvest from that future
by your incomparable financial judgment and sagacity. Cheer up,
banish these griefs; we still have the thirty thousand untouched;
and with the experience which you have acquired, think what you will
be able to do with it in a couple years! The marriages are not off,
they are only postponed."
These are blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were, and their
influence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her great spirit
rose to its full stature again. With flashing eye and grateful heart,
and with hand uplifted in pledge and prophecy, she said:
"Now and here I proclaim--"
But she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and proprietor
of the SAGAMORE. He had happened into Lakeside to pay a duty-call upon
an obscure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of her pilgrimage,
and with the idea of combining business with grief he had looked up
the Fosters, who had been so absorbed in other things for the past
four years that they neglected to pay up their subscription.
Six dollars due. No visitor could have been more welcome. He would
know all about Uncle Tilbury and what his chances might be getting
to be, cemeterywards. They could, of course, ask no questions,
for that would squelch the bequest, but they could nibble around on
the edge of the subject and hope for results. The scheme did not work.
The obtuse editor did not know he was being nibbled at; but at last,
chance accomplished what art had failed in. In illustration of something
under discussion which required the help of metaphor, the editor said:
"Land, it's a tough as Tilbury Foster!--as WE say."
It was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor noticed,
and said, apologetically:
"No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just a joke,
you know--nothing of it. Relation of yours?"
Sally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered with all
the indifference he could assume:
"I--well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him." The editor
was thankful, and resumed his composure. Sally added: "Is he--
is he--well?"
"Is he WELL? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five years!"
The Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like joy.
Sally said, non-committally--and tentatively:
"Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape--not even the rich
are spared."
The editor laughed.
"If you are including Tilbury," said he, "it don't apply.
HE hadn't a cent; the town had to bury him."
The Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and cold.
Then, white-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:
"Is it true? Do you KNOW it to be true?"
"Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't
anything to leave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me.
It hadn't any wheel, and wasn't any good. Still, it was something,
and so, to square up, I scribbled off a sort of a little obituarial
send-off for him, but it got crowded out."
The Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it could
contain no more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things
but the ache at their hearts.
An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless, silent,
the visitor long ago gone, they unaware.
Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed at each
other wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to twaddle
to each other in a wandering and childish way. At intervals they
lapsed into silences, leaving a sentence unfinished, seemingly either
unaware of it or losing their way. Sometimes, when they woke
out of these silences they had a dim and transient consciousness
that something had happened to their minds; then with a dumb
and yearning solicitude they would softly caress each other's
hands in mutual compassion and support, as if they would say:
"I am near you, I will not forsake you, we will bear it together;
somewhere there is release and forgetfulness, somewhere there
is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long."
They lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding,
steeped in vague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking;
then release came to both on the same day.
Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind
for a moment, and he said:
"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare.
It did us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures;
yet for its sake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life--
let others take warning by us."
He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of death
crept upward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading from
his brain, he muttered:
"Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon us,
who had done him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning
calculation he left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try
to increase it, and ruin our life and break our hearts. Without added
expense he could have left us far above desire of increase, far above
the temptation to speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it;
but in him was no generous spirit, no pity, no--"
***
-THE END-
Bequest by Mark Twain _
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