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.