GOOD MANAGEMENT.
Whenever any person dies, leaving property to be divided among
his heirs, and not leaving any valid will to determine the mode of
division, the property as has already been said, must be divided on
certain principles, established by the law of the land, and under
the direction of the Judge of Probate, who has jurisdiction over
the county in which the property is situated. The Judge of Probate
appoints a person to take charge of the property and divide it among
the heirs. This person is called the administrator, or, if a
woman, the administratrix. The Judge gives the administrator or the
administratrix a paper, which authorises him or her to take charge of
the property, which paper is called, "Letters of Administration."
The letters of administration are usually granted to the wife of the
deceased, or to his oldest son, or, if there is no wife or son, to the
nearest heir who is of proper age and discretion to manage the trust.
The person who receives administration is obliged to take a solemn
oath before the Judge of Probate, that he will report to the Judge a
full account of all the property that belonged to the deceased which
shall come to his knowledge. The Judge also appoints three persons to
go and examine the property, and make an inventory of it, and appraise
every article, so as to know as nearly as possible, how much and what
property there is. These persons are called appraisers. The inventory
which they make out is lodged in the office of the Judge of Probate,
where any person who has an interest in the estate can see it at any
time. The administrator usually keeps a copy of the inventory besides.
If among the property left by a person deceased, which is to go in
part to children, there are any houses and lands,--a kind of property
which is called in law _real estate_, to distinguish it from
moveable property, which is called _personal estate_,--such
real estate cannot be sold, in ordinary cases, by the administrator,
without leave from the Judge of Probate. This leave the Judge of
Probate will give in cases where it is clearly best for the children
that the property should be so sold and the _avails of it_ kept
for them, rather than the property itself. All these things Mrs. Bell
explained to Mary Erskine, having learned about them herself some
years before when her own husband died.
Accordingly, a few weeks after Albert died, Mary Erskine went one
day in a wagon, taking the baby with her, and Thomas to drive, to the
county town, where the Probate court was held.
[Illustration: GOING TO COURT.]
At the Probate court, Mary Erskine made all the arrangements necessary
in respect to the estate. She had to go twice, in fact, before all
these arrangements were completed. She expected to have a great deal
of trouble and embarrassment in doing this business, but she did not
find that there was any trouble at all. The Judge of Probate told her
exactly what to do. She was required to sign her name once or twice
to papers. This she did with great trepidation, and after writing her
name, on the first occasion which occurred requiring her signature,
she apologized for not being able to write any better. The Judge of
Probate said that very few of the papers that he received were signed
so well.
Mary Erskine was appointed administratrix, and the Judge gave her
a paper which he said was her "Letters of Administration." What the
Judge gave to her seemed to be only one paper, but she thought it
probable, as the Judge said "Letters" that there was another inside.
When she got home, however, and opened the paper she found that there
was only one. She could not read it herself, her studies having yet
extended no farther than to the writing of her name. The first time,
however, that Mary Bell came to see her, after she received this
document, she asked Mary Bell to read it to her. Mary Bell did so,
but after she had got through, Mary Erskine said that she could not
understand one word of it from beginning to end. Mary Bell said that
that was not strange, for she believed that lawyers' papers were only
meant for lawyers to understand.
The appraisers came about this time to make an inventory of the
property. They went all over the house and barns, and took a complete
account of every thing that they found. They made a list of all the
oxen, sheep, cows, horses, and other animals, putting down opposite
to each one, their estimate of its value. They did the same with the
vehicles, and farming implements, and utensils, and also with all
the household furniture, and the provisions and stores. When they had
completed the appraisement they added up the amount, and found that
the total was a little over four hundred dollars, Mary Erskine was
very much surprised to find that there was so much.
The appraisers then told Mary Erskine that half of that property was
hers, and the other half belonged to the children; and that as much of
their half as was necessary for their support could be used for that
purpose, and the rest must be paid over to them when they became of
age. They said also that she or some one else must be appointed their
guardian, to take care of their part of the property; and that the
guardian could either keep the property as it was, or sell it and
keep the money as she thought would be most for the interest of the
children; and that she had the same power in respect to her own share.
Mary Erskine said that she thought it would be best for her to sell
the stock and farming tools, because she could not take care of
them nor use them, and she might put the money out at interest. The
appraisers said they thought so too.
In the end, Mary Erskine was appointed guardian. The idea appeared
strange to her at first of being _appointed_ guardian to her own
children, as it seemed to her that a mother naturally and necessarily
held that relation to her offspring. But the meaning of the law, in
making a mother the guardian of her children by appointment in such
a case as this, is simply to authorize her to take care of
_property_ left to them, or descending to them. It is obvious
that cases must frequently occur in which a mother, though the natural
guardian of her children so far as the personal care of them is
concerned, would not be properly qualified to take charge of any
considerable amount of property coming to them. When the mother is
qualified to take this charge, she can be duly authorized to do
it; and this is the appointment to the guardianship--meaning the
guardianship of the property to which the appointment refers.
Mary Erskine was accordingly appointed guardian of the children, and
she obtained leave to sell the farm. She decided that it would be best
to sell it as she thought, after making diligent enquiry, that she
could not depend on receiving any considerable annual rent for it, if
she were to attempt to let it. She accordingly sold the farm, with the
new house, and all the stock,--excepting that she reserved from the
farm ten acres of land around her own house, and one cow, one horse,
two pigs, and all the poultry. She also reserved all the household
furniture. These things she took as a part of her portion. The
purchase money for all the rest amounted to nine hundred and fifty
dollars. This sum was considerably more than Mary Erskine had expected
to receive.
The question now was what should be done with this money. There are
various modes which are adopted for investing such sums so as to get
an annual income from them. The money may be lent to some person who
will take it and pay interest for it. A house may be bought and let to
some one who wishes to hire it; or shares in a rail-road, or a bank,
or a bridge, may be taken. Such kinds of property as those are managed
by directors, who take care of all the profits that are made, and
twice a year divide the money among the persons that own the shares.
Mary Erskine had a great deal of time for enquiry and reflection in
respect to the proper mode of investing her money, for the man who
purchased the farm and the stock was not to pay the money immediately.
The price agreed upon for the farm, including of course the new house,
was five hundred dollars. The stock, farming utensils, &c, which he
took with it, came to three hundred and sixty dollars. The purchaser
was to pay, of this money, four hundred dollars in three months,
and the balance in six months. Mary Erskine, therefore, had to make
provision for investing the four hundred dollars first.
She determined, after a great deal of consideration and inquiry, to
lay out this money in buying four shares in the Franconia bridge.
These shares were originally one hundred dollars each, but the bridge
had become so profitable on account of the number of persons that
passed it, and the amount of money which was consequently collected
for tolls, that the shares would sell for a hundred and ten dollars
each. This ten dollars advance over the original price of the shares,
is called _premium_. Upon the four shares which Mary Erskine was
going to buy, the premium would be of course forty dollars. This money
Mary Erskine concluded to borrow. Mr. Keep said that he would very
gladly lend it to her. Her plan was to pay the borrowed money back out
of the dividends which she would receive from her bridge shares. The
dividend was usually five per centum, or, as they commonly called
it, _five per cent._, that is, five dollars on every share of a
hundred dollars every six months.[A] The dividend on the four shares
would, of course, be twenty dollars, so that it would take two
dividends to pay off the forty dollar debt to Mr. Keep, besides a
little interest. When this was done, Mary Erskine would have property
in the bridge worth four hundred and forty dollars, without having
used any more than four hundred dollars of her farm money, and she
would continue to have forty dollars a year from it, as long as she
kept it in her possession.
[Footnote A: _Per_ is a Latin word meaning _for_, and
_centum_ another meaning _a hundred_.]
When the rest of the money for the farm was paid, Mary Erskine
resolved on purchasing a certain small, but very pleasant house with
it. This house was in the village, and she found on inquiry, that it
could be let to a family for fifty dollars a year. It is true that
a part of this fifty dollars would have to be expended every year in
making repairs upon the house, so as to keep it in good order; such as
painting it from time to time, and renewing the roof when the shingles
began to decay, and other similar things. But, then, Mary Erskine
found, on making a careful examination, that after expending as much
of the money which she should receive for the rent of her house, as
should be necessary for the repairs, she should still have rather more
than she would receive from the money to be invested, if it was put
out at interest by lending it to some person who wanted to borrow it.
So she decided to buy the house in preference to adopting any other
plan.
It happened that the house which Mary Erskine thus determined to buy,
was the very one that Mr. Gordon lived in. The owner of the house
wished to sell it, and offered it first to Mr. Gordon; but he said
that he was not able to buy it. He had been doing very well in his
business, but his expenses were so great, he said, that he had not any
ready money at command. He was very sorry, he added, that the owner
wished to sell the house, for whoever should buy it, would want to
come and live in it, he supposed, and he should be obliged to move
away. The owner said that he was sorry, but that he could not help it.
A few days after this, Mr. Gordon came home one evening, and told
Anne Sophia, with a countenance expressive of great surprise and some
little vexation, that her old friend, Mrs. Forester, had bought their
house, and was going to move into it. Anne Sophia was amazed at this
intelligence, and both she and her husband were thrown into a state of
great perplexity and trouble. The next morning Anne Sophia went out
to see Mary Erskine about it. Mary Erskine received her in a very kind
and cordial manner.
"I am very glad to see you," said Mary Erskine. "I was coming to your
house myself in a day or two, about some business, if you had not come
here."
"Yes," said Anne Sophia. "I understand that you have been buying our
house away from over our heads, and are going to turn us out of house
and home."
"Oh, no," said Mary Erskine, smiling, "not at all. In the first place,
I have not really bought the house yet, but am only talking about it;
and in the second place, if I buy it, I shall not want it myself, but
shall wish to have you live in it just as you have done."
"You will not want it yourself!" exclaimed Anne Sophia, astonished.
"No," said Mary Erskine, "I am only going to buy it as an investment."
There were so many things to be astonished at in this statement, that
Anne Sophia hardly knew where to begin with her wonder. First, she was
surprised to learn that Mary Erskine had so much money. When she heard
that she had bought the house, she supposed of course that she had
bought it on credit, for the sake of having a house in the village to
live in. Then she was amazed at the idea of any person continuing to
live in a log house in the woods, when she had a pretty house of
her own in the middle of the village. She could not for some time be
satisfied that Mary Erskine was in earnest in what she said. But when
she found that it was really so, she went away greatly relieved. Mary
Erskine told her that she had postponed giving her final answer about
buying the house, in order first to see Mr. Gordon, to know whether
he had any objection to the change of ownership. She knew, of course,
that Mr. Gordon would have no right to object, but she rightly
supposed that he would be gratified at having her ask him the
question.
Mary Erskine went on after this for two or three years very
prosperously in all her affairs. Thomas continued to live with her,
in her log-house, and to cultivate the land which she had retained. In
the fall and winter, when there was nothing to be done in the fields
or garden, he was accustomed to work in the shop, making improvements
for the house, such as finishing off the stoop into another room, to
be used for a kitchen, making new windows to the house, and a regular
front door, and in preparing fences and gates to be put up around
the house. He made an aqueduct, too, to conduct the water from a new
spring which he discovered at a place higher than the house, and so
brought a constant stream of water into the kitchen which he had
made in the stoop. The stumps, too, in the fields around the house,
gradually decayed, so that Thomas could root them out and smooth over
the ground where they had stood. Mary Erskine's ten acres thus became
very smooth and beautiful. It was divided by fences into very pleasant
fields, with green lanes shaded by trees, leading from one place to
another. The brook flowed through this land along a very beautiful
valley, and there were groves and thickets here and there, both along
the margin of the brook, and in the corners of the fields, which
gave to the grounds a very sheltered, as well as a very picturesque
expression. Mary Erskine also caused trees and shrubbery to be planted
near the house, and trained honey-suckles and wild roses upon a
trellis over the front door. All these improvements were made in a
very plain and simple manner, and at very little expense, and yet
there was so much taste exercised in the arrangement of them all, that
the effect was very agreeable in the end. The house and all about it
formed, in time, an enchanting picture of rural beauty.[A]
[Footnote A: See Frontispiece.]
It was, however, only a few occasional hours of recreation that Mary
Erskine devoted to ornamenting her dwelling. The main portion of her
time and attention was devoted to such industrial pursuits as were
most available in bringing in the means of support for herself and her
children, so as to leave untouched the income from her house and her
bridge shares. This income, as fast as it was paid in, she deposited
with Mr. Keep, to be lent out on interest, until a sufficient sum was
thus accumulated to make a new investment of a permanent character.
When the sum at length amounted to two hundred and twenty dollars, she
bought two more bridge shares with it, and from that time forward
she received dividends on six shares instead of four; that is, she
received thirty dollars every six months, instead of twenty, as
before.
One reason why Mary Erskine invested her money in a house and in a
bridge, instead of lending it out at interest, was that by so doing,
her property was before her in a visible form, and she could take a
constant pleasure in seeing it. Whenever she went to the village
she enjoyed seeing her house, which she kept in a complete state of
repair, and which she had ornamented with shrubbery and trees, so that
it was a very agreeable object to look upon of itself, independently
of the pleasure of ownership. In the same manner she liked to see the
bridge, and think when teams and people were passing over it, that a
part of all the toll which they paid, would, in the end, come to her.
She thus took the same kind of pleasure in having purchased a house,
and shares in a bridge, that any lady in a city would take in an
expensive new carpet, or a rosewood piano, which would cost about the
same sum; and then she had all the profit, in the shape of the annual
income, besides.
There was one great advantage too which Mary Erskine derived from
owning this property, which, though she did not think of it at all
when she commenced her prudent and economical course, at the time of
her marriage, proved in the end to be of inestimable value to her.
This advantage was the high degree of respectability which it gave her
in the public estimation. The people of the village gradually found
out how she managed, and how fast her property was increasing, and
they entertained for her a great deal of that kind of respect which
worldly prosperity always commands. The store-keepers were anxious to
have her custom. Those who had money to lend were always very ready to
let her have it, if at any time she wished to make up a sum for a new
investment: and all the ladies of the village were willing that their
daughters should go out to her little farm to visit Bella, and to
have Bella visit them in return. Thus Mary Erskine found that she was
becoming quite an important personage.
Her plan of teaching herself and her children succeeded perfectly. By
the time that she had thoroughly learned to write her own name, she
knew half of the letters of the alphabet, for her name contained
nearly that number. She next learned to write her children's names,
Bella Forester and Albert Forester. After that, she learned to write
the names of all the months, and to read them when she had written
them. She chose the names of the months, next after the names of
her own family, so that she might be able to date her letters if she
should ever have occasion to write any.
Mary Bell set copies for her, when she came out to see her, and Mary
Erskine went on so much faster than Bella, that she could teach her
very well. She required Bella to spend an hour at her studies every
day. Thomas made a little desk for her, and her mother bought her a
slate and a pencil, and in process of time an arithmetic, and other
books. As soon as Mary Erskine could read fluently, Mary Bell used to
bring out books to her, containing entertaining stories. At first Mary
Bell would read these stories to her once, while she was at her work,
and then Mary Erskine, having heard Mary Bell read them, could read
them herself in the evening without much difficulty. At length she
made such progress that she could read the stories herself alone, the
first time, with very little trouble.
Thus things went on in a very pleasant and prosperous manner, and this
was the condition of Mary Erskine and of her affairs, at the time when
Malleville and Phonny went to pay her their visit, as described in the
first chapter of this volume.