Jerome, A Poor Man Part 63

One-fourth of my property, which consists largely of real estate, cannot manifestly be given in ready money without great delay and loss. Therefore I propose giving to a large extent in land, and in a few cases liquidations of mortgage deeds; and--I also propose giving in such proportions and to such individuals as I shall approve and select; a strictly indiscriminate division is directly opposed to my views. I trust that you do not consider that this method is to be objected to on the grounds of any infringement upon my legal restrictions."

"No, sir, I don't," replied Jerome.

"There is one other point, then I have done," said Doctor Prescott.

"I have withdrawn my objection to my son's marriage with your sister.

That is all. I have said and heard all I wish, and I will not detain you any longer." Doctor Prescott looked at him with a pale and forbidding majesty in his clear-cut face. Jerome arose, and was pa.s.sing out without a word, as he was bidden, when the old man held out his hand. He had the air of extending a sceptre, and a haughty downward look, as if the whole world, and his own self, were under his feet. Jerome shook the proffered hand, and went. His hand was on the latch of the outer door, when the sitting-room door on the left opened, and he felt himself enveloped, as it were, in a softly gracious feminine presence, made evident by wide rustlings of silken skirts, pointed foldings of lavender-scented white wool over out-stretched arms, and heaving waves of white lace over a high, curving bosom. Doctor Prescott's wife drew Jerome to her as if he were still a child, and kissed him on his cheek. "Give your sister my fondest love, and may G.o.d give you your own reward, dear boy," she said, in her beautiful voice, which was like no other woman's for sweetness and softness, though she was as large as a queen.

Then she was gone, and Jerome went home, with the scent of lavender from her laces and silks and white wools still in his nostrils, and a subtler sweetness of womanhood and fine motherhood dimly perceived in his soul.

When he got home, he knew, by the light in the parlor windows, that Lawrence was with his sister. He had been in bed some time before he heard the front door shut.

Elmira, when she came up-stairs, opened his door a crack, and whispered, in a voice tremulous with happiness, "Jerome, you asleep?"

"No."

"Do--you know--about Lawrence and me?"

"Yes; I'm real glad, Elmira."

"I hope you'll forgive me for speaking to you the way I did, Jerome."

"That's all right, Elmira."

Chapter XL

The next morning Jerome was just going out of the yard when he met Paulina Maria Judd and Henry coming in. Paulina Maria held her blind son by the hand, but he walked with an air of resisting her guidance.

"J'rome, I've come to see you about that money," said Paulina Maria.

"I hear you're goin' to give us two hundred and fifty dollars. I told you once we wouldn't take your money."

"This is different. This is the money Colonel Lamson left me, that I'd agreed to give away."

"It ain't any different to us. You can keep it."

"I sha'n't keep it, anyway. For G.o.d's sake, aunt, take it! Henry, take it, and get your eyes cured!"

"I sha'n't take money that's given in any such way, and neither will my son. I haven't changed my mind about what I said the other night, and neither has he. You need this money yourself. If the money had been left to us, it would have been different; we sha'n't take it, and you needn't offer it to us; you can count us out in your division. We sha'n't take what Doctor Prescott has offered neither--to give us the mortgage on our house. It's an honest debt, and we don't want to s.h.i.+rk it. If we're paupers, we'll be paupers of G.o.d, but of no man!"

"Henry," pleaded Jerome, "just listen to me." But it was of no avail. His cousin turned his blind face sternly away from his pleading voice, and went out of the yard, still seeming to strive against his mother's leading hand.

Jerome followed them, still arguing with them; he even walked with them a little, after the turn of the road. Then he gave it up, and went on to the store, where he had an errand. He resolved to see Adoniram, and try to influence him to take the money for his blind son. He could not believe that he would not do so. Long before he reached the store he could hear the gabble of excited voices, and loud peals of rough laughter. "What's going on?" he thought. When he entered, he saw Simon Ba.s.set backed up against a counter, at bay, as it were, before a great throng of village men and boys. Ba.s.set was deathly white through his grime and beard-stubble, his gaunt jaws snapping like a wolf's, his eyes fierce with terror.

"Sh.e.l.l out, Simon," shouted a young man, with a b.u.t.ting motion of a shock head towards the old man. "Sh.e.l.l out, I tell ye, or ye'll have a writ served on ye."

"I tell ye I won't; ye don't know nothin' about it; I 'ain't got no property!" shrieked Simon Ba.s.set, amidst a wild burst of laughter.

"He 'ain't got no property, he 'ain't, hi!" shouted the boys on the outskirts, with peals of goblin merriment.

"I tell ye I 'ain't got more'n five thousand dollars to my name!"

"You 'ain't, eh? Where's all your land, you old liar?" asked the young man, who seemed spokesman for the crowd.

"It ain't wuth nothin'. I couldn't sell it to-day if I wanted to."

"Gimme the land, then, an' we'll take the risk," was the cry. "J'rome and the doctor have sh.e.l.led out; now it's your turn, or you'll hev the officers after ye."

Jerome pushed his way through the crowd. "What are you scaring him for?" he demanded. "He's an old man, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

"He ain't more'n seventy," replied the young man, "an' he's smart as a cricket--he's smart enough to gouge the whole town, old 's he is."

"That's so, Eph!" chorused his supporters.

Jerome grasped Ba.s.set by the shoulder. "Don't you know you are not obliged to give a dollar, if you don't want to?" he asked. "That paper wasn't legal."

The old man shrank before him with craven terror, and yet with the look of a dog which will snap when he sees an unwary hand. "Ye don't git me into none of yer traps," he snarled. "What made Doctor Prescott give anythin'?"

"He gave because he wanted to keep his promise, not because he was forced to by that paper."

"Likely story," said Simon Ba.s.set.

"I tell you it's so."

"Likely story, Seth Prescott ever give it if he wa'n't obliged to. Ye can't trap me."

"Go and ask him, if you don't believe me," said Jerome.

"Ye don't trap me, I'm too old."

"Go and ask Lawyer Means, then."

"I guess, when ye git me into that pesky lawyer's clutches, ye'll know it! Ye can't trap me. I guess I know more about law than ye do, ye d.a.m.ned little upstart ye! Why couldn't ye have kept your dead man's shoes to home, darn ye? Ye'll come on the town yerself, yet; ye won't have money enough to pay fer your buryin', an' I hope to G.o.d ye won't! Curse ye! I'll live to see ye in your pauper's grave yet, old 's I be. Ye _thief!_ I tell ye, I 'ain't got no money. I 'ain't got more'n five thousand dollars, countin' everythin' in the world, an'

I'll see ye all d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l afore I'll give ye a dollar. Let me out, will ye?" Simon Ba.s.set made a clawing, cat-like rush through the crowd to the door.

"I tell you, Simon Ba.s.set, you haven't got to give a dollar," shouted Jerome; but he might as well have shouted to the wind.

"No use, J'rome," chuckled the shock-headed young man, "he's gone plumb crazy over it. You can't make him listen to nothin'."

"What do you mean, badgering him so?" cried Jerome, angrily.

"He's a mean old cuss, anyhow," said the young man, with a defiant laugh.

"That's so! Serves him right," grunted the others. They were all much younger than Jerome, and many of them were mere boys. It seemed strange that a man as sharp as Ba.s.set had taken them seriously.

Jerome, the more he thought it over, was convinced that Simon Ba.s.set was half crazed with the fear of parting with his money. When he came out of the store, he hesitated; he was half inclined to follow Ba.s.set home, and try to reason him into some understanding of the truth.

Then, remembering his violent att.i.tude towards himself, he decided that it would be useless, and went home. He planned to plough his garden that day.