| No,
stranger, there hasn’t been a tragedy of any kind
in Mutton Corners nor round about for some time now.
It was never much of a place for things to happen in,
anyway; everybody was that set in their ways, a scandal
would have got starved out before it got started, our
people was naturally so inquisitive. There was the McRobie
family as moved over from the Second Line, and the first
night they was here they pulled their blinds down, and
old Bill Weatherby and Uncle Amos Trill walked right
into the house to find out what was goin’ on that
they were so shy about. The McRobies behaved theirselves
arter that; they saw there wasn’t a bit of use
tryin’ on any games they had played over on the
Second Line if they were to be checked up that close.
So you can see how inquisitive we are and how shy anybody
in Mutton Corners would be about havin’ anythin’
tragical happen on the premises. We are all clear Grits,
too, forty-seven solid votes every election, and old
Dave Rouse was the only Tory in the place, and he behaved
that way to be cussed. Somehow he never could get his
vote polled. He used to try, but, you know, little accidents
will happen, and, try as hard as he liked, he could
never get close enough to the pollin’ booth. He’s
dead now, so the boys have no further trouble with him.
But that remembers me that the
only tragedy that ever happened in these parts was when
this same Uncle Dave Rouse made his will. That was a
real terrible time. You see the old man said he had
considerable money, and he proved it by not spendin’
anythin’. You couldn’t get a cent out of
him nohow. He’d just sit round the barroom of
the Alexandria Palace Hotel, right here in Mutton Corners,
County of Leeds, and talk about the great responsibility
of havin’ money and how timid he was about doin’
harm with all the money he had got together. He never
married, and his two nephews was that wrought up over
how he would leave his fortune that they hated one another
pretty powerful; and they hated the old man, too.
Well, one of them nephews was
George, and he was of no account, anyway, except for
his brother Jacob to sharpen his teeth on. But Jacob
was the most unpopulariest man in the whole of Mutton
Corners. Yes, Jake was [Page 139] mean
enough to get up in the night and bite his mother. He
would never pay anybody anythin’; he was earnin’
good money, too, but it seemed to grow onto him like
a skin; and it was real painful for the neighbors to
see him wince if you asked him to part with any of it.
And Jake was a sudden sort of speaker and always catchin’
people up as wanted to be pleasant with him. If the
road was slushy and slippy, a fine day though, and somebody
was to be cheerful and say, “Well, Jake, fine
day overhead!” he’d grunt out, “Ain’t
no walkin’ overhead!” That’s just
the sort of a mean cuss he was, and he made the mistake
of marryin’ a girl from outside—one of the
Jance girls from the Second Line, Minerva Jance. Yes,
stranger, she was a fierce dresser, and wore big hats
that had everythin’ on ’em but the cookstove,
a real profane person, too. Why, I heard her say to
Parson Eberts one day when he said somethin’ real
solemn about “Likin’ to hear God’s
voice in the thunderstorm.” She whipped out as
pert as a jay, “I like to hear it behind the kitchen
door about that time!” So, you see, Jacob Rouse
wasn’t very popular in Mutton Corners, what with
his bein’ so mean hisself and his wife so up-and-comin’.
Why, even old Doc Passmore was down on them, and he
was gentle as a turtle dove. Jake looked so mortified
if ever the Doc asked him for money that he said he’d
rather cut off a leg than do it; and there was three
children, and Mrs. Jake said nobody else knew just what
to give her in the spring but Doctor Passmore, and they
always ran after him as if they didn’t owe him
more’n a hundred dollars. One day, after one of
the children had swallowed a quarter and the Doc had
pumped it out of him he was so annoyed he couldn’t
help tellin’ Uncle Dave about it.
“I wouldn’t have
been so mad,” he let on, “but they didn’t
even offer me the quarter!”
“Well, it is a shame,”
said Dave, “almost anybody would have give you
that quarter, Doc; it makes me tremble to think what’ll
become o’ that boy, he’s that mean, and
it’s a big responsibility for me to leave him
my money. Why, he lit right out on me the other day
because he saw me speakin’ to George and called
me a spider and all the names! Bein’ rich ain’t
the fun it’s cracked up to be. One’s own
flesh and blood, too! Why, Doc, I’ve a mind to
help you collect that bill of yourn.”
“You can’t do that,”
said the Doc, for he was discouraged about the quarter.
“Well, maybe not all
by myself,” says Uncle Dave, who could see about
as far a distance as most folks. “But we might
do it together.”
“Well!” said the
Doc, rather dubified.
“Look here, Doc, if I
can collect that money for you, will you look after
me right along and not charge me anythin’ for
it?” [Page 140]
“Yes, sure,” says
Doc Passmore. He was that annoyed that he was ready
to do anythin’ to get his money, and anyway he
was a dead game sport, was the Doc, and so those two
sharpened old villains put their heads together.
Stranger, it couldn’t
have been more’n a week before somethin’
queer happened round Jake Rouse’s place. There,
settin’ right in the dooryard one evenin’,
and, mind you, on the front step, and they never thought
o’ usin’ the front door, sat Uncle Dave
Rouse. He looked about like the last run of shad, his
face all thin and gormed lookin’, with about three
colors of yaller in it. Dave had done what some old
soldier had told him they done in the army when they
wanted to be sent to the hospital. He put some tobacco
under his armpits, and it did make his face look like
a bad dream, and no mistake. One of Jake’s kids
seen him first, and began to fire mud at him and guy
him, and pretty soon Jake come round the corner. “Get
out o’ here, you old rooter!” says he.
“O, Jake! and me dyin’
and not even allowed to die on my own flesh and blood.”
“No,” says Jake.
“Lift yourself out of that, soilin’ up our
front doorstep, and go and lay down on George’s,
where you’ve left all your money.”
“No, I haven’t,”
says Dave. “Indeed, no!” Just then out come
Jake’s wife.
“Get some hot water,”
says Jake, “and scald the old pirate.” But
she had heard what the old man had said.
“Indeed I won’t,”
says she, all alferbility. “How can you speak
to poor Uncle David like that, and him so sick?”
At first Jake didn’t see what she was after, but
she made him see quick enough. “Why, it’s
like Providence to see dear Doctor Passmore drivin’
by,” Minerva went on. “Call him, Jake, and
see if he can’t do somethin’ to minister
to poor Uncle David.” She had been a school teacher,
and had some beautiful words when she wanted to use
them. Jake growled out somethin’ and went out
to stop Doc Passmore, who was drivin’ by with
one of his boys. The old man pulled a long face when
he saw Dave, and felt his pulse. “He hasn’t
got long to live,” says he.
“Not long enough to make
my will?” groaned Uncle Dave.
“Haven’t ye made
yer will?” says the Doc. But old Dave went into
a sort of fit and didn’t answer.
“How careless these wealthy
people are! The idea of Mr. Rouse dyin’ without
a will,” says the Doc. “The property’ll
be divided between you and George.” Well, they
couldn’t stand that. [Page 141]
“Carry him into the house,”
said Minerva, and she and Jake laid hold of him and
lugged him in right through the front door. But the
Doc stepped back just as if he was goin’ away.
“I’ll say good-evenin’,
Mrs. Rouse,” he said.
“You’re not goin’
away, Dr. Passmore!” says Mrs. Jake.
“Why, you don’t
want me, do you?”
“You wouldn’t desert
a dyin’ man, and you the family physician?”
she says.
“Well, Mrs. Rouse, I’m
sick of this all-work-and-no-pay sort of business, and
I don’t step in until you pay my bill.”
“I won’t pay him
a cent!” Jake ripped out.
“Pay him for my sake,”
gasps Uncle Dave. “I only want to die on my own
flesh and blood and have strength enough to make my
will. It’ll be all the better for you and yours,
Jake, in the end.”
“Get the money for the
old fraud,” says Mrs. Jake, between her teeth,
and they left Dave groanin’ on the hall floor
while they went down into the stockin’ and paid
the doctor one hundred and thirty-five cold dollars,
and he signed a receipt.
“Now, I don’t mind
fixin’ him up so as he can make his will,”
says the Doc, “though it will be a hard job; he’s
that far gone.” So they went back to Dave, who
was feelin’ pretty bad on the floor in the hall.
“Don’t try to move
him at all until I give him a hyperdermott; he’s
about as low as the law allows. While I’m givin’
it you get his bed ready.”
“Indeed I will,”
says Minerva; “poor Uncle Dave’ll have my
best bed and anythin’ else to make his last days
happy.” She gave Jake a look that would have made
any other man behave hisself for a year, and rushed
off. After David got the hyperdermott runnin’
round in him his groans sounded a little cheerfuller,
and by and by they carried him into the best room, but
the Doc wouldn’t hear to havin’ him undressed.
No, it would bring on a relapsus and maybe give him
a chill, as he’d always been used to sleep in
his clothes. So they pulled off his boots and in he
went, between the sheets, just as he was. Doc Passmore
said he nearly died laughin’ to see that old yaller
face of Dave’s stickin’ out from under the
bedspread. But Minerva never winked an eye, she was
that determined to have Uncle Dave make his will.
“Where am I” says
he, liftin’ an eyelid, “in heaven?”
“No,” says Jake’s
wife, soft and low, “you’re just in our
comfortable bed, dear uncle; don’t be worried.”
[Page 142]
“Goin’ to die on
my own flesh and blood! Well, George would never ’a
done this for me! An angel must have led me to your
doorstep instead o’ his. Look how I am soilin’
up all your beautiful sheets.”
“Now, don’t annoy
yourself about that, dear Uncle Dave, just get to feelin’
a little bit stronger.”
“I want to make my will,
Doc; do you think I’ll hold out till I get it
done?”
“Prob’ly, if you
don’t excite yourself and if it isn’t too
long!”
“Well, it’ll be
long enough to get some people in I know of,”
says he, swivillin’ his eye round to Jake’s
wife, “and I wish my kind nephew would go for
Lawyer Spragge!” Both the old foxes knew that
Lawyer Spragge was away, and that if he could get anybody
it was a new young fellow that had just come to Mutton
Corners and didn’t know much of anythin’,
and you couldn’t expect him to, as he hadn’t
been riz here. So Jake went off and his wife says to
him, “Hurry, Jake, and don’t bother to hitch,
just take the Doc’s horse.” They was all
excited up, but steady enough to be as mean as that.
“And don’t let George see you goin’
for the lawyer; you know what a bad, corrupt man he
is and he would disturb Uncle David in his last hours
if he knew how sick he was.”
After Jake was gone the Doc
felt Dave’s pulse and said he was pretty weak,
would Mrs. Rouse be so kind as to get a little whiskey?
and she brought out a gallon jar and said, “Just
help yourself, doctor. Poor Uncle David won’t
want for a little comfort in his last hours.”
By and by, after Dave and the
Doc had hit the jar several times, he felt his pulse
again and said, “He wants a little nourish’
food now.” “Why, sure,” said Minerva;
“it’s past supper time; how neglectful of
me, and you must be hungry, too, Doctor Passmore.”
Well, afore long she had picked up a dandy little supper
and had somethin’ special for Dave. They had killed
a calf and she took the sweetbreads out of the critter
and fixed ’em up on toast. Dave said they were
“delicious” and he “wouldn’t
forget his dear niece Minerva in his will.” The
Doc said he must only eat a mouthful or two, they was
bad for the heart, and he took the dish away and wolfed
them down hisself.
Jake seemed to be away a long
time, and Uncle Dave had two bad turns and the Doc had
to give him a hyperdermott and some more whiskey. When
Jake came back, of course, he had the young lawyer fellow
with him. He wore gold eye-glasses and looked pretty
solemn when he saw how bad Uncle Dave looked. “He
was nearly gone once,” says the Doc, “and
there ain’t much left of him; you’d better
get to work, young man.” [Page 143]
“Can he draw a good will?”
says Dave, feeble-like. “He looks so young and
I woundn’t like anythin’ to come between
Jake and his wife and my property, so they wouldn’t
have the free enjoyment of it.” The young man
swallowed and tried to swell hisself out and said, “Never
fear, sir. No will that I ever drew has been successfully
contested.”
“This is prob’ly
your first,” says Uncle Dave, and he almost had
another relapsus.
“Sometimes,” says
Minerva, “it don’t seem as if I could wash
up the things, and this is one o’ them nights.”
She sat herself right down to hear Uncle David make
his will.
Well, the young lawyer got to
work and wrote out Dave’s full name and the sound
mind part of it, and read it over, and it sounded all
right. “Now, what are the bequests?” says
he.
“The what?” says
Dave.
“The bequests: what you
are goin’ to leave and who you are goin’
to leave it to?”
“Well, the first bequest
is where I want to be buried.”
“O, rot!” says Jake.
“Now, Jacob, you keep
quiet; it is only natural for Uncle David to have wishes
about where he’s to be buried,” said Minerva.
“Very well,” said
the innocent young feller.
“I want to be buried in
Cataraqui Cemetery,” groaned David. The young
feller wrote: “I direct my mortal remains to be
interred in Cataraqui Cemetery.” “What next?”
“I want be buried next
to John A.”
“What’s that?”
says the lawyer.
“He’s a rank old
Tory,” Jake sputtered.
“John A. Why, that’s
Sir John A. Macdonald, don’t you know?”
says the doctor, explainin’ it all kindly to the
innocent young chap. “He was the Conservative
leader, and he is buried in Cataraqui Cemetery.”
While the lawyer wrote that
down Jake said: “There ain’t no lot there,”
mean as could be.
“Yes, there is, Jacob,”
said Dave, mild as milk. “I was down there last
week. It will cost more’n a thousand dollars,
but it’ll be my long, last home!” With that
he had another relapsus, and the Doc had considerable
trouble to fetch him up again.
“Well, what next?”
says the lawyer.
“Well, after you’ve
buried me and paid all my debts I want you to take some
of my money—be sure you see this is done, Niece
Minerva.”
“I’ll see to it,
Uncle David; make your mind easy.” [Page
144]
“I want you to take some
of my money and put a moniment at my head just like
the one at John A.’s, just as big, and me on the
top just as large as John A.”
That annoyed Jake terrible.
“You old spider,” says he, “that moniment
cost as much as twenty thousand dollars!”
“How you shock me, Jacob:
such language to poor Uncle David,” says Minerva.
“Well, Jake, there may
be some of your uncle’s fortune left after that,”
says Dave. Well, the lawyer boy put all that down and
read it out. “What next?” says he. Just
then Dave had a real bad turn, and when they looked
for the Doc he wasn’t there. When they were so
wrought up with Uncle Dave makin’ his will he
had taken the boots and gone outside quiet as a cat.
“Where is he?” called
Jake. “Come here, you old pill-pounder, and give
him another shot with the syringe!” But the Doc
didn’t seem to hear him.
“What next?” says
the lawyer boy.
“If there’s anythin’
left arter that,” says Dave, so weak and trembly
that the lawyer had to get right over him; “if
there’s anythin’ left arter that, put as
big a moniment as you can afford to pay for at my feet!”
Well, Jake and Minerva hardly
took in what their dear Uncle David had said, when there
was a flash of light and noise enough to wake the dead,
and Doc Passmore’s boy yelled “Fire!”
in at the door. “The barn’s on fire!”
But the barn wasn’t on
fire, stranger. While the boy was waitin’ he had
gathered a lot of straw together, just as his pa had
told him to do, and when he went out with Dave’s
boots the old Doc set a match to it.
“Save the horses, Jake!”
screamed Minerva, and they rushed out, forgettin’
all about their dear Uncle David. It didn’t take
the old man more’n a second to get out o’
that bed, and the way he got through the dark to where
Doc Passmore was waitin’ for him in the road with
the rig would have licked this feller that won the Marythin
race.
Yes, stranger, that’s
the last tragedy we’ve had at Mutton Corners,
and a pretty considerable tragedy for Jake Rouse: to
clean lose one hundred and thirty-five dollars and to
have the best bed all mussed up, to say nothin’
of the whiskey they drunk, and them sweetbreads.
The lawyer boy didn’t
lose anythin’, because Uncle David squared him
with a Straits Settlement fifty-cent piece.
How did Uncle David leave his
property when he died? Why, stranger, Uncle Dave didn’t
have no property. [Page 145]
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