“Well–how did it come into Spink’s hands?”
“Why–I dunno. Guess Spink offered Smiles a bonus. At any rate, the original mortgage had long since run out, and was bein’ renewed from year to year. When it come time for renewal, Jud Spink showed his hand and foreclosed. They had a sale, and it didn’t begin to pay the face of the mortgage. You see, the place had all run down. Bob hadn’t turned a stroke of work on it for years before he died, and the widder’d only made shift to make a garden.
“Wal, there was a clause covering all personal property–and the widder had subscribed to it. So now the sheriff is going to have a vendue an’ see if he kin satisfy Jud Spink’s claim in full. Dunno what will become of Mis’ Harrison,” added Lucas, shaking his head. “She’s quite spry, if she is old; but she ain’t got a soul beholden to her, an’ I reckon she’ll be took to the poor farm.”
CHAPTER XX
THE TEMPERANCE CLUB AGAIN
The boys sat in the buckboard and talked earnestly while Lyddy and ’Phemie Bray “visited” with the Widow Harrison. She was a tall, gaunt, sad woman–quite “spry,” as Lucas had said; but she was evidently troubled about her future.
Her poor sticks of furniture could not bring any great sum at the auction, which was slated for the next Monday. She admitted to the Bray girls that she expected the money raised would all have to go to the mortgagee.
“I did ’spect I’d be ’lowed to live here in Bob’s place till I died,” she sighed. “Bob was hard to git along with. I paid dear for my home, I did. And now it’s goin’ to be took away from me.”
“And you have no relatives, Mrs. Harrison? Nobody whose home you would be welcome in?” asked Lyddy, thoughtfully.
“Not a soul belongin’ to me,” declared Mrs. Harrison. “An’ I wouldn’t ask charity of nobody–give me my way.”