Aunt Patsy said emphatically, as she left the Daymon palace, “I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Daymon, I'm goin' home to study human nature, and if I don't find some avenue to reach old Perkim, I shall take the liberty to insult the first one of his dratted poor kin that sets foot in my house.”
After Aunt Patsy left, Roxie thought no more of her letter of inquiry, and company engaged her attention for some days until the subject passed entirely out of her mind.
Soon after these events Roxie died with the cholera—leaving an only daughter—and was buried as ignorant of the fate of her sister as the stone that now stands upon her grave.
We must now turn back more than a decade, which brings us to the burning of the steamboat Brandywine, on the Mississippi river. The boat was heavily freighted, with a large number of passengers on board; the origin of the fire has never been positively known; it was late in the night, with a heavy breeze striking the boat aft, where the fire occurred. In a short time all on board was in confusion; the pilot, from the confusion of the moment, or the lack of a proper knowledge of the river, headed the boat for the wrong shore, and she ran a-ground on a deep sand bar a long way from shore and burned to the waters' edge; between the two great elements of fire and water many leaped into the river and were drowned, and some reached the shore on pieces of the wreck. Among those fortunate enough to reach the shore was an Englishman, who was so badly injured he was unable to walk; by the more fortunate he was carried to the cabin of a wood cutter, where he soon after died.
When he fully realized the situation he called for ink and paper; there was none on the premises; a messenger was dispatched to the nearest point where it was supposed the articles could be obtained, but he was too late. When the last moments came the dying man made the following statement: “My name is John A. Lasco. I have traveled for three years in this country without finding the slightest trace of the object of my search—an only and a dear sister. Her name is Susan Lasco; with our father she left the old country many years ago. They were poor.—the family fortune being held in abeyance by the loss of some papers. I remained, but our father gave up all hope and emigrated to America, taking Susan with him. In the course of nature the old man is dead, and my sister Susan, if she is living, is the last, or soon will be the last, link of the family. I am making this statement as my last will and testament. Some years ago the post-master in my native town received a letter from America stating that by the confession of one, Alonzo Phelps, who was condemned to die, that there was a bundle of papers concealed in a certain place by him before he left the country. Search was made and the papers found which gave me the possession of the family estate. The letter was subscribed D. C., which gave a poor knowledge of the writer. I sold the property and emigrated to this country in search of my sister; I have had poor success. She probably married, and the ceremony changed her name, and I fear she is hopelessly lost to her rights; her name was Susan Lasco—what it is now, God only knows. But to Susan Lasco, and her descendants, I will the sum of twenty thousand dollars, now on deposit in a western bank; the certificate of deposit names the bank; the papers are wet and now upon my person; the money in my pocket, $110, I will to the good woman of this house—with a request that she will carefully dry and preserve my papers, and deliver them to some respectable lawyer in Memphis——” at this point the speaker was breathing hard—his tone of voice almost inaudible. At his request, made by signs, he was turned over and died in a few moments without any further directions.
The inmates of the cabin, besides the good woman of the house, were only a few wood cutters, among whom stood Brindle Bill, of Shirt-Tail Bend notoriety. Bill, to use his own language, was strap'd, and was chopping wood at this point to raise a little money upon which to make another start. Many years had passed away since he left Shirt Tail Bend. He had been three times set on shore, from steamboats, for playing sharp tricks at three card monte upon passengers, and he had gone to work, which he never did until he was entirely out of money. Brindle Bill left the cabin, ostensibly to go to work; but he sat upon the log, rubbed his hand across his forehead, and said mentally, “Susan La-s-co. By the last card in the deck, that is the name; if I didn't hear Simon's wife, in Shirt-Tail Bend, years ago, say her mother's name was S-u-s-a-n L-a-s-c-o. I will never play another game; and—and twenty thousand in bank. By hell, I've struck a lead.”
The ever open ear of the Angel of observation was catching the sound of a conversation in the cabin of Sundown Hill in Shirt-Tail Bend. It was as follows—
“Many changes, Bill, since you left here; the Carlo wood yard has play'd out; Don Carlo went back to Kentucky. I heard he was blowed up on a steamboat; if he ever come down again I did'nt hear of it.”
“Hope he never did,” said Bill, chawing the old grudge with his eye teeth.
Hill continued: “You see, Bill, the old wood yards have given place to plantations. Simon, your old friend, is making pretentions to be called a planter,” said Sundown Hill to Brindle Bill, in a tone of confidence.