“Well? Ain’t that enough? But I don’t b’lieve you re’lize it a mite. I can’t, hardly myself yet, nuther. But all the money yer granma had, an’ it wa’n’t more’n jest enough ter keep us livin’, plain an’ comfort’ble as we do, was up in a bank, some’res. I hain’t no faith in banks. They’re ’tarnally bu’stin’, er doin’ sunthin’ startlin’. I always keep mine in a stockin’; an’ the stockin’ ’s in a big blue box in the bottom o’ that hair trunk o’ mine. Things bein’ so uncertain in this life, I think it’s best ter tell ye; but don’t ye lisp a word,—not even to brother Resolved. ’Cause he’d be boun’ ter have it put in some differ’nt place not half so safe. In case I should be took off suddent, as folks sometimes is, somebody’d oughter know; an’ you’re trustible. I’ve found that out.”
“Thank you. But, about the bank. What is it?”
“Beat if I kin tell ye plain. ’Cause I don’t scurce know myself. Old Knollsboro bank is that big brick buildin’ acrost from the stun church. An’ in it, somehow, folks hides all the money they have; an’ the bank folks pays ’em out little dribs on ’t to a time; an’ that’s all they have ter keep house on. That’s as near as I kin put it. Most every town has a bank, too; but, ’cause yer pa thought they wasn’t no other so safe as the old one here to Knollsboro he uset ter put all his sellery, too, inter this one; an’ now it’s done jest like the rest on ’em often does,—it’s bu’sted. That’s what Resolved calls it. Yer granma said ‘failed;’ but I ’low it comes ter the same thing when it means ’at every dollar they had, uther one, is lost, somehow. An’ what’s wusser: yer granma owned ‘stawk’ in it, too; though how anybody could keep a livin’ head er critter an’ not never let it be seen, ’s more’n I fathom er try ter. I s’pose they partered it out, er sunthin.’ An’ now that stawk’s gone too, an’ ter make it good, she’s li’ble ter a hull lot o’ thousan’ dollars. Think on it! Ever so many hull—‘durin’—thousan’—dollars! An she says—I heered her tellin’ Mr. Dan’l—that ‘she must pay it if it took this house.’ An’ he says: ‘Mother! Where you’ve lived yer hull life! It would kill you!’—an’ I ’low it would.”
“But how could a body pay anything with a house?”
“Sell it, I s’pose, an’ take that money an’ throw it arter t’other ’at’s gone. I dunno, rightly; fer that’s jest what I asted Resolved, an’ all he said was: ‘Sil-ly women! Sell er mortgage—sil-ly wom-en! They don’t never have no heads fer business!’ So, arter that, I knowed no more’n I did afore,—which wasn’t nothin’, square. But how’s a body to l’arn if their men critters won’t l’arn ’em? An’ I guess we’ve got as many berries as we shall eat ter-day; an’ that’s knowledge more in my line ’n tryin’ ter explain things I don’t understan’. So let’s go in out o’ the sun.”
They entered the house, whither Sutro had preceded them, and found that sociable person vainly endeavoring to extract more than monosyllables from the lips of his house-mate, Tubbs. At which Mary Jane’s ready wrath burst forth upon her pessimistic brother.
“I don’t see what ails you—Resolved, ’at ye can’t give a body a civil answer! You—hain’t lost nothin’, ’at I knows on. An’ if ye call it a Christian way o’ meetin’ trials, ter set there an’ let a poor heathen Mexicer pester the life out on ye ’fore ye’ll speak him a decent word, I dunno! It ain’t the way with good Baptist folks, anyhow.”
As Mr. Tubbs had long before accepted the Methodist creed, while his sister had professed another, this was an old bone of contention, which he was quite ready to pick up, to the forgetfulness of newer grievances.
Which was exactly what Mary Jane desired. “Best way ter stir Resolved out o’ the hypoes is ter make him mad! Then he’ll fly ’round an’ fergit lumbago an’ ever’thing elset. He’ll chop more kindlin’ in ten minutes when he’s riled, ’an he will in a hull day when things goes ter suit him.”
He became “riled” on the instant, and shut his Bible with a bang, while his spectacles were shoved into their usual resting-place upon his bald head with an energy that endangered the glass.