“He asked me where it was, and as I didn’t deny it, of course he knew I had it.”
“Why don’t you put it back?” said Joel. “You don’t want it.”
“I tell you what it is, Joel Burress!” said Susan; “you are a new-comer here, and you don’t understand things as I do!”
“I’ve been here two years,” said Joel.
“And I lived here eleven years with old Mr. Berkeley, and since then with Mr. Godfrey. Before that I lived five or six years with old Abram Bruden. I know all about that gun. It used to hang over old Abram’s kitchen fireplace, and nobody ever took it down but himself. It was always called the Master’s gun, and if any of his sons, or anybody about the place, wanted to shoot they got some other gun, or went without. But when his son Charlie’s wife came there to be head of the house, and wanted a big yellow cow belonging to Silas Wingo, old Abram, who was getting a little weak in his mind anyway, and who hadn’t much money just then, traded off the gun to Silas for the cow. Silas Wingo was a man who would always a great deal rather shoot than milk. Now, just see what happened! In a precious little while after that gun left the house nobody ever thought of old Abram as being the master there. From that time till the day of his death he hardly ever had a word to say about his own affairs. And after a while Silas got hard up, and brought the gun round to old Mr. Berkeley, and sold it to him for twice as much as it was worth, I dare say. It wasn’t long after that before Silas was sold out of house and home; but his creditors let him live in a little house on his own farm, where he had been a pretty hard-headed master. Mr. Berkeley kept the gun as long as he lived, and was always head of his house, I can tell you. And so is Mr. Godfrey, too.”
“I suppose you think,” said Joel, “that if young Phil has the gun he will be the real master now.”
“I don’t want no boys over me,” said Susan, curtly.
“Havin’ the gun don’t make any difference,” said Joel. “All the things you’ve told of could ’a’ happened if there’d never been a gun in the world.”
“It’s no use talking to me like that,” said Susan. “There’s something in these things. That gun is the Master’s gun, and always has been.”
“When do you really guess the head-master’ll come back?” asked Joel, very willing to change the subject.