“Well, well,” said he, sliding his spectacles down his nose to get the reading focus, advancing the sealed envelope, drawing it away again, “so Isom left a will? Not surprising, not surprising. Isom was a careful man, a man of business. I suppose we might as well proceed to open the document?”
The judge was sitting with his thin legs crossed. They hung as close and limp as empty trousers. Around the room he roved his eyes, red, watery, plagued by dust and wind. Greening was there, and his wife. The daughter-in-law had gone home to get ready for the funeral. The other two neighbor women reposed easily on the kitchen chairs, arms tightly folded, backs against the wall.
“You, Mrs. Chase, being the only living person who is likely to have an interest in the will as legatee, are fully aware of the circumstances under which it was found, and so forth and so forth?”
Ollie nodded. There was something in her throat, dry and impeding. She felt that she could not speak.
Judge Little took the envelope by the end, holding it up to the light. He took out his jack-knife and cut the cord.
It was a thin paper that he drew forth, and with little writing on it. Soon Judge Little had made himself master of its contents, with an Um-m-m, as he started, and with an A-h-h! when he concluded, and a sucking-in of his thin cheeks.
He looked around again, a new brightness in his eyes. But he said nothing. He merely handed the paper to Ollie.
“Read it out loud,” she requested, giving it back.
Judge Little fiddled with his glasses again. Then he adjusted the paper before his eyes like a target, and read:
I hereby will and bequeath to my beloved son, Isom Walker Chase, all of my property, personal and real; and I hereby appoint my friend, John B. Little, administrator of my estate, to serve without bond, until my son shall attain his majority, in case that I should die before that time. This is my last will, and I am in sound mind and bodily health.