Vashti drew hers from her pocket, and showed it to Sidney.
Mabella took hers from a little leather bag which hung about her neck. When Mabella’s mother had died in want and penury, she had given her three year old baby the piece and told her to hold it fast and show it to Uncle when he came, for at last the brother had consented to see his sister. He was late in yielding his stubborn will, but when once he was on the road a fury of haste possessed him to see the sister from whom he had parted in anger. But his haste perhaps defeated itself, and perhaps Fate, which is always ironic, wished to add another ingredient to the bitter cup old Lansing had been at such pains to prepare for his own lips. His harness broke, his horse fell lame by the way, the clouds came down, and the mists rose from the earth and befogged him, and when he finally arrived at the bleak little house it was to find his sister dead, and a yellow-haired baby, who tottered still in her walk, but yet had baby wisdom enough to give him the shining silver piece and say “from Mudder.” Lansing looked at the baby, and at the coin in his hand, and passed through the open door where an inert head as yellow as the baby’s lay upon the pillow. He had come tardily with forgiveness; he had arrived to find his sister dead, and to be offered the symbol of the Lansing luck by an orphan child.
Well—that was but one of the Lansing dollars.
Of all old Abel Lansing’s hoard there remained but four pieces—of all that family which had possessed almost tribal dignity there were only four left.
“Are you ready?” shouted old Lansing.
The three young people went round to where the democrat wagon stood with its two big bays. Nathan and Temperance stood beside the horse block; as they appeared Temperance climbed nimbly into the back seat, and Nathan, adorned as usual with his muffler, placed himself in front; the two girls joined Temperance, and Sidney mounted beside Mr. Lansing and Nathan. So they set out, leaving the old house solitary in the deepening night.
As they drove along the country road the burnt odours of the dried up herbage came to them, giving even in the dark a hint of the need for rain.
“Has Nathan told you the news?” asked Temperance of Mr. Lansing. “Len Simpson’s dead.”
“Oh, Temperance!” said Mabella.