Aunt Jimmy's Will

by Mabel Osgood Wright

Mrs. Jason stepped forward and drew—the canopy cradle! A roar of laughter greeted her venture, in which she joined grimly, for her youngest offspring was a six-foot youth of seventeen, while Mrs. Henry sighed and felt secretly injured, though she said nothing.

Next came her turn, and she drew a worked motto in a gilt frame, which read, “The Lord Will Provide,” whereat she smiled feebly and whimpered, “I’ve tried to think so, but I do wish Henry Lane would help Him out better.” Mrs. Joshua drew the best china, Mrs. Henry the tall clock, which she straightway declared to be a foot higher than any of her rooms,—she finally traded it with Mrs. Jason for the cradle and rocking-chair,—until at the end of two hours the last number left the basket and three tired and confused women wandered about trying to collect their property.

The great wardrobe had fallen to Mrs. Jason’s share, but upon close inspection it proved to be merely stained cherry and not mahogany at all, and its owner remarked that she wished some one would take it off her hands, as it was too big to go in her door, and more than it was worth to truck it home, much less get it in to Northboro, where it would be possible to sell it. Her husband, however, ventured to say it would make a good harness closet for the barn and keep the rats from gnawing the leather; and so with much stretching of muscles and groans of “now heave together” it was loaded with the other articles upon the wagon.

There was quite a lively interchange of articles between the women before the rooms were finally cleared, but in the end, owing to Mrs. Joshua’s good sense, they all declared themselves well satisfied. Mrs. Jason had secured a good sewing-machine, and Mrs. Henry a parlour organ for which her melancholy spirit pined; while Mrs. Joshua, who had a machine and inwardly detested parlour organs, saying that when needful she could do her own groaning, was made happy by the best parlour set, her own chairs and lounge having been fatally collapsed by her family of men folks of assorted ages.

One thing they all regretted, which was that Aunt Jimmy had ordered all articles of every kind not mentioned in her list should be either burned or buried, according to their kind, and there were many things dear to their feminine hearts in the mass of rubbish that had been accumulating in garret and cellar, barn and loft, these many years as well as much that was salable as junk. It was of no use to object; for Joshua was determined to carry out the will in both spirit and letter, and though it had amused the eccentric old lady to collect and hoard the stuff, she was equally determined that it should never be exposed to the gaze of the curious. Joshua knew that though she thought him slow and without ambition, she trusted him, and he was not going to disappoint her.

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As the loaded wagons filed out of the yard, a lean figure might have been seen peering through the branches of a small maple tree in the wood lot just above. It was Abiram Slocum, who, goaded by his wife, was trying to see which cart contained the wardrobe; for she had come back from Northboro the day before all eagerness to get possession of it, for the owner of the “curious shop” had said if the wardrobe was of the size and quality she described, he would pay her fifty dollars for it. Now if the owner would let it go for fifteen or even twenty-five dollars, the profit would give her new paper and a carpet for her best room; for rich as Slocum was reputed to be, he was close-fisted with his wife, and she was obliged to pick up her own pin money like her poorer neighbours, with the exception that she had not succeeded in the egg business, owing to her tendency, whenever possible, to give eleven to the dozen, and sell limed eggs at a high price to ignorant people who desired them for setting.

Abiram presently spied the wardrobe on Jason Lane’s load. He was sorry for this, for Mrs. Jason was one of the few people who had ever got the better of him in trade, and a horse trade at that, so he feared she would never sell the furniture, or if she did, would extort full value.