When the applause had subsided and the general handshaking ceased, Lauretta Ann Lane pulled a large new wallet from some mysterious place in her dress, and counting out eleven clean five-hundred-dollar bills held them toward the auctioneer, saying, “I’ll trouble you for the change, please,” adding in a low yet perfectly distinct voice to an irate figure who was elbowing her way out, and meeting many obstacles in so doing, “That change ’ll come in right handy for new papers, paint, and furnishings that you said was needful, and I think a red Brussels carpet would liven up that north room wonderful. That same was your choice, waren’t it, Mis’is Slocum?”
How it all came about the village never discovered; for whatever the lawyer knew or thought, he kept it to himself and said the opposite, which is, of course, what lawyers are for.
Dr. Jedd was the only one who suspected in the right direction; for soon after the Lanes had moved into their new home, and curiosity had subsided, he was looking on the parlour mantel-shelf for the matches, and discovered the chopped remains of the pewter tea-pot reposing in a handsome china jar that was bought in New York. But Dr. Jedd only chuckled as the whole thing flashed across him, and he said to himself, “Surely enough, man proposes and woman disposes, and there’s a various lot of human nature in woman, especially Aunt Jimmy, who was a blessed, good, spunky, old fool.”
One final sensation was given the neighbourhood when it was found that, after the payment of the legacies and other charges against the estate, there was enough surplus to give the three Lane brothers over three thousand dollars each, legal allotment.
[XIII]
TELLTALE TROUSERS
As Mrs. Lane was hurrying home from the auction, that Lammy need not be kept in suspense a moment longer than was necessary, she bumped into Abiram Slocum, who was trudging moodily along the road. His wife had left the house first, and in her anger appropriated the cutter and gone home, leaving him to walk.
Mrs. Lane intended to go by without speaking, and merely gave a civil nod, but he would not allow it; his ugly mood must find vent in words, and as she passed he squared about, saying:—
“You’ve no cause to feel so hoity toity if yer hev got the fruit farm; there’s underhand business been goin’ on here in Laurelville, if the light o’ truth was let in. Moreover, it’s time that husband o’ yourn as Minstrator of that Irish O’More’s debts should pay me the rent due; the fact of the furniture being burned don’t release him a copper cent’s worth, as he well knows. Tell him from me he’d best come down and settle up; ter-morrow I reckon to be at the tax office all forenoon, or”—with an evil sneer—“mebbe, as you seem to hold the purse, you’d like to pay the debt out of charity to the girl you bragged o’ being fond of, to save her the name of pauper.”