“Any man might scrape together ten thousand dollars,” said Basset. “Lord! he might steal that much.”
The amount of wealth which the document should specify was finally fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars, which was, moreover, to come into Jerome's possession in full bulk and during the next ten years, or the obligation would be null and void.
Basset also insisted upon the stipulation that Jerome, in his giving, should not include his immediate family. “I've seen men shift their purses into women folks' pockets, an' take 'em out again, when they got ready, before now,” he said. “I ain't goin' to have no such gum-game as that played.”
That proposition met with some little demur, though not from Jerome.
“Might just as well say I wouldn't agree not to give mother and Elmira the moon, if it fell to me,” he said to Squire Merritt.
The Squire nodded. “Let 'em put it any way they want to,” he said; “it can't hurt you any. Means knows what he's about. I tell you that old fox of a Basset feels as if the dogs were after him.” The Squire was highly amused, but Jerome did not regard it as quite a laughing matter. He wondered angrily if they were making fun of him, and would have flown out at the whole of them, with all his young impetuosity, had not Squire Eben restrained him.
“Easy, boy, easy,” he whispered. “It won't do you any harm.”
The instrument, as drawn up by Lawyer Means, also stipulated, at Simon Basset's insistence, that the said twenty-five thousand dollars should come into Jerome's possession within ten years from date, and be given away by him within one month's time after his acquisition of the same. Lawyer Means, without objection, filed carefully all Basset's precautionary conditions; then he proceeded to make it clearly evident, with no danger of quibble, that “in case the said Jerome Edwards should comply with all the said conditions, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, Esquire, of Upham Corners, do covenant and engage by these presents to remise, release, give, and forever quitclaim, each of the aforesaid, one-quarter of the property of which he may at the time of the acquisition by the said Jerome Edwards of the said twenty-five thousand dollars, stand possessed, to all those persons of adult age residing within the boundaries of the town of Upham Corners who shall not own at the time of said acquisition homesteads free of encumbrance and the sum of twelve thousand dollars in bank, to be divided among the aforesaid in equal measure.
“In witness whereof we, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, have hereunto set our hands and seals,” etc.
This document, being duly signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of the witnesses John Jennings, Eben Merritt, Esquire, and Cyrus Robinson, was stored away in the pocket of Lawyer Eliphalet Means's surtout, to be later locked safely in his iron box of valuables.