“I’m afraid of ma,” sobbed Willie. “She’s a-goin’ to bury me. She’s got the spade hid under my bed now.”
Sudden emotion completely changed Mrs. Dodd’s countenance. “There, there, Willie,” she said, stroking him kindly. “Where is your ma?”
“She’s out in the orchard with Ebbie and Rebbie.”
“Well now, deary, don’t you say nothin’ at all to your ma, an’ we’ll fool her. The idea of buryin’ a nice little boy like you! You just go an’ get me that spade an’ I’ll hide it in my room. Then, when your ma asks for it, you don’t know nothin’ about it. See?”
Willie’s troubled face brightened, and presently the implement was under Mrs. Dodd’s own bed, and her door locked. Much relieved in his mind and cherishing kindly sentiments toward his benefactor, Willie slid down the banisters, unrebuked, the rest of the afternoon.
Meanwhile Mrs. Dodd sat on the porch and meditated. “I’d never have thought,” she said to herself, “that Ebeneezer would intend that Holmes woman to have any of it, but you never can tell what folks’ll do when their minds gets to failin’ at the end. Ebeneezer’s mind must have failed dretful, for I know he didn’t make no promise to her, same as he did to me, an’ if she don’t suspect nothin’, what did she go an’ get the spade for? Dretful likely hand it is, for spirit writin’.”
Looking about furtively to make sure that she was not observed, Mrs. Dodd drew out of the mysterious recesses of her garments, the crumpled communication of the night before. It was dated, “Heaven, August 12th,” and the penmanship was Uncle Ebeneezer’s to the life.
“Dear Belinda,” it read. “I find myself at the last moment obliged to change my plans. If you will go to the orchard at exactly twelve o’clock on the night of August 13th, you will find there what you seek. Go straight ahead to the ninth row of apple trees, then seven trees to the left. A cat’s skull hangs from the lower branch, if it hasn’t blown down or been taken away. Dig here and you will find a tin box containing what I have always meant you to have.
“I charge you by all you hold sacred to obey these directions in every particular, and unless you want to lose it all, to say nothing about it to any one who may be in the house.
“I am sorry to put you to this inconvenience, but the limitations of the spirit world cannot well be explained to mortals. I hope you will make a wise use of the money and not spend it all on clothes, as women are apt to do.