“’Tain’t that. She’ll sell, well enough, once she hyurs. I didn’t ’low ez I’d let ’er know at fust. She’ll be wantin’ the most uv it—her an’ Dode—an’ hit ain’t ther’n, hit’s mine. I wuz on hyur fust. I owned this hyur place fust, ’fore ever I saw ’er. She don’t do nuthin’ but fuss an’ fight, ez ’tis.”
“Supposing we go over to the house and talk to her. She may not be unreasonable. She’s only entitled to a third, you know, if you don’t want to give her more than that. That’s the law. That would leave you nearly five thousand. In fact, if you want it, I’ll see that you get five thousand whatever she gets.” He had somehow gathered the impression that five thousand, for himself, meant a great deal to Queeder.
And true enough, at that the old farmer brightened a little. For five thousand? Was not that really more than he had expected to get for the place as a whole but an hour before! And supposing his wife did get three thousand? What of it? Was not his own dream coming true? He agreed at once and decided to accompany the prospector to the house. But on the way the farmer paused and gazed about him. He was as one who scarcely knew what he was doing. All this money—this new order of things—if it went through! He felt strange, different, confused. The mental ills of his many years plus this great fortune with its complications and possibilities were almost too much for him. The stranger noted a queer metallic and vacant light in the old farmer’s eyes as he now turned slowly about from west to east, staring.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, a suspicion of insanity coming to him.
The old man seemed suddenly to come to. “’Tain’t nuthin’,” he said. “I wuz just thinkin’.”
The prospector meditated on the validity of a contract made with a lunatic, but the land was too valuable to bother about trifles. Once a contract was made, even with a half-wit, the legal difficulties which could be made over any attempt to break the agreement would be very great.
In the old cabin Jane and her mother wondered at the meaning of the approaching couple, but old Queeder shooed off the former as he would have a chicken. Once inside the single room, which served as parlor, sitting-room, bedroom and all else convenient, Queeder nervously closed the door leading into the kitchen, where Jane had retired.
“Go on away, now,” he mumbled, as he saw her there hanging about. “We want a word with yer Maw, I tell yuh.”
Lank Jane retired, but later clapped a misshapen ear to the door until she was driven away by her suspicious father. Then the farmer began to explain to his wife what it was all about.
“This hyur stranger—I don’t know your name yit—”