“I—I couldn’t go; my health ain’t good ’nough,” declared the farmer. “Then—then—mebbe there ain’t nothin’ in it.”
“Well, mebbe there ain’t,” said the sailor calmly, preparing to dismount as the old man pulled up before a house; “an’ then ag’in mebbe there is. Leastways, I adwise ye ter jest keep yer eyes open fur letters f’om New York. An’ when one comes from Caleb Wetherbee, p’r’aps ye’ll want ter talk with me furder.”
“Where—where kin I find ye?” Arad asked, in a shaking voice.
“Jest write ter Jim Leroyd, New England Hotel, Water Street, New York—that’ll fetch me,” declared the sailor briskly. “Now remember, old feller,” he added meaningly, “ye won’t be able ter do nothin’ with them papers ’thout me. If ye try it ye’ll be up a stump ter oncet. Now, take keer o’ yerself!”
He turned away and rolled along the road toward the distant city, while Uncle Arad climbed down from the wagon.
“Fabulously rich!” he muttered to himself, as he fastened the horse to the hitching post with trembling hands.
CHAPTER VII
INTRODUCING “SQUARE” HOLT AND HIS OPINIONS
“Square” Holt, who was a justice of the peace as well as the judge of the probate court of the town, was a very tall and very angular individual with a massive development of nose (old Arad Tarr’s was as nothing beside it) and a wide mouth continually drawn into a grim line, as though such a thing as a smile had never crossed his imagination—if, indeed, he had an imagination.
He had no children of his own (which was an exceedingly fortunate thing for the unborn generations) and had apparently forgotten his own boyhood. Boys, in his estimation, were made to work—the harder the better. In this he was of the same opinion as Uncle Arad Tarr.
Old Arad was at once admitted to the front parlor of the house at which he had stopped, which was used by the judge as his office when he was not at the town hall. Here, seated in one of the prim hair cloth chairs, with which his soiled and badly fitting garments hardly harmonized, the old man told his story.