"But the letter," suggested Mr. Perkins, hopefully. "Is there not a letter from dear Uncle Ebeneezer? Let us gather around the box in a reverent spirit and listen to dear Uncle Ebeneezer's last words."

"You can read 'em," snapped Mrs. Holmes, "if you're set on hearing."

Uncle Israel wheezed so loudly that for the moment he drowned the deep purr of Claudius Tiberius. When quiet was restored, Mr. Perkins broke the seal of the envelope and unfolded the communication within. Uncle Israel held the dripping candle on one side and Mrs. Smithers the smoking lantern on the other, while near by, d.i.c.k watched the midnight a.s.sembly with an unholy glee which, in spite of his efforts, nearly became audible.

"How beautiful," said Mr. Perkins, "to think that dear Uncle Ebeneezer's last words should be given to us in this unexpected but original way."

"Shut up," said Mrs. Smithers, emphatically, "and read them last words.

I'm gettin' the pneumony now, that's wot I am."

"You're the only one," chirped Mrs. Dodd, hysterically. "The money in this here box is all old." It was, indeed. Mr. Judson seemed to have purposely chosen ragged bills and coins worn smooth.

"'Dear Relations,'" began Mr. Perkins. "'As every one of you have at one time or another routed me out of bed to let you in when you have come to my house on the night train, and always uninvited----'"

"I never did," interrupted Mrs. Holmes. "I always came in the daytime."

"n.o.body ain't come at night," explained Mrs. Smithers, "since 'e fixed the 'ouse over into a face. One female fainted dead away when 'er started up the hill and see it a-winkin' at 'er, yes sir, that's wot 'er did!"

"'It seems only fitting and appropriate,'" continued Mr. Perkins, "'that you should all see how it seems.'" The poet wiped his ma.s.sive brow with his soiled handkerchief. "Dear uncle!" he commented.

"Yes," wheezed Uncle Israel, "'dear uncle!' d.a.m.n his stingy old soul," he added, with uncalled-for emphasis.

"It gives me pleasure to explain in this fashion my disposal of my estate," the reader went on, huskily.

"Of all the connection on both sides, there is only one that has never been to see me, unless I've forgotten some, and that is my beloved nephew, James Harlan Carr."

"Him," creaked Uncle Israel. "Him, as never see Ebeneezer."

"He has never," continued the poet, with difficulty, "rung my door bell at night, nor eaten me out of house and home, nor written begging letters--"

this phrase was well-nigh inaudible--"nor had fits on me----"

Here there was a pause and all eyes were fastened upon Uncle Israel.

"'T wa'n't a fit!" he screamed. "It was a involuntary spasm brought on by takin' two searchin' medicines too near together. 'T wa'n't a fit!"

"Nor children----"

"The idea!" snapped Mrs. Holmes. "Poor little Ebbie and Rebbie had to be born somewhere."

"Nor paralysis----"

"That was Cousin Si Martin," said Mrs. Dodd, half to herself. "He was took bad with it in the night."

"He has never come to spend Christmas with me and remained until the ensuing dog days, nor sent me a crayon portrait of himself"--Mr. Perkins faltered here, but n.o.bly went on--"nor had typhoid fever, nor finished up his tuberculosis, nor cut teeth, nor set the house on fire with a bath cabinet----"

At this juncture Uncle Israel was so overcome with violent emotion that it was some time before the reading could proceed.

"Never having come into any kind of relations with my dear nephew, James Harlan Carr," continued Mr. Perkins, in troubled tones, "I have shown my grat.i.tude in this humble way. To him I give the house and all my furniture, my books and personal effects of every kind, my farm in Hill County, two thousand acres, all improved and clear of inc.u.mbrance, except blooded stock,----"

"I never knowed 'e 'ad no farm," interrupted Mrs. Smithers.

"And the ten thousand and eighty-four dollars in the City Bank which at this writing is there to my credit, but will be duly transferred, and my dear Rebecca's diamond pin to be given to my beloved nephew's wife when he marries. It is all in my will, which my dear friend Jeremiah Bradford has, and which he will read at the proper time to those concerned."

"The old snake!" shrieked Mrs. Holmes.

"Further," went on the poet, almost past speech by this time, "I direct that the remainder of my estate, which is here in this box, shall be divided as follows:

"Eight cents each to that loafer, Si Martin, his lazy wife, and their eight badly brought-up children, with instructions to be generous to any additions to said children through matrimony or natural causes; f.a.n.n.y Wood and that poor, white-livered creature she married, thereby proving her own idiocy if it needed proof; Uncle James's cross-eyed third wife and her two silly daughters; Rebecca's sister's scoundrelly second husband, with his foolish wife and their little boy with a face like a pug dog; Uncle Jason, who has needed a bath ever since I knew him--I want he should spend his legacy for soap--and his epileptic stepson, whose name I forget, though he lived with me five years hand-running; lying Sally Simmons and her half-witted daughter; that old hen, Belinda Dodd; that skunk, Harold Vernon Perkins, who never did a stroke of honest work in his life till he began to dig for this box; monkey-faced Lucretia and the four thieving little Riley children, who are likely to get into prison when they grow up; that human undertaker's waggon, Betsey Skiles, and her two impudent nieces; that grand old perambulating drug store, Israel Skiles; that Holmes fool with the three reprints of her ugliness--eight cents apiece, and may you get all possible good out of it.

"d.i.c.k Chester, however, having always paid his board, and tried to be a help to me in several small ways, and in spite of having lived with me eight Summers or more without having been asked to do so, gets two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars which is deposited for him in the savings department of the Metropolitan Bank, plus the three hundred and seventy dollars he paid me for board without my asking him for it. Sarah Smithers, being in the main a good woman, though sharp-tongued at times, and having been faithful all the time my house has been full of lowdown cusses too lazy to work for their living, gets twelve hundred and fifty dollars which is in the same bank as d.i.c.k's. The rest of you take your eight cents apiece and be d.a.m.ned. You can get the money changed at the store. If any have been left out, it is my desire that those remembered should divide with the unfortunate.

"If you had not all claimed to be Rebecca's relatives, you would have been kicked out of my house years ago, but since writing this, I have seen Rebecca and made it right with her. It was not her desire that I should be imposed upon.

"Get out of my house, every one of you, before noon to-morrow, and the devil has my sincere sympathy when you go to live with him and make h.e.l.l what you have made my house ever since Rebecca's death. GET OUT!!!

"Ebeneezer Judson."

The letter was badly written and incoherent, yet there could be no doubt of its meaning, nor of the state of mind in which it had been penned. For a moment, there was a tense silence, then Mrs. Dodd t.i.ttered hysterically.

"We thought diamonds was goin' to be trumps," she observed, "an' it turned out to be spades."

Uncle Israel wheezed again and Mrs. Smithers smacked her lips with intense satisfaction. Mrs. Holmes was pale with anger, and, under cover of the night, d.i.c.k sneaked back to his room, shame-faced, yet happy. Claudius Tiberius still purred, sticking his claws into the bark with every evidence of pleasure.

"I do not know," said Mr. Perkins, sadly, running his fingers through his mane, "whether we are obliged to take as final these vagaries of a dying man. Dear Uncle Ebeneezer could not have been sane when he penned this cruel letter. I do not believe it was his desire to have any of us go away before the usual time." Under cover of these forgiving sentiments, he pocketed all the money in the box.

"Me neither," said Mrs. Dodd. "Anyhow, I'm goin' to stay. No sheeted spectre can't scare me away from a place I've always stayed in Summers, 'specially," she added, sarcastically, "when I'm remembered in the will."

Mrs. Smithers clucked disagreeably and went back to the house. Uncle Israel looked after her with dismay. "Do you suppose," he queried, in falsetto, "that she'll tell the Carrs?"

"Hush, Israel," replied Mrs. Dodd. "She can't tell them Carrs about our diggin' all night in the orchard, 'cause she was here herself. They didn't get no spirit communication an' they won't suspect nothin'. We'll just stay where we be an' go on 's if nothin' had happened."

Indeed, this seemed the wisest plan, and, shivering with the cold, the baffled ones filed back to the Jack-o'-Lantern. "How did you get out, Israel?" whispered Mrs. Dodd, as they approached the house.

The old man snickered. It was the only moment of the evening he had thoroughly enjoyed. "The same spirit that give me the letter, Belinda," he returned, pleasantly, "also give me a key. You didn't think I had no flyin' machine, did you?"

"Humph" grunted Mrs. Dodd. "Spirits don't carry no keys!"

At the threshold they paused, the sensitive poet quite unstrung by the night's adventure. From the depths of the Jack-o'-Lantern came a shrill, infantile cry.

"Is that Ebbie," asked Mrs. Dodd, "or Rebbie?"

Mrs. Holmes turned upon her with suppressed fury. "Don't you ever dare to allude to my children in that manner again," she commanded, hoa.r.s.ely.

"What is their names?" quavered Uncle Israel, lighting his candle.

"Their names," returned Mrs. Holmes, with a vast accession of dignity, "are Gladys Gwendolen and Algernon Paul! Good night!"

Just before dawn, a sheeted spectre appeared at the side of Sarah Smither's bed, and swore the trembling woman to secrecy. It was long past sunrise before the frightened handmaiden came to her senses enough to recall that the voice of the apparition had been strangely like Mrs.

Dodd's.