n.o.body responded. Squire Eben Merritt, indeed, opened his mouth to speak, then turned it off with a laugh. "I'd make the bet, boy," he whispered to Jerome, "if it were anybody else that proposed it, but that old--"

Simon Ba.s.set stood up; the men looked at him with wonder. His eyes glowed with strange fire. The lawyer eyed him keenly. "I should think from his face that the man was defending himself in the dock," he whispered to Colonel Lamson.

"I'll tell ye what I'll do, then," shouted Simon Ba.s.set, "if ye won't none of ye take me up. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I believe that any rich man on the face of this earth is capable of givin' away every dollar he's got, for the fear of the Lord or the love of his fellow-men. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I believe, if the Lord Almighty spoke to him from on high, and told him to, he'd do it, an' I'm goin' to prove that I don't believe it. I'll tell ye all what I'll do. Lawyer Means is here, an'

he can take it down in black an' white, if he wants to, an' I'll sign it reg'lar an' have it witnessed. If that young man there," he pointed at Jerome, "ever comes into any property, an' gives away every dollar of it, I'll give away one quarter of all I've got in the world to the poor of this town, an' I'll take my oath on it.

"But there's more than that," continued Simon Ba.s.set. "I'll get a condition before I do it. I call on my fellow-townsman here--I won't say my fellow-Christian, 'cause he wouldn't think that much of a compliment--to do the same thing. If he'll do it, I will; if he won't, I won't." Simon Ba.s.set looked down at Doctor Prescott with malicious triumph. Everybody stared at the two men.

"Why don't ye speak up, doctor--hey?" asked Simon Ba.s.set, finally.

"Because I do not consider such an outrageous proposition worthy of consideration, Mr. Ba.s.set," returned the doctor, with a calm aside elevation of his clear profile, and not the slightest quickening of his even voice.

"Then ye don't believe there's a man livin' capable of givin' away his all for the Lord an' His poor any more'n I do, an' I calculate you jedge so from the workin's of your own heart an' knowin' what you'd do in like case, jest like me," said Simon Ba.s.set.

Doctor Prescott made a quick motion, and the color flashed over his thin face. "I made no such a.s.sertion," he said, hotly, for his temper at last was up over his icy bonds of will.

"Looks so," said Simon Ba.s.set.

"You have no right to make such a statement, sir," returned the doctor, and his lips seemed to cut the air like scissors.

"What is it, then?" returned the other. "Are you afraid the young fellow will come into property, an' then you'll have to give up too much to the Lord?"

The veins on Doctor Prescott's forehead swelled visibly as he looked at Simon Ba.s.set's hateful, bantering face.

"There's another thing I'm willin' to promise," continued Simon Ba.s.set. "If that young feller comes into money, an' gives it away, I'll do more than give away a quarter of my property--I'll believe anything after that. I'll get religion. But--I won't agree to do that unless you back me up, doctor. That ought to induce you--the prospect of savin' a brand from the burnin'; an' if I ain't a brand, I dun'no'

who is."

"I tell you, sir, I'll have nothing to do with it!" shouted Doctor Prescott. The minister at his side looked pale and scared as a woman.

"Then," said Simon Ba.s.set, "it's settled. You an' me won't agree to no sech d.a.m.n foolishness, because we both on us know that there's no sech Christian charity an' love as that in the world; an' if there should turn out to be, we're afraid we'd have to do likewise. I thought I was safe enough proposin' sech a plan, doctor."

There was a great shout of laughter, in spite of the respect for Doctor Prescott. In the midst of it the doctor sprang to his feet, looking as none of them had ever seen him look before. "Get a paper and pen and ink," he cried, turning to Lawyer Means; "draw up the doc.u.ment that this man proposes, and I will sign it!"

Chapter XVII

The paper which Lawyer Eliphalet Means, standing at the battered and hacked old desk whereon Cyrus Robinson made out his accounts, drew up with a sputtering quill pen--at which he swore under his breath--was as fully elaborated and as formal in every detail as his legal knowledge could make it. Apostrophizing it openly, before he began, as d.a.m.ned nonsense, he was yet not without a certain delight in the task. It was quite easy to see that Simon Ba.s.set, whatever motive he might have had in his proposition, was beyond measure terrified at its acceptance. With his bristling chin dropping nervously, and his forehead contracted with anxious wrinkles, he questioned Jerome.

"Look at here," he said, with a tight clutch on Jerome's sleeve, "I want to know, young man. There ain't no property anywheres in your family, is there? There ain't no second nor third nor fourth cousins out West anywheres that's got property?"

"No, there are not," said Jerome, impatiently shaking off his hand.

"Your father didn't have no uncle that had money?"

"I tell you there isn't a dollar in the family that I know of," cried Jerome. "I have nothing to do with all this, and I want you to understand it. All I said was, and I say it now, if in any way any money should ever fall to me, I would give it away; and I will, whether anybody else does or not."

"You don't mean money you earn; you mean money that falls to you--"

"I mean if ever I get enough money in a lump to make me rich,"

replied Jerome, doggedly.

"I want to know how much money you are goin' to call rich," demanded Simon Ba.s.set.

"Ten thousand dollars," replied Jerome, whose estimate of wealth was not large.

Simon Ba.s.set cried out with sharp protest at that, and Doctor Prescott evidently agreed with him.

"Any man might sc.r.a.pe together ten thousand dollars," said Ba.s.set.

"Lord! he might steal that much."

The amount of wealth which the doc.u.ment 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.

Ba.s.set 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 Ba.s.set 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 Ba.s.set'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 Ba.s.set'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 Ba.s.set, 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 enc.u.mbrance 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 Ba.s.set, have hereunto set our hands and seals," etc.

This doc.u.ment, 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.

Simon Ba.s.set's writing lore was limited, being, many claimed, confined to the ability to sign his name, and even that seemed likely in this case to fail him. Simon Ba.s.set faltered as if he had forgotten either his name or his spelling, and it was truly a strange signature when done, full of sharp slants of rebellion and curves of indecision. As for Doctor Seth Prescott, who had sat aloof, with a fine withdrawn majesty, all through the discussion, when it was signified to him that everything was in readiness for his signature he arose, went to the desk amid a hush of attention, and signed his name in characters like the finest copper-plate. Then he went out of the store without a word, and the minister, forgetting his quarter of tea, slid after him as noiselessly as his shadow.

Lawyer Means, when once out in the frosty night with his three mates, bound at last for cards and punch, shook his long sides with husky merriment. "I tell you," he said, "if I were worth enough, I'd give every dollar of the twenty-five thousand to that boy before morning, just for the sake of seeing Prescott and Ba.s.set."

"Of course, when it comes to a question of legality, that doc.u.ment isn't worth the paper it's written on," the Colonel said, chuckling.

"Of course," replied the lawyer, dryly. "Ba.s.set didn't know it, though, nor Jerome, nor scarcely a soul in the store beside."

"Doctor Prescott did."

"I suppose so, or he wouldn't have signed."

"Do you think the boy would live up to his part of the bargain?"

asked the Colonel, who, being somewhat gouty of late years, limped slightly on the frozen ground.

"I'd stake every cent I've got in the world on it," cried Squire Eben Merritt, striding ahead--"every cent, sir!"