Quincy answered, "I am boarding at Deacon Mason's."

"He's a nice old gentleman," said Mrs. Putnam, "and Mrs. Mason's good as they make 'em. Her daughter Huldy's a pert young thing, she's pretty and she knows it."

Quincy remarked that he thought Miss Mason was a very nice young lady.

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Putnam, "you young fellers never look more than skin deep. Now the way she trifles with that young 'Zekiel Pettengill I think's shameful. They ust to have a spat every week about something but they allus made it up. But I heard Lindy say that after you come here, 'Zeke he got huffy and Huldy she got independent, and they hain't spoke to each other nigh on two weeks."

This was a revelation to Quincy, but he was to hear more about it very soon.

"How long be you goin' to stay, Mr. Sawyer?"

"I haven't decided," said Quincy.

"What's your business?" persisted Mrs. Putnam.

"I am a lawyer," replied Quincy.

Mrs. Putnam looked at him inquiringly and said, "Be n't you rather young for a lawyer? How old be you, anyway?"

Quincy decided to take a good humored part in his cross examination and said without a smile, "I am twenty-three years, two months, sixteen days old."

"Be you?" exclaimed Mrs. Putnam. "I shouldn't have said you were a day over nineteen."

Quincy never felt his youth so keenly before. He determined to change the conversation.

"Did you attend the concert, Mrs. Putnam?"

"No," said she. "Pa and me don't go out much; he's deefer'n a stone post and I've had the rheumatiz so bad in my knees for the last five years that I can't walk without crutches;" and she pointed to a pair that lay on the floor beside her chair.

During this conversation old Mr. Putnam had been eying Quincy very keenly. He blurted out, "He's a chip of the old block, Heppy; he looks just as Jim did when he fust came to this town. Did yer say yer had an Uncle Jim?"

Quincy shook his head.

Mrs. Putnam turned to her husband and yelled, "Now you shet up, Silas, and don't bother the young man. Jim Sawyer ain't nothin' to be proud of, and I don't blame the young man for not ownin' up even if Jim is his uncle."

Quincy made another attempt to change the conversation. "Your daughter is a very fine singer, Mrs. Putnam."

"Well, I s'pose so," said she; "there's been enough money spent on her to make suthin' of her. As for me I don't like this folderol singin'.

Why, when she ust to be practisin' I had to go up in the attic or else stuff cotton in my ears. But my son, Jehoiakim Jones Putnam, he sot everythin' by Lucinda, and there wasn't anythin' she wanted that she couldn't have. He's dead now, but he left more'n a hundred thousand dollars, that he made speculatin'."

"Then your daughter will be quite an heiress one of these days, Mrs.

Putnam?"

She answered, "She won't get none of my money. Jehoiakim left her all of his'n, but before she got it she had to sign a paper, a wafer, I believe they call it, if you're a lawyer you ought to know what it was, givin'

up all claim on my money. I made my will and the girl who'll get it needs it and will make good use of it."

Quincy determined to get even with Mrs. Putnam for the questioning she put him through, so he said, "Did you make your money speculating, Mrs.

Putnam?"

"No," said she, "pa made it by hard work on the farm; but he gave it all to me more'n fifteen year ago, and he hasn't got a cent to his name.

He's just as bad off as Jim Sawyer. I feed him and clothe him and shall have to bury him. I guess it seems kinder odd to ye, so I reckon I'll have to tell ye the hull story. I've told it a dozen times, but I guess it'll bear tellin' once more. You see my husband here, Silas Putnam, was brought up religis and he's allus been a churchgoin' man. We were both Methodists, and everythin' went all right till one day a Second Advent preacher came along, and then things went all wrong. He canoodled my husband into believin' that the end of the world was comin' and it was his duty to give all his property away, so he could stand clean handed afore the Lord. My dander riz when I heerd them makin' their plans, but afore my husband got deef he was great on argifyin' and argumentin', and I didn't stand much show against two on 'em; but when Silas told me he was goin' to give his property away I sot up my Ebenezer, and I says, 'Silas Putnam, if you gives your property to any one you gives it to me.' So after a long tussle it was settled that way and the lawyers drew up the papers. The night afore the world was goin' to end he prayed all night. You can imagine with that air voice of his'n I didn't sleep a wink. When mornin' came--it was late in October and the air was pretty sharp--Silas stopped prayin' and put on his white robe, which was a shirt of hisn't I pieced out so it came down to his feet, and takin' a tin trumpet that he bought over to Eastborough Centre, he went out, climbed up on the barn, sot down on the ridgepole and waited for Kingdom Come. He sot there and tooted all mornin' and 'spected the angel Gabriel would answer back. He sot there and tooted all the arternoon till the cows come home and the chickens went to roost. I had three good square meals that day, but Silas didn't get a bite. 'Bout six o'clock I did think of takin' him out some doughnuts, but then I decided if he was goin' up so soon it was no use a wastin' em, so I put 'em back in the pantry. He sot there and tooted all the evenin' till the moon come up and the stars were all out, and then he slid down off'n the barn, and barked both his shins doin' it, threw his trumpet into the pig pen, come into the house and huddled up close to the fire. He didn't say nothin'

for a spell, but finally says he, 'I guess, Heppy, that feller made a mistake in figurin' out the date.' 'I guess, Silas,' says I, 'that you've made an all-fired fool of yerself. And if you don't go to bed quick and take a rum sweat, I shall be a widder in a very short time,'

He was sick for more'n three weeks, but I pulled him through by good nussin', and the fust day he was able to set up, I says to him, 'Now, Silas Putnam, when I married ye forty-five year ago I promised to obey ye, ye was allus a good perwider and I don't perpose to see yer want for nothin', but ye have got to hold up yer right hand and swear to obey me for the rest of yer nateral life,' and he did it. He got well, and he is tougher'n a biled owl, if he is eighty-six. But the cold sorter settled in his ears, and he's deef as an adder. Ef angel Gabriel blew his horn now I'm afeared Silas wouldn't hear him."

During this long story Quincy had listened without a smile on his face, but the manner in which the last remark was made was too much for him and he burst into a loud laugh. Silas, who had been eying him, also gave a loud laugh and said with his ponderous voice, "I guess Heppy's been tellin' ye about my goin' up."

Quincy laughed again and Mrs. Putnam took part. He arose, told Mr. and Mrs. Putnam he had enjoyed his visit very much, was very sorry Miss Putnam was not at home, and said he would call again, with their kind permission.

"Oh, drop in any time," said Mrs. Putnam; "we're allus to hum. You seem to be a nice young man, but you're too young to marry. Why, Lindy's twenty-eight, and I tell her she don't know enough to get married yet.

Ef you'll take a bit of advice from an old woman, let me say, 'less you mean to marry the girl yourself, you'd better git away from Deacon Mason's."

And with this parting shot ringing in his ears, he left the house and made his way homeward.

In half an hour after Quincy's departure, Lindy Putnam entered the sitting-room and facing her mother said with a voice full of pa.s.sion, "Samanthy says Mr. Sawyer called to see me."

Mrs. Putnam answered, "Well, ef ye wanted to see him so much why didn't ye stay to hum?"

Lindy continued, "Well, I have told you a dozen times that when people come to see me that you are not to invite them in."

"Wall, I didn't," said Mrs. Putnam. "When he found you wuz out he said he wanted to see pa and me, and he stayed here more'n an hour."

"Yes," said Lindy, "no doubt you told him all about pa's turning Second Advent and how much money I had, and you have killed all my chances."

"Well, I guess not," said Mrs. Putnam. "I told him about your brother leavin' yer all his money, and I guess that won't drive him away."

Lindy continued, "Money don't count with him; they say his father is worth more than a million dollars."

Mrs. Putnam answered, "Wall, I s'pose there's a dozen or so to divide it among."

Lindy said, "Did you tell him who you were going to leave your money to?"

"No, I didn't," replied Mrs. Putnam. "But I did tell him that you wouldn't get a cent of it."

Lindy sobbed, "I think it is a shame, mother. I like him better than any young man I have ever met, and now after what you have told me I sha'n't see him again. I have a good mind to leave you for good and all and go to Boston to live."

"Wall, you're your own mistress," replied Mrs. Putnam, "and I'm my own mistress and pa's. Come to think on't, there was one thing I said to him that might sot him against yer."

"What was that?" demanded Lindy fiercely.

"Wall," said Mrs. Putnam, "he said he was twenty-three, and I sort a told him incidentally you was twenty-eight. You know yer thirty, and p'raps he might object to ye on account of yer age."

This was too much for Lindy. She rushed out of the room and up to her chamber, where she threw herself on her bed in a pa.s.sion of tears.

"It's too bad," she cried. "I will see him again, I will find some way, and I'll win him yet, even if I am twenty-eight."

Two days afterwards Hiram told Mandy that he heard down to Hill's grocery that that city chap had two strings to his bow now. He was courting the Deacon's daughter, but had been up to see Mr. and Mrs.

Putnam to find out how much money Lindy had in her own right, and to see if there was any prospect of getting anything out of the old folks.