Section 1 of the $30,000 BeQuest and Other Stories This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The $30,000 BeQuest and Other Stories by Mark Twain Section 1. The $30,000 BeQuest Part 1 Chapter 1 Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants and a rather pretty one, too, as far as towns go in the far west. It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the far west and the south, where everybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside, unconfessed anyway. Everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere. Saladin Foster was a bookkeeper in the principal store and the only high-salaryed man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five years old now. He had served that store for fourteen years. He had begun in his marriage week at four hundred dollars a year and had climbed steadily up a hundred dollars a year for four years. From that time forth his wage had remained eight hundred, a handsome figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it. His wife, Elektra, was a capable help-meat, although like himself a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she did after her marriage, child as she was, aged only nineteen, was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town and pay down the cash for it, twenty-five dollars all her fortune. Saladin had less by fifteen. She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred percent a year. Out of Saladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings bank, sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty out of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year then, and meantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses, but she banked two hundred a year from the salary nevertheless, henceforth. When she had been married seven years she built and furnished a pretty and comfortable two thousand dollar house in the midst of her garden acre, paid half of the money down, and moved her family in. Seven years later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out earning its living. Earning it by the rise in landed estate, for she had long ago bought another acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant people who were willing to build and would be good neighbors and furnish a general comradeship for her and her growing family. She had an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred dollars a year. Her children were growing in years and grace, and she was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the husband and the children were happy in her. It is at this point that this history begins. The youngest girl, Clytemnestra, called Clyty for short, was eleven. Her sister, Gwendolyn, called Gwen for short, was thirteen. Nice girls and comely. The names betray the latent romance tinge in the parental blood. The parents' names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet names. Saladins was a curious and unsexing one, Sally. And so was Electra's, Alec. All day long Sally was a good and diligent bookkeeper and salesman. All day long Alec was a good and faithful mother and housewife and thoughtful and calculating businesswoman. But in the cozy living-room at night they put the plotting world away and lived in another and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dreaming dreams, comrading with kings and princes and stately lords and ladies in the flash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient castles. Chapter 2 Now came great news, stunning news, joyous news in fact. It came from a neighboring state where the family's only surviving relative lived. It was Sally's relative, a sort of vague and indefinite uncle or second or third cousin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor, reputed well off and corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had tried to make up to him once by letter in a bygone time and had not made that mistake again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die and should leave him thirty thousand dollars' cash, not for love, but because money had given him most of his troubles and exasperations and he wished to place it where there was good hope that it would continue its malignant work. The bequest would be found in his will and would be paid over, provided that Sally should be able to prove to the executors that he had taken no notice of the gift by spoken word or by letter, had made no inquiries concerning the moribund's progress toward the everlasting tropics, and had not attended the funeral. As soon as Alec had partially recovered from the tremendous emotions created by the letter, she sent to the relative's habitat and subscribed for the local paper. Man and wife entered into a solemn compact now to never mention the great news to anyone while the relative lived, lest some ignorant person carry the fact to the deathbed and distort it and make it appear that they were disobediently thankful for the bequest, and just the same as confessing it and publishing it right in the face of the prohibition. For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with his books, and Alec could not keep her mind on her affairs, not even take up a flowerpot or book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she had intended to do with it, for both were dreaming. $30,000. All day long the music of those inspiring words sang through those people's heads. From his marriage day forth Alec's grip had been upon the purse, and Sally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to squander a dime on non-necessities. $30,000. The song went on and on, a vast sum, an unthinkable sum. All day long Alec was absorbed in planning how to invest it, Sally in planning how to spend it. There was no romance reading that night. The children took themselves away early, for their parents were silent, distraught, and strangely unentertaining. The good night kisses might as well have been impressed upon vacancy for all the response they got. The parents were not aware of the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before their absence was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that hour, note-making, in the way of plans. It was Sally who broke the stillness at last, he said with exaltation. Ah, it'll be grand Alec, out of the first thousand will have a horse and a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-rope for winter. Alec responded with decision and composure. Out of the capital? Nothing of the kind, not if it was a million. Sally was deeply disappointed, the glow went out of his face. Oh, Alec, he said reproachfully. We've always worked so hard and been so scrimmed, and now that we are rich it does seem. He did not finish, for he saw her eyes soften. His supplication had touched her. She said with gentle persuasiveness, We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise, out of the income from it. That will answer, that will answer Alec, how dear and good you are. There will be a noble income, and if we can spend that. Not all of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of it. That is a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital, every penny of it, must be put right to work and kept at it. You see the reasonableness of that, don't you? Why, yes, yes of course, but we'll have to wait so long, six months before the first interest falls due. Yes, maybe longer. Longer, Alec? Why, don't they pay half yearly? That kind of investment, yes, but I shan't invest in that way. What way, then? For big returns. Big, that's good. Go on, Alec, what is it? Coal, the new mines, canal, I mean to put in 10,000. Ground floor, when we organize, we'll get three shares for one. By George, but it sounds good, Alec, then the shares will be worth how much and when? About a year, they'll pay 10% half yearly and be worth 30,000. I know all about it. The advertisement is in the Cincinnati paper here. Land 30,000 for 10 in a year. Let's jam in the whole capital and pull out 90. I'll write and subscribe right now. Tomorrow it may be too late. He was flying to the writing desk, but Alec stopped him and put him back in his chair.  We mustn't subscribe until we've got the money. Don't you know that? Sally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not wholly appeased. Why, Alec, we'll have it, you know, and so soon, too. He's probably out of his troubles before this. It's a hundred to nothing he's selecting his brimstone shovel this very minute. Now I think, Alec shuddered and said, how can you, Sally? Don't talk in that way. It is perfectly scandalous. Oh, well, make it a halo if you like. I don't care for his outfit. I was only just talking. Can't you let a person talk? But why should you want to talk in that dreadful way? How would you like to have people talk so about you and you not cold yet? Not likely to be for one while, I reckon, if my last act was giving away money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with it. But never mind about Tilbury, Alec. Let's talk about something worldly. It does seem to me that that mine is a place for the whole thirty. What's the objection? All the eggs in one basket. That's the objection. All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty? What do you mean to do with that? There is no hurry. I am going to look around before I do anything with it. All right, if your mind's made up, sighed, Sally. He was deep in thought awhile, then he said, There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a year from now. We can spend that, can we, Alec? Alec shook her head. No, dear, she said. It won't sell high till we've had the first semi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that. Shocks only that, and a whole year to wait. Confound it. I... Oh, do be patient. It might even be declared in three months. It's quite within the possibilities. Oh, jolly. Oh, thanks. And Sally jumped up and kissed his wife in gratitude. It'll be three thousand, three whole thousand. How much of it can we spend, Alec? Make it liberal. Do, dear, that's a good fellow. Alec was pleased, so pleased, that she yielded to the pressure and conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extravagance, a thousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times, and even in that way could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access of gratitude and affection carried Alec quite beyond the bounds of prudence, and before she could restrain herself, she had made her darling another grand, a couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty, which she meant to clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the bequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said, Oh, I want to hug you. And he did it. Then he got his notes and sat down and began to check off, for first purchase, the luxuries which he should earliest wish to secure. Horse, buggy, cutter, laprobe, patent leathers, dog, plug hat, church pew, stemwinder, new teeth, say Alec. Well, ciphering away, aren't you? That's right.  No, there's no hurry about that. I must look around first and think. But you were ciphering. What's it about? Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out of the coal, haven't I?  I never thought of that. How are you getting along? Where have you arrived? Not very far, two years or three. I've turned it over twice, once in oil and once in wheat. Why, Alec, that's splendid. How does it aggregate? I think, well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty thousand clear, though it will probably be more. My, isn't it wonderful? My gracious, luck has come our way at last after all the hard sledding, Alec. Well, I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries. What real right have we care for expenses? You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear, and it's just like your generous nature, you unselfish boy. The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just enough to say that it was rightly due to Alec rather than to himself, since but for her he should never have had the money. Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot and left the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember until they were undressed. Then Sally was for letting it burn. He said they could afford it if it was a thousand, but Alec went down and put it out. A good job, too. For on her way back she hid on a scheme that would turn the hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had time to get cold. Chapter 3 The little newspaper which Alec had subscribed for was a Thursday sheet. It would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's village and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday, more than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into that week's issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the next output. Thus the fosters had to wait almost a complete week to find out whether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him or not. It was a long, long week, and the stream was a heavy one. The pair could hardly have borne it if their minds had not had the relief of wholesome diversion. We have seen that they had that. The woman was piling up fortunes right along, the man was spending them, spending all his wife could give him a chance at at any rate. At last the Saturday came and the weekly Sagamore arrived. Mrs. Eversley Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian Parsons wife and was working the fosters for a charity. Tocque now died a sudden death on the fosters side. Mrs. Bennett presently discovered that her hosts were not hearing a word she was saying, so she got up wondering and indignant and went away. The moment she was out of the house, Alec eagerly tore the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and sallies swept the columns for the death notices. Disappointment, Tilbury was not anywhere mentioned. Alec was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of habit required her to go through the motions. She pulled herself together and said, with a pious two percent trade joyousness, Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared and, damn his treacherous hide, I wish, Sally for shame, I don't care, retorted the angry man, it's the way you feel, and if you weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so. Alec said, with wounded dignity, I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things. There is no such thing as immoral piety. Sally felt a pain, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt to save his case by changing the form of it, as if changing the form while retaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to placate. He said, I didn't mean so bad as that Alec, I didn't really mean immoral piety, I only meant, well conventional piety, you know, or shop piety, the, the, why you know what I mean. Alec, the, well, where you put up that plated article and play it for solid, you know, without intending anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient policy, petrified custom, loyalty to, to hang it, I can't find the right words, but you know what I mean, Alec, and that there isn't any harm in it. I'll try again, you see, it's this way, if a person, you have said quite enough, said Alec coldly, let the subject be dropped. I'm willing, fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat from his forehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words for. Then musingly he apologized to himself. I certainly held threes, I know it, but I drew and didn't fill. That's where I'm so often weak in the game. If I had stood pat, but I didn't, I never do. I don't know enough. Confessedly defeated, he was properly tamed now and subdued.  The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the front again. Nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on a stretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's death notice. They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully, but they had to finish where they began and concede that the only really sane explanation of the absence of the notice must be, and without a doubt was, that Tilbury was not dead. There was something sad about it, something even a little unfair maybe, but there it was and had to be put up with. They were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemed a strangely inscrutable dispensation, more inscrutable than usual, he thought. One of the most unnecessary inscrutable he could call to mind in fact, and said so with some feeling. But if he was hoping to draw Alec he failed. She reserved her opinion if she had one. She had not the habit of taking injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other. The pair must wait for next week's paper, Tilbury had evidently postponed. That was their thought and their decision, so they put the subject away and went about their affairs again with as good heart as they could. Now if they had but known it, they had been wronging Tilbury all the time. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the letter. He was dead. He had died to schedule. He was dead more than four days now and used to it. Entirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the cemetery. Dead in abundant time to get into that week's Sagamore too, and only shot out by an accident. An accident which could not happen to a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor little village reg like the Sagamore. On this occasion, just as the editorial page was being locked up, a gratis court of strawberry ice water arrived from Hostetter's ladies and gents ice cream parlors, and the stick-full of rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got crowded out to make room for the editor's frantic gratitude. On its way to the standing galley, Tilbury's notice got pied. Otherwise it would have gone into some future addition, for weekly Sagamores do not waste live matter, and in their galleys live matter is immortal, unless a pie accident intervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, and for such there is no resurrection. Its chance of seeing print is gone for ever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave in his grave to his fill, no matter. No mention of his death would ever see the light in the weekly Sagamore. Chapter 4. Five weeks drifted tediously along. The Sagamore arrived regularly on the Saturdays, but never once contained a mention of Tilbury Foster. Sally's patients broke down at this point, and he said resentfully, Damn his livers, he's immortal. Alec gave him a very severe rebuke, and added with icy salinity, How would you feel if you were suddenly cut out just after such an awful remark had escaped out of you? Without sufficient reflection Sally responded, I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it in me. Pride had forced him to say something, and as he could not think of any rational thing to say, he flung that out. Then he stole a base, as he called it, that is, slipped from the presence, to keep from being braided in his wife's discussion mortar. Six months came and went. The Sagamore was still silent about Tilbury. Meantime, Sally had several times thrown out a feeler, that is, a hint that he would like to know. Alec had ignored the hints. Sally now resolved to brace up and risk a frontal attack, so he squarely proposed to disguise himself and go to Tilbury's village, and surreptitiously find out as to the prospects. Alec put her foot on the dangerous project with energy and decision. She said, What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full. You have to be watched all the time like a little child to keep you from walking into the fire. You'll stay right where you are. Why Alec, I could do it and not be found out. I'm certain of it. Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to inquire around? Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I was. Oh, listen to the man. Someday you've got to prove to the executors that you never inquired. What then? He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply. There wasn't anything to say. Alec added, Now then, drop that notion out of your mind and don't ever meddle with it again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He is on the watch and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is going to be disappointed, at least while I am on deck. Sally. Well, as long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you ever make an inquiry? Promise. All right, with a sigh and reluctantly. Then Alec softened and said, Don't be impatient. We are prospering. We can wait. There is no hurry.  And as to futures, I have not made a mistake yet. They are piling up by the thousands and tens of thousands. There is not another family in the state with such prospects as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth. You know that, don't you? Yes, Alec, it's certainly so. Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop worrying. You do not believe we could have achieved these prodigious results without his special help and guidance, do you? Hesitatingly. No, I suppose not. Then with feeling and admiration. And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering a stock or putting up a hand to skin Wall Street, I don't give in that you need any outside amateur help if I do wish I. Oh, do shut up. I know you do not mean any harm or any irreverence, poor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth without letting out things to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant dread for you and for all of us. Once I had no fear of the thunder, but now when I hear it, I... Her voice broke and she began to cry and could not finish. The sight of this smoked sally to the heart and he took her in his arms and petted her and comforted her and promised better conduct and uprated himself and remorsefully pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest and sorry for what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could make up for it. And so in privacy he thought long and deeply over the matter, resolving to do what should seem best. It was easy to promise reform. Indeed, he had already promised it. But would that do any real good, any permanent good? No, it would be but temporary. He knew his weakness and confessed it to himself with sorrow. He could not keep the promise. Something sureer and better must be devised, and he devised it. At cost of precious money which he had long been saving up, shilling by shilling, he put a lightning rod on the house. At a subsequent time he relapsed what miracles habit can do and how quickly and how easily habits are acquired, both trifling habits and habits which profoundly change us. If by accident we wake at two in the morning a couple of nights in succession, we have need to be uneasy for another repetition can turn the accident into a habit and a month's dallying with whiskey, but we all know these commonplace facts. The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit, how it grows, what a luxury it becomes, how we flight to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies. Oh yes, and how soon and how easily our dream life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which any more. By and by Alec subscribed to a Chicago daily than for the Wall Street pointer. Within single eye to finance she studied these as diligently all the week as she studied her Bible Sundays. Sally was lost in admiration to note with what swift and sure strides her genius and judgment developed and expanded in the forecasting and handling of the securities of both the material and spiritual markets. He was proud of her nerve and daring in exploiting worldly stocks and just as proud of her conservative caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted that she never lost her head in either case, yet with a splendid courage she often went short on worldly futures but heedfully drew the line there. She was always long on the others. Her policy was quite sane and simple as she explained it to him. What she put into earthly futures was for speculation. What she put into spiritual futures was for investment. She was willing to go into the one on a margin and take chances, but in the case of the other margin her no margins. She wanted to cash in a hundred cents per dollars worth and have the stock transferred on the books. It took but a very few months to educate Alec's imagination and Sally's. Each day's training added something to the spread and effectiveness of the two machines. As a consequence Alec made imaginary money much faster than at first she had dreamed of making it and Sally's competency in spending the overflow of it kept pace with the strain put upon it right along. In the beginning Alec had given the coal speculation a twelve month in which to materialize and had been loath to grant that this term might possibly be shortened by nine months. But that was the feeble work, the nursery work of a financial fancy that had had no teaching, no experience, no practice. These aids soon came, then that nine months banished and the imaginary $10,000 investment came marching home with 300% profit on its back. It was a great day for the pair of fosters. They were speechless for joy, also speechless for another reason. After much watching of the market Alec had lately with fear and trembling had her first flyer on a margin using the remaining 20,000 of the bequest in this risk. In her mind's eye she had seen it climb point by point always with a chance that the market would break until at last her anxieties were too great for further endurance. She being new to the margin business and unhardened as yet and she gave her imaginary broker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She said $40,000 profit was enough. The sale was made on the very day that the coal venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have said, the couple were speechless. They sat dazed and blissful that night trying to realize that they were actually worth $100,000 in clean imaginary cash yet so it was. It was the last time that ever Alec was afraid of a margin at least afraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her cheek to the extent that this first experience in that line had done. Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization that they were rich sank securely home in the minds of the pair. Then they began to place the money.  We should have seen a three globed gas chandelier grow down from the parlor ceiling. We should have seen the homely rag carpet turn to noble Brussels a dollar and a half a yard. We should have seen the plebeian fireplace vanish away and a rushershade big base burner with isn't glass windows take position and spread all around and we should have seen other things too among them the buggy the laprobe the stove pipe hat and so on. From that time forth although the daughters and the neighbors saw only the same old wooden house there it was a two-story brick to Alec and Sally and not a night went by that Alec did not worry about the imaginary gas bills and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort. What of it? We can afford it. Before the couple went to bed that first night that they were rich they had decided that they must celebrate they must give a party that was the idea but how to explain it to the daughters and the neighbors they could not expose the fact that they were rich Sally was willing even anxious to do it but Alec kept her head and would not allow it she said that although the money was as good as in it would be as well to wait until it was actually in on that policy she took her stand and would not budge the great secret must be kept she said kept from the daughters and everybody else the pair were puzzled they must celebrate they were determined to celebrate but since the secret must be kept what could they celebrate no birthdays were due for three months Tilbury wasn't available evidently he was going to live forever what the nation could they celebrate that was Sally's way of putting it and he was getting impatient too and harassed but at last he hit it just by sheer inspiration as it seemed to him and all their troubles were gone in a moment they would celebrate the discovery of America a splendid idea Alec was almost too proud of Sally for words she said she never would have thought of it but Sally although he was bursting with delight in the compliment and with wonder at himself tried not to let on and said it wasn't really anything anybody could have done it where at Alec with a prideful toss of her happy head said oh certainly anybody could oh anybody Hosanna Dilkins for instance or maybe Adelbert Peanut oh dear yes well I'd like to see them try it that's all dear me says if they could think of the discovery of a 40 acre island it's more than I believe they could and as for the whole continent why Sally Foster you know perfectly well it would strain the livers and lights out of them and then they couldn't the dear woman she knew he had talent and if affection made her overestimate the size of it a little surely it was a sweet and gentle crime and forgivable for its sources sake and of the $30,000 bequest part one recorded by Trisha G. section two of the $30,000 bequest and other stories this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain section two the $30,000 bequest part two chapter five the celebration went off well the friends were all present both the young and the old among the young were Flossie and Gracie Peanut and their brother Adelbert who was a rising young journeyman dinner also Hosanna Dilkins Junior journeyman plasterer just out of his apprenticeship for many months Adelbert and Hosanna had been showing interest in Gwendolyn and Clytemnestra Foster and the parents of the girls had noticed this with private satisfaction but they suddenly realized now that that feeling had passed they recognized that the changed financial conditions raised up a social bar between their daughters and the young mechanics the daughters could now look higher and must yes must they need marry nothing below the grade of lawyer or merchant Papa and Mama would take care of this there must be no misalliances however these thinkings and projects of theirs were private and did not show on the surface and therefore through no shadow upon the celebration what showed upon the surface was a serene and lofty contentment and a dignity of carriage and gravity of deportment which compelled the admiration and likewise the wonder of the company I'll noticed it and I'll commented upon it but none was able to divine the secret of it it was a marvel and a mystery three several persons remarked without suspecting what clever shots they were making it's as if they'd come into property that was just it indeed most mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial matter in the old regulation way they would have given the girls a talking to of a solemn sort and untactful a lecture calculated to defeat its own purpose by producing tears and secret rebellion and the said mothers would have further damaged the business by requesting the young mechanics to discontinue their attentions but this mother was different she was practical she said nothing to any of the young people concerned nor to anyone else except Sally he listened to her and understood understood and admired he said I get the idea instead of finding fault with the samples on view thus hurting feelings and obstructing trade without occasion you merely offer a higher class of goods for the money and leave nature to take her course it's wisdom Alec solid wisdom and sound as a nut who's your fish have you nominated him yet no she hadn't they must look the market over which they did to start with they considered and discussed brandish rising young lawyer and Fulton rising young dentist Sally must invite them to dinner but not right away there was no hurry Alec said keep an eye on the pair and wait nothing would be lost by going slowly and so important to matter it turned out that this was wisdom too for inside of three weeks Alec made a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary hundred thousand to four hundred thousand of the same quality she and Sally were in the clouds that evening for the first time they introduced champagne at dinner not real champagne but plenty real enough for the amount of imagination expended on it it was Sally that did it and Alec weekly submitted at bottom both were troubled and ashamed for he was a high up son of temperance and that funerals for an apron which no dog could look upon and retain his reason and his opinion and she was a WCTU with all that that implies of boiler iron virtue and unendurable holiness but there it was the pride of riches was beginning its disintegrating work they had lived to prove once more a sad truth which had been proven many times before in the world that whereas principal is a great and noble protection against showy and degrading vanities and vices poverty is worth six of it more than four hundred thousand dollars to the good they took up the matrimonial matter again neither the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned there was no occasion they were out of the running disqualified they discussed the son of the pork packer and the son of the village banker but finally as in the previous case they concluded to wait and think and go cautiously and sure luck came their way again Alec ever watchful saw a great and risky chance and took a daring flyer a time of trembling of doubt of awful uneasiness followed for non-success meant absolute ruin and nothing short of it then came the result and Alec faint with joy could hardly control her voice when she said the suspense is over Sally and we are worth a cold million Sally wept for gratitude and said oh Electra jewel of women darling of my heart we are free at last we roll in wealth we need never scrimp again it's a case for vape Clicquot and he got out of pint of spruce beer and made sacrifice he's saying damn the expense and she rebuking him gently with reproachful but humid and happy eyes they shelved the pork packer's son and the banker's son and sat down to consider the governor's son and the son of the congressman Chapter 6 it were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds the foster fictitious finances took from this time forth it was marvelous it was dizzying it was dazzling everything Alec touched turned to fairy gold and heaped itself glittering toward the firmament millions upon millions poured in and still the mighty stream flowed thundering along still its vast volume increased five millions ten millions twenty thirty was there never to be an end? two years swept by in the splendid delirium the intoxicated fosters scarcely noticing the flight of time they were now worth three hundred million dollars they were in every board of directors of every prodigious combine in the country and still as time drifted along the millions went on piling up five at a time ten at a time as fast as they could tally them off almost the three hundred double itself then doubled again and yet again and yet once more twenty four hundred millions the business was getting a little confused it was necessary to take an account of stock and straighten it out the fosters knew it they felt it they realized that it was imperative but they also knew that to do it properly and perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without a break when once it was begun a ten hours job and where could they find ten leisure hours in a bunch Sally was selling pins and sugar and calico all day and every day Alec was cooking and washing dishes and sweeping and making beds all day and every day with none to help for the daughters were being saved up for high society the fosters knew there was one way to get the ten hours and only one both were ashamed to name it each waited for the other to do it finally Sally said somebody's got to give in it's up to me consider that I've named it never mind pronouncing it out loud Alec colored but was grateful without further remark they fell fell and broke the Sabbath for that was their only free ten hour stretch it was but another step in the downward path others would follow fast wealth has temptations which fatally and surely undermine the moral structure of persons not habituated to it's possession they pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath with hard and patient labor they overhauled their holdings and listed them and a long drawn procession of formidable names it was starting with the railway systems steamer lines, standard oil, ocean cables diluted telegraph and all the rest and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany graft and shady privileges in the post office department 2400 millions and all safely planted in good things guilt edged and interest bearing income 120 million dollars a year Alec fetched a long pur of soft delight and said is it enough? it is Alec what shall we do? stand pat retire from business? that's it I am agreed the good work is finished we will take a long rest and enjoy the money good Alec yes dear how much of the income can we spend? the whole of it it seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his limbs he did not say a word he was happy beyond the power of speech after that they broke the sabbaths right along as fast as they turned up it is the first wrong step that counts every Sunday they put in the whole day after morning service on inventions, inventions of ways to spend the money they got to continuing this delicious dissipation until past midnight and at every seance Alec lavished millions upon great charities religious enterprises and Sally lavished like sums upon matters to which at first he gave definite names only at first later the names gradually lost sharpness of outline and eventually faded into sundries thus becoming entirely but safely undescriptive for Sally was crumbling the placing of these millions added seriously and most uncomfortably to the family expenses in tallow candles for a while Alec was worried then after a little she ceased to worry for the occasion of it was gone she was pained, she was grieved, she was ashamed but she said nothing and so became an accessory Sally was taking candles he was robbing the store it is ever thus vast wealth to the person unaccustomed to it is a bane and eats into the flesh and bone of his morals when the fosters were poor they could have been trusted with untold candles but now they but let us not dwell upon it from candles to apples is but a step Sally got to taking apples then soap then maple sugar then canned goods then crockery how easy it is to go from bad to worse when once one has started upon a downward course meantime other effects had been milestoneing the course of the fosters splendid financial march the fictitious brick dwelling had given place to an imaginary granite one with a checkerboard mansored roof in time this one disappeared and gave place to a still grander home and so on and so on mansion after mansion made of air, rose, higher, broader, finer and each in its turn vanished away now in these latter great days our dreamers were in fancy housed in a distant region in a sumptuous vast palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon a noble prospect of veil and river and receding hills steeped in tinted mists and all private all the property of the dreamers a palace swarming with liveried servants and populace with guests of fame and power hailing from all the world's capitals, foreign and domestic this palace was far, far away toward the rising sun immeasurably remote, astronomically remote in Newport, Rhode Island, holy land of high society ineffable domain of the American aristocracy as a rule they spent a part of every Sabbath after morning service in this sumptuous home the rest of it they spent in Europe or endoddling around in their private yacht six days of sordid and plotting fact life at home on the ragged edge of lakeside and straightened means the seventh in fairy land such had been their program and their habit in their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of old plotting, diligent, careful, practical, economical they stuck loyally to the little presbyterian church and labored faithfully in its interests and stood by its high and tough doctrines with all their mental and spiritual energies but in their dream life they obeyed the invitations of their fancies whatever they might be and how so ever the fancies might change Alec's fancies were not very capricious and not frequent but Sally's scattered a good deal Alec and her dream life went over to the Episcopal camp on account of it's large official titles next she became high church on account of the candles and shows and next she naturally changed to Rome where there were cardinals and more candles but these excursions were a nothing to Sally's his dream life was a glowing and continuous and persistent excitement and he kept every part of it fresh and sparkling by frequent changes the religious part along with the rest he worked his religions hard and changed them with his shirt the liberal spendings of the fosters upon their fancies began early in their prosperity and grew in prodigality step by step with their advancing fortunes in time they became truly enormous Alec built a university or two per Sunday also a hospital or two also a rotten hotel or so also a batch of churches now and then a cathedral once with untimely and ill-chosen playfulness Sally said it was a cold day when she didn't ship a cargo of missionaries to persuade unreflecting Chinamen to trade off 24 carat Confucianism for counterfeit Christianity this rude and unfeeling language hurt Alec to the heart and she went from the presence crying that spectacle went to his own heart and in his pain and shame he would have given worlds to have those unkind words back she had uttered no syllable of reproach and that cut him not one suggestion that he look at his own record and she could have made oh so many in such blistering ones her generous silence brought a swift revenge for it turned his thoughts upon himself it summoned before him a spectral procession a moving vision of his life as he had been leading it for the last few years of limitless prosperity and as he sat there reviewing it his cheeks burned and his soul was steeped in humiliation look at her life how fair it was intending ever upward and look at his own how frivolous, how charged with mean vanities how selfish, how empty how ignoble and its trend never upward but downward ever downward he instituted comparisons between her record and his own he had found fault with her so he mused he and what could he say for himself when she built her first church what was he doing gathering other base multi-millionaires into a poker club defiling his own palace with it losing hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting and silly vain of the admiring notoriety it made for him when she was building her first university what was he doing polluting himself with a gay and dissipated secret life in the company of other fast bloods multi-millionaires in money and poppers in character when she was building her first foundling asylum what was he doing alas when she was projecting her noble society for the purifying of the sex what was he doing ah what indeed when she and the WCTU and the woman with the hatchet moving with resistless march were sweeping the fatal bottle from the land what was he doing getting drunk three times a day when she, builder of a hundred cathedrals was being gratefully welcomed and blessed in papal Rome and decorated with the golden rose which he had so honorably earned what was he doing breaking the bank at Monte Carlo he stopped he could go no farther he could not bear the rest he rose up with a great resolution upon his lips this secret life should be revealing and confessed no longer would he live it clandestinely he would go and tell her all and that was what he did he told her all and wept upon her bosom wept and moaned and begged for her forgiveness it was a profound shock and she staggered under the blow but he was her own, the core of her heart the blessing of her eyes, her all in all she could deny him nothing and she forgave him she felt that he could never again be quite to her what he had been before she knew that he could only repent and not reform yet all morally defaced and decayed as he was was he not her own, her very own the idol of her deathless worship she said she was his serf, his slave and she opened her yearning heart and took him in Chapter 7 one Sunday afternoon, sometime after this they were sailing the summer seas in their dream yacht and reclining in lazy luxury under the awning of the after-deck there was silence for each was busy with his own thoughts these seasons of silence had insensibly been growing more and more frequent of late the old nearness and cordiality were waning Sally's terrible revelation had done its work Alec had tried hard to drive the memory of it out of her mind but it would not go and the shame and bitterness of it were poisoning her gracious dream life she could see now on Sundays that her husband was becoming a bloated and repulsive thing she could not close her eyes to this and in these days she no longer looked at him Sundays when she could help it but she, was she herself without blemish? alas she knew she was not she was keeping a secret from him she was acting dishonorably toward him and many a pain it was costing her she was breaking the compact and concealing it from him under strong temptation she had gone into business again she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all the railway systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a margin and she was now trembling every Sabbath hour lest through some chance word of hers he find it out in her misery and remorse for this treachery she could not keep her heart from going out to him in pity she was filled with compunctions to see him lying there drunk and contented and never suspecting never suspecting trusting her with a perfect and pathetic trust and she holding over him by a thread a possible calamity of so devastating a say Alec the interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself she was grateful to have that persecuting subject from her thoughts and she answered with much of the old time tenderness in her tone yes dear do you know Alec I think we are making a mistake that is you are I mean about the marriage business he sat up fat and froggy and benevolent like a bronze Buddha and grew earnest consider it's more than five years you've continued the same policy from the start with every rise always holding on for five points higher always when I think we are going to have some weddings you see a bigger thing ahead and I undergo another disappointment I think you are too hard to please some day we'll get left first we turned down the dentist and the lawyer that was all right it was sound next we turned down the banker's son and the pork butcher's air right again and sound next we turned down the congressman's son and the governor's right as a trivet I confess it next the senator's son and the son of the vice president of the United States perfectly right there's no permanency about those little distinctions then you went for the aristocracy and I thought we had struck oil at last yes we would take the plunge at the 400 and pull in some ancient lineage venerable holy ineffable mellow with the antiquity of 150 years disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt cod and pelts all of a century ago and unsmurched by a day's work since and then why then the marriages of course but no along comes a pair of real aristocrats from Europe and straight away you throw over the half breeds it was awfully discouraging Alec since then what a procession you turned down the baronettes for a pair of barons you turned down the barons for a pair of viscounts the viscounts for a pair of earls the earls for a pair of marquises the marquises for a brace of dukes now Alec cash in you've played the limit you've got a job lot of four dukes under the hammer of four nationalities all sound in the wind and limb and pedigree all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears they come high but we can afford it come Alec don't delay any longer don't keep up the suspense take the whole layout and leave the girls to choose Alec had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through this arraignment of her marriage policy a pleasant light as of triumph with perhaps a nice surprise peeping out through it rose in her eyes and she said as calmly as she could Sally what would you say to royalty prodigious poor man it knocked him silly and he fell over the garbage-stake and barked his shin on the cat heads he was dizzy for a moment then he gathered himself up and limped over and sat down by his wife and beamed his old-time admiration and affection upon her in floods out of his bleary eyes by George he said fervently Alec you are great the greatest woman in the whole earth I can't ever learn the whole size of you I can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps of you here I've been considering myself qualified to criticize your game I why if I had stopped to think I'd have known you had a lone hand up your sleeve now dear heart I'm all red-hot impatience tell me about it the flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and whispered a princely name it made him catch his breath it lit his face with exultation land he said it's a stunning catch he's got a gambling-hol and a graveyard and a bishop and a cathedral all his very own and all guilt-edged five hundred percent stock every detail of it the tidiest little property in Europe and that graveyard it's the selectest in the world none but suicides admitted yes sir and the free list suspended too all the time there isn't much land in the principality but there's enough eight hundred acres in the graveyard and forty-two outside it's a sovereignty that's the main thing lands nothing there's plenty land Sahara's drugged with it Alec glowed she was profoundly happy she said think of it Sally it is a family that has never married outside the royal and imperial houses of Europe our grandchildren will sit upon thrones true as you live Alec and bear sceptres too and handle them as naturally and nonchalantly as I handle a yardstick it's a grand catch Alec he's corralled isn't he can't get away you didn't take him on a margin no trust me for that he's not a liability he's an asset so is the other one who is it Alec his royal highness Sigmussen Siegfried Lahrenfeld Dickenspell Schwarzenberg Blutwurst hereditary grand duke of Katzenjammer no you can't mean it it's as true as I'm sitting here I give you my word she answered his cup was full and he hugged her to his heart with rapture saying how wonderful it all seems and how beautiful it's one of the oldest and noblest of the 364 ancient German principalities and one of the few that was allowed to retain its royal estate when Bismarck got done trimming them I know that farm I've been there it's got a rope walk and a candle factory and an army standing army infantry and cavalry three soldier and a horse Alec it's been a long wait and full of heartbreak and hope deferred but God knows I am happy now happy and grateful to you my own who have done it all when is it to be next Sunday good and we'll want to do these weddings up in the very regalist style that's going it's properly due to the royal quality of the parties of the first part now as I understand it there is only one kind of marriage that is sacred to royalty exclusive to royalty it's the Morgan attic what did they call it that for Sally I don't know but anyway it's royal and royal only then we will insist upon it more I will compel it it is Morgan attic marriage or none that settles it said Sally rubbing his hands with delight and it will be the very first in America Alec it will make Newport sick then they fell silent and drifted away upon their dream wings to the far regions of the earth to invite all the crowned heads and their families and provide greatest transportation to them Chapter 8 during three days the couple walked upon air with their heads in the clouds they were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings they saw all things dimly as through a veil they were steeped in dreams often they did not hear when they were spoken to they often did not understand when they heard they answered confusedly or at random Sally sold molasses by weight sugar by the yard and furnished soap when asked for candles and Alec put the cat in the wash and fed milk to the soiled linen everybody was stunned and amazed and went about muttering what can be the matter with the fosters three days then came events things had taken a happy turn and for forty-eight hours Alec's imaginary corner had been booming up up still up cost point was passed still up and up and up cost point was passed still up and up and up five points above cost then ten fifteen twenty twenty points cold profit on the vast venture now and Alec's imaginary brokers were shouting frantically by imaginary long distance sell sell for heaven's sake sell she broke this blended news to Sally and he too said sell sell oh don't make a blunder now you own the earth sell sell but she set her iron will and lasted amid ships and said she would hold on for five points more if she died for it it was a fatal resolve the very next day came the historic crash the record crash the devastating crash when the bottom fell out of Wall Street and the whole body of guilt-edged stocks dropped ninety-five points in five hours and the multi-millionaire was seen begging his bread in the bowery Alec sternly held her grip and put up as long as she could but at last there came a call which she was powerless to meet and her imaginary brokers sold her out then and not till then the man in her was vanished and the woman in her resumed sway she put her arms about her husband's neck and wept saying I am to blame do not forgive me I cannot bear it we are poppers poppers and I am so miserable the weddings will never come off all that is passed we could not even buy the dentist now a bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue I begged you to sell but you he did not say it he had not the heart to add a hurt to that broken and repentant spirit a nobler thought came to him and he said bear up my Alec all is not lost you really never invested a penny of my uncle's bequest but only its unmaterialized future what we have lost was only the incremented harvest from that future by your incomparable financial judgment and sagacity bear up, banish these griefs we still have the 30,000 untouched and with the experience which you have acquired think of what you will be able to do with it in a couple years the marriages are not off they are only postponed these are blessed words Alec saw how true they were and their influence was electric her tears ceased to flow and her great spirit rose to its full stature again with flashing eye and a grateful heart and with hand up lifted in pledge and prophecy she said now and here I proclaim but she was interrupted by a visitor it was the editor and proprietor of the Sagamore he had happened into Lakeside to pay a duty call upon an obscure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of her pilgrimage and with the idea of combining business with grief he had looked up the fosters who had been so absorbed in other things for the past four years that they neglected to pay up their subscription six dollars due no visitor could have been more welcome he would know all about Uncle Tilbury and what his chances might be getting to be cemetery words they could of course ask no questions for that would squelch the bequest but they could nibble around on the edge of the subject and hope for results the scheme did not work this editor did not know he was being nibbled at but at last chance accomplished what art had failed in in illustration of something under discussion which required the help of metaphor the editor said land it's as tough as Tilbury Foster as we say it was sudden and it made the fosters jump the editor noticed and said apologetically no harm intended I assure you it's just a saying just a joke you know nothing of it relation of yours Sally crowded his burning eagerness down and answered with all the indifference he could assume I well not that I know of but we've heard of him the editor was thankful and resumed his composure Sally added is he is he well is he well why bless you he's in she all these five years the fosters were trembling with grief though it felt like joy Sally said noncommittally and tentatively oh well such is life and none can escape not even the rich are spared the editor laughed if you are including Tilbury said he it don't apply he hadn't to send the town had to bury him the fosters sat petrified for two minutes petrified and cold then white-faced and weak-voiced Sally asked is it true do you know it to be true well I should say I was one of the executors he hadn't anything to leave but a wheelbarrow and he left that to me it hadn't any wheel and wasn't any good still it was something and so to square up I scribbled off a sort of a little obituary I'll send off for him but it got crowded out the fosters were not listening their cup was full it could contain no more they sat with bowed heads dead to all things but the ache at their hearts an hour later still they sat there bowed motionless silent the visitor long ago gone they unaware then they stirred and lifted their heads wearily and gazed at each other wistfully dreamily dazed then presently began to twaddle to each other in a wandering and childish way at intervals they lapsed into silences leaving a sentence unfinished seemingly either unaware of it or losing their way sometimes when they woke out of these silences they had a dim and transient consciousness that something had happened to their minds then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they would softly caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support as if they would say I am near you I will not forsake you we will bear it together somewhere there is a release and forgetfulness somewhere there is a grave and peace be patient it will not be long they lived yet two years in mental night always brooding steeped in vague regrets and melancholy dreams never speaking then release came to both on the same day toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind for a moment and he said vast wealth acquired by sudden and unwholesome means is a snare it did us no good transient were its feverish pleasures yet for its sake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life let others take warning by us he lay silent a while with closed eyes then as the chill of death crept upward toward his heart and consciousness was fading from his brain he muttered money had brought him misery and he took his revenge upon us who had done him no harm he had his desire with base and cunning calculation he left us but thirty thousand knowing we would try to increase it and ruin our life and break our hearts without added expense he could have left us far above desire of increase far above the temptation to speculate and a kinder soul would have done it but in him was no generous spirit no pity no and of the thirty thousand dollar bequest part two recording by trisha g section three of the thirty thousand dollar bequest and other stories this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the thirty thousand dollar bequest in other stories by Mark Twain section three a dog's tail chapter one my father was a saint Bernard my mother was a Collie but I am a Presbyterian that is what my mother told me I do not know these nice distinctions myself to me they are only fine large words meaning nothing my mother had a fondness for such she liked to say them and see other dogs look surprised and envious as wondering how she got so much education but indeed it was not real education it was only show she got the words by listening in the dining room and drying room when there was company and by going with the children to Sunday school and listening there and whenever she heard a large word she said it over to herself many times and so was able to keep it until there was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood then she would get it off and surprise and distress them all from pocket pup to mastiff which rewarded her for all her trouble if there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious and when he got his breath again he would ask her what it meant and she always told him he was never expecting this but thought he would catch her so when she told him he was the one that looked ashamed whereas he had thought it was going to be she the others were always waiting for this and glad of it and proud of her for they knew what was going to happen because they had had experience when she told them meaning of the big word they were also taken up with admiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the right one and it was natural because for one thing she answered up so promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking and for another thing where could they find out whether it was right or not for she was the only cultivated dog there was by and by when I was older she brought home the word unintellectual one time and worked it pretty hard all the week at different gatherings making much unhappiness and despondency and it was at this time that I noticed that during that week she was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages and she flashed out a fresh definition every time which showed me that she had more presence of mind than culture though I said nothing of course she had one word which she always kept on hand and ready like a life preserver a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely to get washed overboard in a sudden way that was the word synonymous when she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump pile if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes then he would come too and by that time she would be a way downwind on another tack and not expecting anything so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in I, the only dog on the inside of her game could see her canvas flicker a moment but only just a moment then it would belly out in full and she would say as calm as a summer's day its synonymous with supererogation or some godless long reptile of a word like that and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack perfectly comfortable you know and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails in unison and their faces transfigured with a holy joy and it was the same with phrases she would drag home a whole phrase if it had a grand sound and play it six nights and two matinees and explain it a new way every time which she had to for all she cared for was the phrase she wasn't interested in what it meant and knew those dogs hadn't wit enough to catch her anyway yes she was a daisy she got so she wasn't afraid of anything and had such confidence in the ignorance of those creatures she even brought anecdotes that she had heard the family and the dinner guests laugh and shout over and as a rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched on to another chestnut where of course it didn't fit and hadn't any point and when she delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and barked in the most insane way while I could see that she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem as funny as it did when she first heard it but no harm was done the others rolled and barked too privately ashamed of themselves for not seeing the point and never suspecting that the fault was not with them and there wasn't any to see you can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous character still she had virtues and enough to make up I think she had a kind heart in gentle ways she harbored resentments for injuries done her but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them and she taught her children her kindly way and from her we learned also to be brave and prompt in time of danger and not to run away but face the peril that threatened friend or stranger and help him the best we could without stopping to think what the cost might be to us and she taught us not by words only but by example and that is the best way and the surest and the most lasting why the brave things she did the splendid things she was just a soldier and so modest about it well you couldn't help admiring her and you couldn't help imitating her not even a king Charles Spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society so as you see there was more to her than her education Chapter 2 When I was well grown at last I was sold and taken away and I never saw her again she was broken hearted and so was I and we cried but she comforted me as well as she could and said we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose and must do our duties without repining take our life as we might find it live it for the best good of others and never mind about the results they were not our affair she said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by and by in another world and although we animals would not go there to do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives a worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward she had gathered these things from time to time when she had gone to the Sunday school with the children and had laid them up in her memory than she had done with those other words and phrases and she had studied them deeply for her good and ours one may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful head for all there was so much lightness and vanity in it so we set our farewells and looked our last upon each other through our tears and the last thing she said keeping it for the last to make me remember it the better I think when there is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself think of your mother and do as she would do do you think I could forget that? no Chapter 3 it was such a charming home my new one a fine great house with pictures and delicate decorations and rich furniture and no gloom anywhere but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine and the spacious grounds around it and the great garden oh green-swored and noble trees and flowers no end and I was the same as a member of the family and they loved me and petted me and did not give me a new name but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it me Eileen Moverine she had got it out of a song and the greys knew that song and said it was a beautiful name Mrs. Grey was 30 and so sweet and so lovely you cannot imagine it and Sadie was 10 and just like her mother just a darling slender little copy of her with auburn tails down her back in short frocks and the baby was a year old and plump and dimpled and fond of me and never could get enough of hauling on my tail and hugging me and laughing out its innocent happiness and Mr. Grey was 38 and tall and slender and handsome a little bald in front alert quick in his movements business like prompt decided unsentimental and with that kind of trim chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality he was a renowned scientist I do not know what the word means but my mother would know how to use it and giddy facts she would know how to depress a rat terrier with it and make a lap dog look sorry he came but that is not the best one the best one was laboratory my mother could organize a trust on that one that would skin the tax collars off the whole herd the laboratory was not a book or a picture or a place to wash your hands in as the college president's dog said no that is the lavatory the laboratory was quite different and is filled with jars and bottles and electrics and wires and strange machines and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place and used the machines and discussed and made what they called experiments and discoveries and often I came too and stood round and listened and tried to learn for the sake of my mother and in loving memory of her although it was a pain to me realizing that she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all for try as I might I was never able to make anything out of it at all other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work room and slept she gently using me for a footstool knowing it pleased me for it was a caress other times I spent an hour in the nursery and got well tussled and made happy other times I watched by the crib there when the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs other times I romped and raced through the grounds in the garden with Sadie till we were tired out then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs for there were some most pleasant ones not far away and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one a curly haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair who was a Presbyterian like me and belonged to the Scotch minister the servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me and so as you see mine was a pleasant life there could not be a happier dog that I was nor a great fuller one I will say this for myself for it is only the truth I tried in all ways to do well and right and honor my mother's memory and her teachings and earned the happiness that had come to me as best I could by and by came my little puppy and then my cup was full my happiness was perfect it was the dearest little waddling thing and so smooth and soft and velvety and had such cunning little awkward paws and such affectionate eyes and such a sweet and innocent face and it made me so proud how the children and their mother adored it and fondled it and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did it did seem to me that life was just too lovely too then came the winter one day I was standing a watch in the nursery that is to say I was asleep on the bed the baby was asleep in the crib which was alongside the bed on the side next to the fireplace it was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff that you can see through the nurse was out and we two sleepers were alone a spark from the wood fire was shot out and it lit on the slope of the tent I suppose a quiet interval followed then a scream from the baby awoke me and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling before I could think I sprang to the floor in my fright and in a second was halfway to the door the next half second my mother's farewell was sounding in my ears and I was back on the bed again I reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the waistband and tugged it along and we fell to the floor together in a cloud of smoke I snatched a new hold and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall and was still tugging away all excited and happy and proud the nurse's voice shouted be gone you cursed beast and I jumped to save myself but he was furiously quick and chased me up striking furiously at me with his cane I dodging this way and that in terror and at last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg which made me shriek and fall for the moment helpless the cane went up for another blow but never descended for the nurse's voice rang wildly out the nursery's on fire and the master rushed away in that direction and my other bones were saved the pain was cruel but no matter I must not lose any time he must come back at any moment so I limped on three legs to the other end of the hall where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a garret where old boxes and such things were kept as I had heard say and where people seldom went I managed to climb up there then I searched my way through the dark among the piles of things and hid in the secretest place I could find it was foolish to be afraid there yet still I was so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered though it would have been such a comfort to whimper because that eases the pain you know but I could lick my leg and that did some good for half an hour there was a commotion downstairs and shouting and rushing footsteps and then there was quiet again quiet for some minutes and that was grateful to my spirit for then my fears began to go down and fears are worse than pains oh much worse then came a sound that froze me they were calling me calling me by name hunting for me it was muffled by distance but that could not take the terror out of it and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard it went all about everywhere down there along the halls through all the rooms in both stories and in the basement and the cellar then outside and farther and farther away then back and all about the house again and I thought it would never never stop but at last it did hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago been blotted out by black darkness then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away and I was at peace and slept it was a good rest I had but I woke before the twilight had come again I was feeling fairly comfortable and I could think out a plan now I made a very good one which was to creep down all the way down the back stairs and hide behind the cellar door slip out and escape when the ice man came at dawn while he was inside filling the refrigerator then I would hide all day and start on my journey when night came my journey to well anywhere where they would not know me and betray me to the master I was feeling almost cheerful now then suddenly I thought why what would life be without my puppy that was despair there was no plan for me to know that I must stay where I was stay and wait and take what might come it was not my affair that was what life is my mother had said it then well then the calling began again all my sorrows came back I said to myself the master will never forgive I did not know what I had done to make him so bitter and so unforgiving I did not understand but which was clear to a man and dreadful they called and called days and nights it seemed to me so long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad and I recognized that I was getting very weak when you are this way you sleep a great deal and I did once I woke in an awful fright it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the garret and she was crying my name was falling from her lips all broken poor thing and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her say come back to us oh come back to us and forgive it is also sad without our I broke in with such a grateful little yelp and the next moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and shouting for the family to hear she's found she's found the days that followed well they were wonderful the mother and Sadie and the servants why they just seemed to worship me they couldn't seem to make me a bed that was fine enough and as for food they couldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were out of season and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism the name they called it by and it means agriculture I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once and explaining it in that way but didn't say what agriculture was except that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to newcomers and say I risked my life to save the babies and both of us had burns to prove it and then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother and when the people wanted to know what made me limp they looked ashamed and changed the subject and sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions about it it looked to me as if they were going to cry and this was not all the glory no the masters friends came a whole twenty of the most distinguished people and had me in the laboratory and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb beast the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind but the master said with vehemence it's far above instinct it's reason and many a man privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession has less of it than this poor silly quadruped that's for ordained to perish and then he laughed and said why look at me I'm a sarcasm bless you with all my grand intelligence the only thing I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child whereas but for the beast's intelligence it's reason I tell you the child would have perished they disputed and disputed and I was the very center of subject of it all and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to me it would have made her proud then they discussed optics as they called it and whether a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or not but they could not agree about it and said they must test it by experiment by and by and next they discussed plants and that interested me because in the summer Sadie and I had planted seeds I helped her dig the holes you know and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there and it was a wonder how that could happen but it did and I wished I could talk I would have told those people about it and shown them how much I knew and been all alive with the subject but I didn't care for the optics it was dull and when they came back to it again it bored me and I went to sleep pretty soon it was spring and sunny and pleasant and lovely and the sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy goodbye and went away on a journey and a visit to their kin and the master wasn't any company for us but we played together and had good times and the servants were kind and friendly so we got along quite happily and counted the days and waited for the family and one day those men came again and said now for the test and they took the puppy to the laboratory and I limped three leggedly along too feeling proud for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me of course they discussed and experimented and then suddenly the puppy shrieked and they set him on the floor and he went staggering around with his head all bloody and the master clapped his hands and shouted there I've won confess it he's as blind as a bat and they all said it's so you've proved your theory and suffering humanity owes you a great debt from henceforth and they crowded around him and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully and praised him but I hardly saw or heard these things for I ran it once to my little darling and snuggled close to it where it lay and licked the blood and put its head against mine whimpering softly and I knew in my heart there was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its mother's touch though it could not see me then it dropped down presently and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor and it was still and did not move anymore soon the master stopped discussing a moment and rang in the footman and said buried in the far corner of the garden and then went on with the discussion and I trotted after happy and grateful for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now because it was asleep we went far down the garden to the farthest end where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm and there the footman dug a hole and I saw he was going to plant the puppy and I was glad because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog like Robin Adair and be a beautiful surprise to the family when they came home so I tried to help him dig but my lame leg was no good being stiff you know and you have to have too or it is no use when the footman had finished and covered little Robin up he patted my head and there were tears in his eyes and he said poor little doggy you saved his child I have watched two whole weeks and he doesn't come up and every week a fright has been stealing upon me I think there is something terrible about this I do not know what it is but the fear makes me sick and I cannot eat though the servants bring me the best of food and they pet me so and even come in the night and cry and say poor doggy do give it up and come home and I am so weak since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore and within this hour the servants looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on said things I could not understand but they carried something cold to my heart those poor creatures they do not suspect they will come home in the morning and eagerly ask for the little doggy that did the brave deed and all of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them the humble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish End of Section 3 Recording by Tricia G