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"I never met Uncle Ebeneezer," rejoined Harlan, "but mother told me a great deal about him and we had one or two pictures daguerreotypes, I believe they were." "Undoubtedly, my dear sir. This portrait was painted from his very last daguerreotype by an artist of renown. It is a wonderful likeness. He was my Colonel I served under him in the war.
And I'm afraid " "Afraid of what?" "I know it's foolish, but I'm afraid she's going to dig in the cemetery to see if Uncle Ebeneezer is still there. She thinks he's in the cat." For the moment, Harlan thought Dorothy had suddenly lost her reason, then he laughed heartily. "Don't worry," he said, "she won't do anything of the kind, and, besides, what if she did? It's a free country, isn't it?"
I paid Uncle Ebeneezer board right straight along and there's no reason why I shouldn't pay you. You can put that away in your sock, or wherever it is that women keep money, or else I take the next train. If you don't want to lose me, you have to accept four plunks every Monday. I've got lots of four plunks," he added, with a winning smile.
After a while I saw her come out and start down the Ebeneezer road. And then I whipped round and met her. And as I stood beside the road, waiting for her to come up I noticed for the first time that the sun was nearly down. For hours I had been standing in the briars. I pretended not to see her; let on like I was hunting for a squirrel up in a tree, until she came up.
"I reckon you're a new relative, be n't you?" asked the lady guest, eyeing Dorothy closely. "I disremember seein' you before." "I am Mrs. Carr," repeated Dorothy, mechanically. "My husband, Harlan Carr, is Uncle Ebeneezer's nephew, and the house was left to him." "Do tell!" ejaculated the other. "I wouldn't have thought it of Ebeneezer. I'm Belinda Dodd, relict of Benjamin Dodd, deceased.
"You shouldn't have done it," returned Harlan, standing first on one foot and then on the other. "Couldn't you find the stage?" "I didn't look for it. I never had any ambition to go on the stage," she concluded, with a faint smile. "Where is Uncle Ebeneezer?" "No friend of Dorothy's," thought Harlan, shifting to the other foot. "Uncle Ebeneezer," he said, clearing his throat, "is at peace."
The youngest niece had typhoid fever here last Summer for eight weeks, an' Betsey thinks the location ain't healthy, in spite of it's bein' so near the sanitarium. She was threatenin' to get the health department or somethin' after Ebeneezer an' have the drinkin' water looked into, so's they didn't part on the pleasantest terms, but in the main we've all got along well together.
Dorothy wiped her eyes on a corner of Elaine's apron, for Uncle Ebeneezer had been found dead in his bed on the morning of April seventh. "Elaine," she said, "what would you do?" "Do?" repeated Elaine. "I'd strike one blow for poor old Uncle Ebeneezer! I'd order every single one of them out of the house to-morrow!" "To-night!" cried Dorothy, fired with high resolve. "I'll do it this very night!
The last disrespectful allusion, of course, being meant for Uncle Ebeneezer. "Poor Dorothy," he thought again. "I'll burn the whole thing, and she shall put every blamed crib into the purifying flames. It's mine, and I can do what I please with it. We'll go away to-morrow, we'll go " Where could they go, with less than four hundred dollars?
"Wait till young Ebeneezer and Rebecca get more accustomed to their surroundings, and then you'll have a Fourth of July every day, with Christmas, Thanksgiving, and St. Patrick's Day thrown in. Willie is the worst little terror that ever went unlicked, and the twins come next."
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