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Updated: June 26, 2025
Markson followed me out of the room. "Mr. Raines," said she, with a very pleasant smile for a woman widowed but a moment before, "what did my dear husband want?"
The judge looked at the date, handed the will back to the lawyer, and drew from his pocket an envelope. "Here is a will made by Mr. Markson," said the judge, "and dated three months later." Mrs. Markson started; her eyes flashed with a sort of fire which I hope I may never see again, and she caught her lower lip up between her teeth.
I immediately wrote him a note, saying I would be glad to see his plans and make an estimate; and in the course of time the plans were sent me, and I am happy to say that I under-estimated every one, even my own old employer. Then the gentleman Markson his name was drove out to see me, and he put me through a severe course of questions, until I wondered if he was not some distinguished architect.
The foundations had been laid, and the sills placed in position, and I was expecting to go on with the work as soon as Markson himself had inspected the sills this, he said, he wished to do before anything further was done; and, so that he might not have any fault to find with them, I had them sawn to order, and made half an inch larger each way, so they couldn't possibly shrink before he could measure them.
Markson hastily stacked up bricks and boards to the height of the foundation, and then made a similar stack at the other end of the foundation-wall, and then he rolled one of the sills over on these two supports, so it was bottom side up. Then he fitted a bit a good wide one, an inch and a quarter, at least, I should say to the brace, and then commenced boring a hole in the sill.
I would have sadly, but promptly sold out my contract with Mr. Markson for the price of a ticket for the West, and I should have taken the first train. As he bored that hole I could see just how all the other builders in town would look when I had to take the law on Markson, and how all my friends would come and tell me I ought to have insisted on a payment in advance.
Finally the long day wore away, and an hour or two after the carriages returned from the funeral, the city lawyer called the judge, and, at the judge's suggestion, they both called for me. We found Mrs. Markson and Helen, with some of Mrs. Markson's relatives Helen had not one in the world in the parlor, Mrs.
As for myself, the recalling of the incident, now that I knew its sequel, prevented my keeping my eyes dry. I felt a little ashamed of myself and hurried away, but her look while I spoke of her father, and her trembling form in my arms while Mrs. Markson raved at her, were constantly in my mind, and muddled a great many important estimates.
Well, Markson disappeared a moment or two after, first carefully replacing the sill, and carrying away the chips, and I got out of my tree, forgetting all about the view I had discovered; and the unexpected scene I had looked at ran in my mind so constantly that, during the night, I dreamed that Markson stood in the hemlock-tree, with a gigantic brace and bit, and bored holes in the hills beside the river, while I kneeled in the second story window-frame, and kissed my contract with Markson, and prayed that I might make a hundred thousand dollars out of it.
Everybody in Bartley knew that Helen Markson's mother, who was very beautiful and lovable, had died years before, and that her stepmother had been Mrs. Markson only two or three years; that the second Mrs. Markson had married for money, and that her husband was afraid of her, and would run away from her if it wasn't for Helen; that Mrs.
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