The fire had done its work, she might have said, if not in one way, at least in another. The result was that she no longer desired to thwart the workings of law and justice, of right as she knew it. She wished to divest herself as quickly as possible of that which properly belonged to another. After all, her money had not brought her much! Why should she cling to it?
The mason was still doubtful and observed frowningly,--
"It"s a mighty long time since grandfather left Alton--more"n fifty years."
"Clark"s Field has only been put on the market for a little over ten years," Adelle remarked. "They couldn"t do it before, as I told you."
"But it"s been settled now," the mason demurred. "I don"t know the law, but it must be queer if the property could hang fire all these years and be growing richer all the time."
"Alton is a big city now where the old Clark farm was," Adelle explained.
"I suppose it"s growed considerable."
Then both were silent. The mason"s mind was turbulent with feelings and thoughts. Across the glorious reach of land and sky before his eyes there opened a vision of radiant palaces and possessions, all that money could buy to appease the desires of a starved life.
"My folks will be some surprised," he remarked at last, with his ironical laugh.
"I suppose so," Adelle replied seriously. "You"ll have to explain it to them. How many brothers and sisters have you?"
"There are five of us left," Clark said. "I"m sorry mother has gone. She would have liked mighty well having a bit of ready money for herself.
She never had much of a time in her life," he added, thinking of the hard-working wife and mother who had died in poverty after struggling against odds for fifty years. "It"ll mean a good deal, too, to Will and Stan, I guess;--they"ve got families, you know."
Adelle listened with a curious detachment to the happiness that her magic lamp might bestow when handed over to the other branch of the family.
"Money doesn"t always mean so much," she remarked, with a deep realization of the plat.i.tude which so many people repeat hypocritically.
The mason looked at her skeptically out of his blue eyes. That was the sort of silly pretense the rich or well-to-do often got off for the benefit of their poorer neighbors--he read stories like that in the newspapers and magazines. But he knew that the rich usually clung to all their possessions, in spite of their expressed conviction, at times, of the inadequacy of material things to provide them with happiness. He was quite ready for his part, having experienced the other side, to run the risks of property!
"I"d like to try having all the money I want for a time!" he laughed hardily.
"I almost believe it would have been better for me if I had never heard of Clark"s Field!" Adelle exclaimed, with a bitter sense of the futility of her own living. And then she told her cousin very briefly what had happened to her since she first entered the probate court and had been made a ward of the trust company.
The mason listened with interest and tried to make out, as well as he could with his meager equipment of experience in such matters and Adelle"s bare statement, what had been the trouble with her life. At the end he stated his conclusion,--
"I guess it depends on what sort of stuff you"ve got in you whether money agrees with you or don"t. To some folks it does seem poison, like drink; but the trouble ain"t with the money, perhaps, it"s with them."
"I suppose so," Adelle admitted meekly. "I had no one to show me, and, anyway, I am not the right kind, I suppose. It takes a good deal of a person to spend money right and get the best out of it there is."
"Sure!" the mason replied freely; and added with a frank laugh,--"But we all want our chance to try!"
"What will you do with your money?" Adelle asked.
The young man threw back his head and drew in a long breath as if he were trying to focus in one desire all the aspirations of his thirsty soul, which now he could satisfy.
"I"ll take a suite at the Palace and have the best booze money can buy!"
he said with a careless laugh.
"No, don"t do that!" Adelle protested earnestly, thinking of Archie.
"You won"t get much out of your money that way."
"I was joking," the young man laughed. "No, I don"t mean to be any booze fighter. There"s too much else to do."
He confessed to his new cousin some of the aspirations that had been thwarted by his present condition,--all his longing for education, experience, and, above all, the desire to be "as good as the next man, bar none, no matter where I be," an aspiration inexplicable to Adelle, a curiously aristocratic sensitiveness to caste distinction that might not be expected in a healthy-minded laboring-man. It was the most American note in his character, and like a true American he felt sure that money would enable him to attain "equality" with the land"s best.
"When I see some folks swelling around in motor-cars and spending their money in big hotels like it was dirt, and doing nothin" to earn it, and I know those who are starving or slaving every day just to live in a mean, dirty little way--why, it makes me hot in the collar. It makes me "most an anarchist. The world"s wrong the way things are divided up!" he exclaimed, forgetting that he was about to take his seat with the privileged.
"Well," Adelle mused dubiously, "now you"ll have a chance to do what you want and be "on top" as you call it."
"Mos" likely then," the mason turned on himself with an ironic laugh, "I shan"t want to do one thing I think I do now!"
"I hope it won"t change you," Adelle remarked quite frankly.
The quality that had first attracted her to the young man was his manly independence and ability to do good, honest, powerful work. If he should lose this vital expression of himself and his zest for action, the half of Clark"s Field would scarcely pay him for the loss.
"Don"t you worry about me, cousin!" he laughed back confidently. "But here we are ga.s.sin" away as if I were already a millionaire. And most likely it"s nothin" more than a pipe-dream, all told."
"No, it"s true!" Adelle protested.
"I"ll wait to see it in the bank before I chuck my tools. I guess the lawyers will have to talk before they upset all their fine work for me,"
he suggested shrewdly.
"You must go to Alton right away and see the trust company. I will meet you there whenever you like--there"s nothing to keep me here much longer."
"When you are feeling ready for the trip, let me know," the mason said with good feeling. "Say," he added with some confusion, "you"re a good one to be sittin" there calmly talkin" to me about what I am goin" to do with your money."
"It isn"t mine any longer--you must get over that idea."
"What you"ve always considered to be yours, anyway, and that amounts to the same thing in this world."
"I like to talk about it with you," Adelle replied simply, and with perfect sincerity, as every important statement of Adelle"s was sincere.
"I want you to have the money really.... I"m glad it is you, too."
"Thank you."
"I"ll do everything I can to make it easy for you to get it soon, and that is why I will go to Alton."
The mason rose from the doorstep and walked nervously to and fro in front of the shack. At last he muttered,--
"Guess I won"t say nothin" to the folks about the money until it is all settled--it might make "em kind of anxious."
"No, that would be better," Adelle agreed.
"I"m goin" to pull out of here to-night!"
He turned as he spoke and shoved one foot through the paper wall of his home, as if he were thus symbolically shedding himself of his toilsome past. Adelle did not like this impulsive expression, she did not know why. She rose.
"Let me know your San Francisco address," she said, "and I will write you when to meet me in Alton."
"All right!"