Amos Kilbright | Page 7

I shall take no heed. Without doubt it has gone, rightly, to my heirs, and even if I could deprive them of it I would not."
"Have you living heirs besides your grandson here?" I asked.
"That I know not," he said; "but if there be such I greatly long to see them."
"And how about old Mr. Scott?" said I. "When shall we go to him and tell him who you are?"
"I greatly desire that that may be done soon," answered Kilbright, "but first I wish to establish myself in some means of livelihood, so that he may not think that I come to him for maintenance."
Of course it was not possible for me to turn this man away and tell him I had nothing for him to do, and therefore I must devise employment for him. I found that he wrote a fair hand, a little stiff and labored, but legible and neat, and as I had a good deal of copying to do I decided to set him to work upon this. I procured board and lodging for him in a house near by, and a very happy being was Amos Kilbright.
As for me I felt that I was doing my duty, and a good work. But the responsibility was heavy, and my road was not at all clear before me. My principal source of anxiety was in regard to my wife. Should I tell her the truth about my new copyist, or not? In the course of a night I resolved this question and determined to tell her everything. When the man was merely Mr. Corbridge's subject the case was different; but to have daily in my office a clerk who had been drowned one hundred and two years before, and not tell Mrs. Colesworthy of it would be an injustice to her.
When I first made known to her the facts of the case my wife declared that she believed "Psychics" had turned my brain; but when I offered to show her the very man who had been materialized, she consented to go down and look at him. I informed Kilbright that my wife knew his story, and we three had a long and very interesting conversation. After an hour's talk, during which my wife asked a great many questions which I should never have thought of, we went upstairs and left Kilbright to his work.
"His story is a most wonderful one," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "but I don't believe he is a materialized spirit, because the thing is impossible. Still it will not do to make any mistakes, and we must try all we can to help him in case he was drowned when he says he was, and that German comes over to end his mortal career a second time. Science is getting to be such a wicked thing that I am sure if he crosses the ocean on purpose to dematerialize Mr. Kilbright, he will try to do it in some way or other, whether the poor man was ever a spirit before or not. One thing, however, is certain, I want to be present when old Mr. Scott is told that that young man is his grandfather."
Mr. Kilbright worked very assiduously, and soon proved himself of considerable use to me. When he had lived in Bixbury he had been a surveyor and a farmer, and now when he finished his copying duties for the day, or when I had no work of that kind ready for him, it delighted him much to go into my garden and rake and hoe among the flowers and vegetables. I frequently walked with him about the town, showing and explaining to him the great changes that had taken place since the former times in which he had lived. But he was not impressed by these things as I expected him to be.
"It seems to me," he said, "as though I were in a foreign country, and I look upon what lies about me as if everything had always been as I see it. This town is so different from anything I have ever known that I cannot imagine it has changed from a condition which was once familiar to me. At Bixbury, however, I think the case will be otherwise. If there are changes there I shall notice them. In a little place like that, however, I have hopes that the changes will not be great."
He was very conservative, and I could see that in many cases he thought the old ways of doing things much better than the new ones. He was, however, a polite and sensible man, and knew better than to make criticisms to one who had befriended him; but in some cases he could not conceal his disapprobation. He had seen a train of cars before