The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh | Page 9

grabbed our guns."
"Wish he'd hev tried it," said the brother, with a superior smile, but a
quickly rising color. "Where d'ye suppose I'D hev been all the while?"
Maggie saw her mistake, and for the first time in her life resolved to
keep a secret from her brother--overnight. "Supper's gettin' cold," she
said, rising.

They went into the dining-room--an apartment as plainly furnished as
the one they had quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and closely
fitting boarding bearing out the general nautical suggestion of the
house--and seated themselves before a small table on which their frugal
meal was spread. In this tete-a-tete position Jim suddenly laid down his
knife and fork and stared at his sister.
"Hello!"
"What's the matter?" said Maggie, starting slightly. "How you do skeer
one."
"Who's been prinkin', eh?"
"My ha'r was in kinks all along o' that hat," said Maggie, with a return
of higher color, "and I had to straighten it. It's a boy's hat, not a girl's."
But that necktie and that gown--and all those frills and tuckers?"
continued Jim generalizing, with a rapid twirling of his fingers over her.
"Are you expectin' Judge Martin, or the Expressman this evening?"
Judge Martin was the lawyer of Logport, who had proven her father's
will, and had since raved about his single interview with the
Kingfisher's beautiful daughter; the Expressman was a young fellow
who was popularly supposed to have left his heart while delivering
another valuable package on Maggie in person, and had "never been the
same man since." It was a well-worn fraternal pleasantry that had done
duty many a winter's evening, as a happy combination of moral
admonition and cheerfulness. Maggie usually paid it the tribute of a
quick little laugh and a sisterly pinch, but that evening those marks of
approbation were withheld.
"Jim dear," said she, when their Spartan repast was concluded and they
were reestablished before the living-room fire. "What was it the
Redwood Mill Kempany offered you for that piece near Dead Man's
Slough?"
Jim took his pipe from his lips long enough to say, "Ten thousand

dollars," and put it back again.
"And what do ye kalkilate all our property, letting alone this yer house,
and the driftwood front, is worth all together?"
"Includin' wot the Gov'nment owes us?--for that's all ours, ye know?"
said Jim quickly.
"No--leavin' that out--jest for greens, you know," suggested Maggie.
"Well nigh onter a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, I reckon,
by and large."
"That's a heap o' money, Jim! I reckon old Kernel Preston wouldn't
raise that in a hundred years," continued Maggie, warming her knees by
the fire.
"In five million years," said Jim, promptly sweeping away further
discussion. After a pause he added, "You and me, Mag, kin see
anybody's pile, and go 'em fifty thousand better."
There were a few moments of complete silence, in which Maggie
smoothed her knees, and Jim's pipe, which seemed to have become
gorged and apoplectic with its owner's wealth, snored unctuously.
"Jim dear, what if--it's on'y an idea of mine, you know--what if you
sold that piece to the Redwood Mill, and we jest tuk that money
and--and--and jest lifted the ha'r offer them folks at Logport? Jest
astonished 'em! Jest tuk the best rooms in that new hotel, got a hoss and
buggy, dressed ourselves, you and me, fit to kill, and made them Fort
people take a back seat in the Lord's Tabernacle, oncet for all. You see
what I mean, Jim," she said hastily, as her brother seemed to be
succumbing, like his pipe, in apoplectic astonishment, "jest on'y to
SHOW 'em what we COULD do if we keerd. Lord! when we done it
and spent the money we'd jest snap our fingers and skip back yer ez
nat'ral ez life! Ye don't think, Jim," she said, suddenly turning half
fiercely upon him, "that I'd allow to LIVE among 'em--to stay a menet
after that!"

Jim laid down his pipe and gazed at his sister with stony deliberation.
"And--what--do--you--kalkilate--to make by all that?" he said with
scornful distinctness.
"Why, jest to show 'em we HAVE got money, and could buy 'em all up
if we wanted to," returned Maggie, sticking boldly to her guns, albeit
with a vague conviction that her fire was weakened through elevation,
and somewhat alarmed at the deliberation of the enemy.
"And you mean to say they don't know it now," he continued with slow
derision.
"No," said Maggie. "Why, theer's that new school-marm over at
Logport, you know, Jim, the one that wanted to take your picter in your
boat for a young smuggler or fancy pirate or Eyetalian fisherman, and
allowed that you'r handsomed some, and offered to pay you for
sittin'--do you reckon SHE'D believe you owned the land her
schoolhouse was