Chapter 6

[Asa discovered on bench, R. C., whittling stick. Mary busy with milk pans in dairy.]

Asa Miss Mary, I wish you'd leave off those everlasting dairy fixings, and come and take a hand of chat along with me.

Mary What, and leave my work? Why, when you first came here, you thought I could not be too industrious.

Asa Well, I think so yet, Miss Mary, but I've got a heap to say to you, and I never can talk while you're moving about so spry among them pans, pails and cheeses. First you raise one hand and then the other, and well, it takes the gumption right out of me.

Mary [Brings sewing down.] Well, then, I'll sit here--[sits on bench with Asa, vis-a-vis.] Well now, will that do?

Asa Well, no, Miss Mary, that won't do, neither; them eyes of yourn takes my breath away.

Mary What will I do, then?

Asa Well, I don't know, Miss Mary, but, darn me, if you could do anything that wasn't so tarnal neat and handsome, that a fellow would want to keep on doing nothing else all the time.

Mary Well, then, I'll go away. [Rises.]

Asa [Stopping her.] No, don't do that, Miss Mary, for then I'll be left in total darkness. [She sits.] Somehow I feel kinder lost, if I haven't got you to talk to. Now that I've got the latitude and longitude of all them big folks, found out the length of every lady's foot, and the soft spot on everybody's head, they can't teach me nothing; but here, [Whittling.] here I come to school.

Mary Then throw away that stick, and put away your knife, like a good boy. [Throws away stick up stage.] I must cure you of that dreadful trick of whittling.

Asa Oh, if you only knew how it helps me to keep my eyes off you, Miss Mary.

Mary But you needn't keep your eyes off me.

Asa I'm afraid I must, my eyes are awful tale-tellers, and they might be saying something you wouldn't like to hear, and that might make you mad, and then you'd shut up school, and send me home feeling about as small as a tadpole with his tail bobbed off.

Mary Don't be alarmed, I don't think I will listen to any tales that your eyes may tell unless they're tales I like and ought to hear.

Asa If I thought they'd tell any other, Miss Mary, I pluck them right out and throw them in the first turnip patch I came to.

Mary And now tell me more about your home in America. Do you know I've listened to your stories until I'm half a backwoodsman's wife already?

Asa [Aside.] Wouldn't I like to make her a whole one.

Mary Yes, I can shut my eyes and almost fancy I see your home in the backwoods. There are your two sisters running about in their sunbonnets.

Asa Debby and Nab? Yes!

Mary Then I can see the smoke curling from the chimney, then men and boys working in the fields.

Asa Yes.

Mary The girls milking the cows, and everybody so busy.

Asa Yes.

Mary And then at night, home come your four big brothers from the hunt laden with game, tired and foot sore, and covered with snow.

Asa That's so.

Mary Then how we lasses bustle about to prepare supper. The fire blazes on the hearth, while your good old mother cooks the slapjacks.

Asa [Getting very excited.] Yes.

Mary And then after supper the lads and lasses go to a corn husking. The demijohn of old peach brandy is brought out and everything is so nice.

Asa I shall faint in about five minutes, Miss Mary you're a darned sight too good for this country. You ought to make tracks.

Mary Make what?

Asa Make tracks, pack up, and emigrate to the roaring old state of Vermont, and live 'long with mother. She'd make you so comfortable, and there would be sister Debby and Nab, and well, I reckon I'd be there, too.

Mary Oh! I'm afraid if I were there your mother would find the poor English girl a sad incumbrance.

Asa Oh, she ain't proud, not a mite, besides they've all seen Britishers afore.

Mary I suppose you allude to my cousin, Edward Trenchard?

Asa Well, he wan't the only one, there was the old Squire, Mark Trenchard.

Mary [Starting Aside.] My grandfather!

Asa Oh! he was a fine old hoss, as game as a bison bull, and as gray as a coon in the fall; you see he was kinder mad with his folks here, so he came over to America to look after the original branch of the family, that's our branch. We're older than the Trenchard's on this side of the water. Yes we've got the start of the heap.

Mary Tell me, Mr. Trenchard, did he never receive any letters from his daughter?

Asa Oh yes, lots of them, but the old cuss never read them, though. He chucked them in the fire as soon as he made out who they come from.

Mary [Aside.] My poor mother.

Asa You see, as nigh as we could reckon it up, she had gone and got married again his will, and that made him mad, and well, he was a queer kind of a rusty fusty old coon, and it appeared that he got older, and rustier, and fustier and coonier every fall, you see it always took him in the fall, it was too much for him. He got took down with the ague, he was so bad the doctors gave him up, and mother she went for a minister, and while she was gone the old man called me in his room, `come in, Asa, boy,' says he, and his voice rang loud and clear as a bell, `come in,' says he. Well I comed in; `sit down,' says he; well I sot down. You see I was always a favorite with the old man. `Asa, my boy,' says he, takin' a great piece of paper, `when I die, this sheet of paper makes you heir to all my property in England'. Well, you can calculate I pricked up my ears about that time, bime-by the minister came, and I left the room, and I do believe he had a three day's fight with the devil, for that old man's soul, but he got the upper hand of satan at last, and when the minister had gone the old man called me into his room again. The old Squire was sitting up in his bed, his face as pale as the sheet that covered him, his silken hair flowing in silvery locks from under his red cap, and the tears rolling from his large blue eyes down his furrowed cheek, like two mill streams. Will you excuse my lighting a cigar? For the story is a long, awful moveing, and I don't think I could get on without a smoke. [Strikes match.] Wal, says he to me, and his voice was not as loud as it was afore--it was like the whisper of the wind in a pine forest, low and awful. `Asa, boy,' said he, 'I feel that I've sinned in hardening my heart against my own flesh and blood, but I will not wrong the last that is left of them; give me the light,' says he. Wal I gave him the candle that stood by his bedside, and he took the sheet of paper I was telling you of, just as I might take this. [Takes will from pocket.] And he twisted it up as I might this, [Lights will,] and he lights it just this way, and he watched it burn slowly and slowly away. Then, says he, `Asa, boy that act disinherits you, but it leaves all my property to one who has a better right to it. My own daughter's darling child, Mary Meredith,' and then he smiled, sank back upon his pillow, drew a long sigh as if he felt relieved, and that was the last of poor old Mark Trenchard.

Mary Poor Grandfather. [Buries her face and sobs.]

Asa [After bus.] Wal, I guess I'd better leave her alone. [Sees half burned will.] There lies four hundred thousand dollars, if there's a cent. Asa, boy, you're a hoss. [Starts off, R. 1 C.]

Mary To me, all to me. Oh Mr. Trenchard, how we have all wronged poor grandfather. What, gone? He felt after such tidings, he felt I should be left alone--who would suspect there was such delicacy under that rough husk, but I can hardly believe the startling news--his heiress--I, the penniless orphan of an hour ago, no longer penniless, but, alas, an orphan still, [Enter Florence.] with none to share my wealth, none to love me.

Flo [Throwing arms around Mary's neck.] What treason is this, Mary, no one to love you, eh, what's the matter? You've been weeping, and I met that American Savage coming from here; he has not been rude to you?

Mary On no, he's the gentlest of human beings, but he has just told me news that has moved me strangely.

Flo What is it, love?

Mary That all grandfather's property is mine, mine, Florence, do you understand?

Flo What! he has popped, has he? I thought he would.

Mary Who do you mean?

Flo Who? Asa Trenchard, to be sure.

Mary Asa Trenchard, why, what put that in your head?

Flo Why how can Mark Trenchard's property be yours, unless you marry the legatee.

Mary The legatee? Who?

Flo Why, you know Mark Trenchard left everything to Asa.

Mary No, no, you have been misinformed.

Flo Nonsence, he showed it to me, not an hour ago on a half sheet of rough paper just like this. [Sees will.] Like this. [Picks it up.] Why this is part of it, I believe.

Mary That's the paper he lighted his cigar with.

Flo Then he lighted his cigar with 80,000 pounds. Here is old Mark Trenchard's signature.

Mary Yes, I recognize the hand.

Flo And here are the words ``Asa Trenchard, in consideration of sole heir''--etc.--etc.--etc.

Mary Oh Florence, what does this mean?

Flo It means that he is a true hero, and he loves you, you little rogue. [Embraces her.]

Mary Generous man. [Hides face in Florence's bosom.]

Flo Oh, won't I convict him, now. I'll find him at once.

Runs off, R. 3 E., Mary after her calling Florence!!! Florence!!! as scene closes.

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