SOME years ago, of a summer afternoon, a perspiring organ-grinder and a leathery ape plodded along the road that goes between thin-soiled hillsides and the lake which is known as Elbow Lake and lies to the northeast of the village of Salem. In those days it was a well-travelled highway, as could be seen from its breadth and' dustiness. At about half the length of its bordering on the lake there was a spring set in the hillside, and a little pool continually rippled by its inflow. Some settler or later owner of the thin-soiled hillsides had left a clump of trees about it, making as sightly and refreshing an Institute of Charity as could be found. Another philanthropist had added half a cocoanut-shell to the foundation.

The organ-grinder turned in under the trees with a smile, in which his front teeth played a large part, and suddenly drew back with a guttural exclamation; the leathery ape bumped against his legs, and both assumed attitudes expressing respectively, in an Italian and tropical manner, great surprise and abandonment of ideas. A tall man lay stretched on his back beside the spring, with a felt hat over his face. Pietro, the grinder, hesitated. The American, if disturbed and irascible, takes by the collar and kicks with the foot: it has sometimes so happened. The tall man pushed back his hat and sat up, showing a large-boned and sun-browned face, shaven except for a black mustache, clipped close. He looked not irascible, though grave perhaps, at least unsmiling. He said: “It's free quarters, Dago. Come in. Entrez. Have a drink.”

Pietro bowed and gesticulated with amiable violence. “Dry!” he said. “Oh, hot!”

“Just so. That a friend of yours?”—pointing to the ape. “He ain't got a withering sorrow, has he? Take a seat.”

Elbow Lake is shaped as its name implies. If one were to imagine the arm to which the elbow belonged, it would be the arm of a muscular person in the act of smiting a peaceable-looking farmhouse a quarter of a mile to the east. Considering the bouldered front of the hill behind the house, the imaginary blow would be bad for the imaginary knuckles. It is a large house, with brown, unlikely looking hillsides around it, huckleberry knobs and ice-grooved boulders here and there. The land between it and the lake is low, and was swampy forty years ago, before the Rand boys began to drain it, about the time when R. Rand entered the third quarter century of his unpleasant existence.

R. Rand was, I suppose, a miser, if the term does not imply too definite a type. The New England miser is seldom grotesque. He seems more like congealed than distorted humanity. He does not pinch a penny so hard as some of other races are said to do, but he pinches a dollar harder, and is quite as unlovely as any. R. Rand's methods of obtaining dollars to pinch were not altogether known, or not, at least, recorded—which accounts perhaps for the tradition that they were of doubtful uprightness. He held various mortgages about the county, and his farm represented little to him except a means of keeping his two sons inexpensively employed in rooting out stones.

At the respective ages of sixteen and seventeen the two sons, Bob and Tom Rand, discovered the rooting out of stones to be unproductive labor, if nothing grew, or was expected to grow, in their place, except more stones; and the nature of the counsels they took may be accurately imagined. In the autumn of '56 they began ditching the swamp in the direction of the lake, and in the summer of '57 raised a crop of tobacco in the northeast corner, R. Rand, the father, making no comment the while. At the proper time he sold the tobacco to Packard & Co., cigar makers, of the city of Hamilton, still making no comment, probably enjoying some mental titillation. Tom Rand then flung a rock of the size of his fist through one of the front windows, and ran away, also making no comment further than that. The broken window remained broken twenty-five years, Tom returning neither to mend it nor to break another. Bob Rand, by some bargain with his father, continued the ditching and planting of the swamp with some profit to himself.

He evidently classed at least a portion of his father's manner of life among the things that are to be avoided. He acquired a family, and was in the way to bring it up in a reputable way. He further cultivated and bulwarked his reputation. Society, manifesting itself politically, made him sheriff; society, manifesting itself ecclesiastically, made him deacon. Society seldom fails to smile on systematic courtship.

The old man continued to go his way here and there, giving account of himself to no one, contented enough no doubt to have one reputable son who looked after his own children and paid steady rent for, or bought piece by piece, the land he used; and another floating between the Rockies and the Mississippi, whose doings were of no importance in the village of Salem. But I doubt, on the whole, whether he was softened in heart by the deacon's manner or the ordering of the deacon's life to reflect unfilially on his own. Without claiming any great knowledge of the proprieties, he may have thought the conduct of his younger son the more filial of the two. Such was the history of the farmhouse between the years '56 and '82.

One wet April day, the sixth of the month, in the year '82, R. Rand went grimly elsewhere—where, his neighbors had little doubt. With true New England caution we will say that he went to the cemetery, the little grass-grown cemetery of Salem, with its meagre memorials and absurd, pathetic epitaphs. The minister preached a funeral sermon, out of deference to his deacon, in which he said nothing whatever about R. Rand, deceased; and R. Rand, sheriff and deacon, reigned in his stead.

Follow certain documents and one statement of fact:

Document 1.

Codicil to the Will of R. Rand.

The Will shall stand as above, to wit, my son, Robert Rand, sole legatee, failing the following condition: namely, I bequeath all my property as above mentioned, with the exception of this house and farm, to my son, Thomas Rand, provided, that within three months of the present date he returns and mends with his own hands the front window, third from the north, previously broken by him.

(Signed) R. Rand.

Statement of fact. On the morning of the day following the funeral the “condition” appeared in singularly problematical shape, the broken window, third from the north, having been in fact promptly replaced by the hands of Deacon Rand himself. The new pane stared defiantly across the lake, westward.

Document 2.

Leadville, Cal., May 15.

Dear Bob: I hear the old man is gone. Saw it in a paper. I reckon maybe I didn't treat him any squarer than he did me. I'll go halves on a bang-up good monument, anyhow. Can we settle affairs without my coming East? How are you, Bob?

Tom.

Document 3.

Salem, May 29.

Dear Brother: The conditions of our father's will are such, I am compelled to inform you, as to result in leaving the property wholly to me. My duty to a large and growing family gives me no choice but to accept it as it stands, and I trust and have no doubt that you will regard that result with fortitude. I remain yours,

Robert Rand.

Document 4.

Leadville, June 9.

A. L. Moore.

Dear Sir: I have your name as a lawyer in Wimberton. Think likely there isn't any other. If you did not draw up the will of R. Rand, Salem, can you forward this letter to the man who did? If you did, will you tell me what in thunder it was?

Yours, Thomas Rand.

Document 5.

Wimberton, June 18.

Thomas Rand.

Dear Sir: I did draw your father's will and enclose copy of the same, with its codicil, which may truly be called remarkable. I think it right to add, that the window in question has been mended by your brother, with evident purpose. Your letter comes opportunely, my efforts to find you having been heretofore unsuccessful. I will add further, that I think the case actionable, to say the least. In case you should see fit to contest, your immediate return is of course necessary. Very truly yours,

A. L. Moore,

Attorney-at-Law.

Document 6. Despatch.

New York, July 5.

To Robert Rand, Salem.

Will be at Valley Station to-morrow. Meet me or not.

T. Rand.

The deacon was a tall meagre man with a goatee that seemed to accentuate him, to hint by its mere straightness at sharp decision, an unwavering line of rectitude.

He drove westward in his buckboard that hot summer afternoon, the 6th of July. The yellow road was empty before him all the length of the lake, except for the butterflies bobbing around in the sunshine. His lips looked even more secretive than usual: a discouraging man to see, if one were to come to him in a companionable mood desiring comments.

Opposite the spring he drew up, hearing the sound of a hand-organ under the trees. The tall man with a clipped mustache sat up deliberately and looked at him. The leathery ape ceased his funereal capers and also looked at him; then retreated behind the spring. Pietro gazed back and forth between the deacon and the ape, dismissed his professional smile, and followed the ape. The tall man pulled his legs under him and got up.

“I reckon it's Bob,” he said. “It's free quarters, Bob. Entrez. Come in. Have a drink.”

The deacon's embarrassment, if he had any, only showed itself in an extra stiffening of the back.

“The train—I did not suppose—I was going to meet you.”

“Just so. I came by way of Wimberton.”

The younger brother stretched himself again beside the spring and drew his hat over his eyes. The elder stood up straight and not altogether unimpressive in front of it. Pietro in the rear of the spring reflected at this point that he and the ape could conduct a livelier conversation if it were left to them. Pietro could not imagine a conversation in which it was not desirable to be lively. The silence was long and, Pietro thought, not pleasant.

“Bob,” said the apparent sleeper at last, “ever hear of the prodigal son?”

The deacon frowned sharply, but said nothing. The other lifted the edge of his hat brim.

“Never heard of him? Oh—have I Then I won't tell about him. Too long. That elder brother, now, he had good points;—no doubt of it, eh?”

“I confess I don't see your object—”

“Don't? Well, I was just saying he had good points. I suppose he and the prodigal had an average good time together, knockin' around, stubbin' their toes, fishin' maybe, gettin' licked at inconvenient times, hookin' apples most anytime. That sort of thing. Just so. He had something of an argument. Now, the prodigal had no end of fun, and the elder brother stayed at home and chopped wood; understood himself to be cultivating the old man. I take it he didn't have a very soft job of it?”—lifting his hat brim once more.

The deacon said nothing, but observed the hat brim.

“Now I think of it, maybe strenuous sobriety wasn't a thing he naturally liked any more than the prodigal did. I've a notion there was more family likeness between 'em than other folks thought. What might be your idea?”

The deacon still stood rigidly with his hands clasped behind him.

“I would rather,” he said, “you would explain yourself without parable. You received my letter. It referred to our father's will. I have received a telegram which I take to be threatening.”

The other sat up and pulled a large satchel around from behind him.

“You're a man of business, Bob,” he said cheerfully. “I like you, Bob. That's so. That will—I've got it in my pocket. Now, Bob, I take it you've got some cards, else you're putting up a creditable bluff. I play this here Will, Codicil attached. You play,—window already mended; time expired at twelve o'clock to-night. Good cards, Bob—first-rate. I play here”—opening the satchel—“two panes of glass—allowin' for accidents—putty, et cetera, proposing to bust that window again. Good cards, Bob. How are you coming on?”

The deacon's sallow cheeks flushed and his eyes glittered. Something came into his face which suggested the family likeness. He drew a paper from his inner coat pocket, bent forward stiffly and laid it on the grass.

“Sheriff's warrant,” he said, “for—hem—covering possible trespassing on my premises; good for twenty-four hours' detention—hem.”

“Good,” said his brother briskly. “I admire you, Bob. I'll be blessed if I don't. I play again.” He drew a revolver and placed it on top of the glass. “Six-shooter. Good for two hours' stand-off.”

“Hem,” said the deacon. “Warrant will be enlarged to cover the carrying of concealed weapons. Being myself the sheriff of this town, it is—hem—permissible for me.” He placed a revolver on top of the warrant.

“Bob,” said his brother, in huge delight, “I'm proud of you. But—I judge you ain't on to the practical drop. Stand back there!” The deacon looked into the muzzle of the steady revolver covering him, and retreated a step, breathing hard. Tom Rand sprang to his feet, and the two faced each other, the deacon looking as dangerous a man as the Westerner.

Suddenly, the wheezy hand-organ beyond the spring began, seemingly trying to play two tunes at once, with Pietro turning the crank as desperately as if the muzzle of the revolver were pointed at him.

“Hi, you monk! Dance!” cried Pietro; and the leathery ape footed it solemnly. The perspiration poured down Pietro's face. Over the faces of the two stern men fronting each other a smile came and broadened slowly, first over the younger's, then over the deacon's.

The deacon's smile died out first. He sat down on a rock, hid his face and groaned.

“I'm an evil-minded man,” he said; “I'm beaten.”

The other cocked his head on one side and listened. “Know what that tune is, Bob? I don't.”

He sat down in the old place again, took up the panes of glass and the copy of the will, hesitated, and put them down.

“I don't reckon you're beaten, Bob. You ain't got to the end of your hand yet. Got any children, Bob? Yes; said you had.”

“Five.”

“Call it a draw, Bob; I'll go you halves, counting in the monument.”

But the deacon only muttered to himself: “I'm an evil-minded man.”

Tom Rand meditatively wrapped the two documents around the revolvers.

“Here, Dago, you drop 'em in the spring!” which Pietro did, perspiring freely. “Shake all that. Come along.”

The two walked slowly toward the yellow road. Pietro raised his voice despairingly. “No cent! Not a nicka!”

“That's so,” said Tom, pausing. “Five, by thunder! Come along, Dago. It's free quarters. Entrez. Take a seat.”

The breeze was blowing up over Elbow Lake, and the butterflies bobbed about in the sunshine, as they drove along the yellow road. Pietro sat at the back of the buck-board, the leathery ape on his knee and a smile on his face, broad, non-professional, and consisting largely of front teeth.