The Press., 1894-11-15


 time begin to look up to this magnifi- cent one and to admire him as the great member of the family.
 Thus it happened with the Dunbar ton Hapgoods. Arthur had told his father before he was IS that he stood on a higher social plane than his parents, and now the old man was dead, and Uncle Si was lying ill his coffin, and he found himself the head of the house, with the ambition strong within him to raise the name of Hapgood to @ noble position in the social scale. He had pur- chased a newspaper on the train and had seen the notice of Uncle Sis death. He could easily reach Bolton, as he con- jectured, in time for the little, plain, rustic funeral, when the eccentric, si- lent old man would be laid away in a grass corner of the Bolton burying ground, where for many years board sign had stood nailed to post and bear ing the following legend: ''This plot of ground is reserved for Simon Hapgood and his two wives and no other corpse is to be laid here.
 But Arthur Hapgood had no taste for funerals, especially of the humber sort, and it was not in his line to pay even this external mark of respect to the memory of a queer old fellow who had not adorned society nor added glory to the family name, whose one admirable act had been the act of dying intestate and leaving all he was possessed to his worthy nephew. Arthur therefore de- termined to loiter about Littlefield un- til the funeral was we'll over, and then without fuss or hurry to present himself at the farmhouse in Bolton. Now, Ar thur, as he strolled along under the shade trees of Main street, took letter from his inner coat pocket and looked it over. It was written in a neat girlish hand, began with My dear sir' and ended with "Yours respectfully, and was signed with the pretty name of Elsie Ray. It was written merely to in- form MT. Arthur Hapgood that his Un- cle Simon, having had a third stroke of palsy, was in dying condition; that as no will had been found and as none was believed to be in existence it was thought best to inform the nearest rela- tives of the facts detailed. Elsie Ray had also added that Uncle Simon was entirely speechless and had been so for some months, and the end could not be far distant.
 Arthur Hapgood already knew that Elsie Ray was Uncle Simon s great niece by marriage, and he conjectured that she had played the part of the old man s housekeeper and nurse. Of course she had not a shadow of legal claim upon him or the estate; but, though the little note was penned in stiff and formal style, there was something in the neat handwriting and in the pretty, girlish name of Elsie Ray that excited his in- terest Little Elsie, he said to himself, if she is nice looking and attractive and docile, we will see what can be done for her.
 Elsie Ray stood in the great farm house kitchen at Bolton, the Hapgood homestead, as it was called, for several generations of Hapgoods had lived and died in that place. It seemed to her now that the great chimney stack, and the blackened beams overhead, and the pol ished floor boards, and the smooth hearth stone, where Uncle Sis chair was drawn up, must know that something had hap pened- they looked so still and clean and meditative, as if the old house were remembering all the births and deaths and changes and losses and crosses and sorrows that had taken place under it's aged roof. Elsie had stopped the great clock in the corner and pulled down the shades, and now she paused invqluntari- ly to hear the tap of Uncle Si's thick o4: o1- 1Io~ S% would never sound again. There was something stark and white lying under the sheet in Uncle Sis chamber that made her shiver slightly as she thought how she had laid it out with her own hands.
 Uncle Si Hapgood had lived out his life in his own peculiar fashion. He was secretive and silent by nature, and it was the wonder of the neighborhood that he should have 'buried' two wives, and it is safe to say that his two spouses who were laid away in the burying ground corner had never quite fathomed Uncle Si But still he had a kind heart in his odd, undemonstra- tive composition and took more pains to cover up his good deeds than others do to make theirs known. He had taken the orphan girl from the poor place in the town when the widowed mother had died and left her alone and had given her home and shelter and such schooling as was to be had in Bol- ton and not little affection of pecul- jar kind, for Uncle Si was always half ashamed of the soft places in his nature, and nothing ever disturbed the shy, bash ful man like acknowledgement of his good deeds
 Now Uncle Si was dead. He had breathed his last in her arms. keeping hold of her warm little hand till he cast off the lifeline to enter upon the great mystery. It was all very strange and solemn to Elsie and not little grewsome to think of Uncle Si lying stark on the bed where the palsy had nailed him so long. The oak stick at the headboard he would never use again to summon his faithful nurse. Uncle Si could not speak-his eyes only were alive, but there Was a pained and pa thetic look in them in those last hours, and it seemed to Elsie, who tried to in- terpret every least sign the old man udue, GuaG uo WOulu nave gwen WOrldS to tell her something that lay on his heart and conscience. He pointed vaguely with his trembling hand, even while the gray death shadow was steal ing over his face, to a corner of the chamber, where. against the faded wall paper, hung framed copy of the Decla- ration of Independence, much fly speck- ed, and above it mourning piece in a black frame put up for his first wife, Betsy Lee, and representing tall wom an with corkscrew curls, with her hand kerchief to her eyes, bending over a tombstone shaded by painfully sym metrical weeping willow.
 Elsie had laid out Uncle Si, assisted by Mrs. Mead, capable neightor, who had now gone home to prepare supper