Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-08-01
CHAPTER v.


Inc LeS1sst
We tore open the letters Gp-
II stractedly-the usual dinner
4 4 card or two, a tailors spring
announcement, a chronic serial from
an explanatory naarble-quarrying
company. a quarterly statement of a
clubhouse committee. The last two
missives bore a nondescript look.
one was small, with the name of a
legal firm in its corner. The other
was largish, corpulent and heavy, Of
stout Manila paper, and bore, down
one side, a gaudy procession Of
postage stamps proclaiming that it
had been registered.
whats in that, I wonderl" he
said to himself, and then, with
smile at the unmasculine specula-
ton, opened the smaller envelope.
Dear Sir" began the letter, in the
most uncompromisingly conventional
of typewriting.
Dear Sirs
Enclosed please find, with title
deed, a memorandum opened in your
name by the late John Valiant some
years before his death. 1t was his
desire that the services indicated in
connection with this estate should
continue till this date. We hand
YOU herewith our check for $2S6.20
(two hundred and thirty-six dollars
and twenty cents), the balance in
your favor, for which please send
receipt, and oblige, yours very truly
"(Enclosure) EMERSON q BALL.
He turned to the memorandum. 1t
showed a stable initial deposit
against which was entered a series
of annual tax payments with minor
disbursements credited to "inspec-
ton and care" The tax receipts
were pinned to the account
The larger wrapper contained an
unsealed envelope, across which was
written in faded ink and in an un-
familiar dashing, slanting handwrit-
ing, his own name. The envelope
contained a creased yellow parch-
ment, from between whose folds
| there dumped and f1uttered down
upon the floor a long f1attish object
wrapped in paper a newspaper clip
ping and letter.
Puzzledly he unfolded the crack
ling thing in his hands. Why" he
said half aloud, ''it's-it's deed
made over to me-" He overran it
swiftly. Part of an old colony grant
IS plantation in Virginia,
twelve hundred-odd acres, given un-
der the hand of a vice-regal gov
ernor in the sixteenth century.
had no idea titles in the United
States went back so far as that"
His eye fed to the end. "It was my
fathers! What could he have want
ed of an estate in Virginia? It must
have come into his hands in the
course of business"
He fairly groaned. Eye gods! If
it were only Long Island, or even
Pike county! The sorriest, out-at-
elbow, boulder-ridden mosquito-
stung old rock-farm there would
bring a decent sum. But Virginia!
The place where the dialect stories
grow. The paradise of the Jim-crow
car and the hookworm, where land
poor, clay-colored colonies with
COATES sit in green wicker lawn
chairs and watch their shadows go
round the house, while they guzzle
mint juleps and cuss at lazy "eullud
| pussons." Where everybody is an F.
F. V. and everybody's grandfather
was PATRON, or whatever they call
EN-, and had a thousand slaves be-
| fob de wah!"
Who ever heard of Virginia now
adays, except as a place people came
/ from? The principal event in the
history of the State since the Civil
War had been the discovery of New
York. Its men had moved upon the
latter en- masse, coming with the
halo about them of old Southern
names and legends of planter hos
pitality-and had married Northern
women, till the announcement in
had fought in opposing armies
| at the battle of Manassas had
grown as hackneyed as the ste
reotyped Whittier are we driftingq"
editorial But was Virginia herself
anything more, in this twentieth
century, than a hot-blooded high
handed, prodigal Legend kept alive in
the North by the banquets of South
ern Societies and annual poems on
1.-THE Lost Cause?
He picked up the newspaper clip
ping 1t was worn and broken in the
folds as If it had been carried for
months in a pocketbook.
1T Will interest readers of this
section of Virginia (the para graph
began) to learn. from a recent trans
fer received for record at the county
clerks Office that Damory Court has
passed to Mr.. John Valiant, minor"
lie turned the paper overland found
date; 1t had been printed in the
year of the transfer to himself, when
ne was years old-the year his
father had died
John Valiant minor, the son of
the former owner.
ITO Be Continued Tomorrow)