St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1921-12-03
CHAPTER |.
Cousin Percy's Little Joke.

! suppose every one has had the eX-
perience of waking in the middle of
the night to find everything perfectly
still and quiet and normal, and yet
with the impression persisting that
there had been q tremendous crash Of
some sort just before the waking
senses were alive enough to realize it.
1t was some such raZing jolt as this
that was given me on the morning
members of the family, to listen to the
reading of my grandfather's will.
But, first, however, to give some
idea of the copditions precedent, as a
lawyer would say. My father-good,
easy-going, cornfort-loving Dad y
never owned what Grandfather Dud-
ley, pursuing his thin lips and swapping
the words out called 'the money
sense" AS an architect high in his
profession and with fine artistic feel
ing for the beautiful in buildings, he
earned a liberal income--and spent it !:
or so much of it that there was barely
enough left after his death to provide
for my mother and sister, and to keep
me going as you might say, in an ex-
ceedIngly modest manner. Without
work, l mean. I may as well confess,
at once, that I had never acquired the
work habit I was always 'gosng to-
but it was so fatally easy to keep on
posponing the chilling plunge. I sup
pose I had been ready on at least half
q dozen occasions to take dive into
some pool with salary attachment;
but always some good friend would
bob up to say, "Oh, come on, Stannie.
old man; we're lacking just one more
to make up the bunch. Don't he a
clam. Time enough to settle down
when you have to-" and then it would
be all off.
nesides you see, there was always
Grandfather Jasper in the background.
He had money-Iashings Of it, so we
all believed; and It had been family
understanding for years that he in
tended splitting the bulk of it, fifty
fifty. between my cousin Percy and
me- Before we so any farther, let me
set it down that Cousin Percy was
and is-all the seventeen different
kinds of things that l am not, and
never wished to be- smooth, neat, we'll
groomed. a grind in college and a
perfect dear with the girls, am
bilious as the very devil, and measur-
ing his friends by the amount of pulp
they might be able to exert in his be-
half: there you have him from the
crown Of his Well-brushed little head
to his patent-leather pumps.
you're a fright, Stannie," he would
say, in his carefully polished diplo-
matte manner-he had billet In the
Department Of State at Washington,
and was in training for the legation
service abroad-'you are perfect
fright Three whole years out Of col
lege, and you haven't done single,
solitary useful thing yet. When are
you going to begin? And, incidental
ly, how long are you going to keep
Lisette waiting?"
Oh. Lord fright there was another
knot in the tangle-Iasette. We had
agreed to agree-Lsette and I-some
six months or so in advance of Grand
father Jasper's death, and we were
both perfectly well assured, and had
assured each other 4 dozen times, that
NV income from Dads estate wasn't
more than half big enough to marry
on. You see, it was this way: Lisette
was one of family Of four girls in a
mighty expensive household, and there
wasn't anything to lean on on that
side of the fence. Though, of course,
we never discussed it brutally in so
many words, Wa were waiting for that
fifty-fifty look-in ut the will which fam
ily tradition declared had already been
drawn up, signed, sealed, witnessed
and put away in cold storage; other
wise in the safe-keepng Of GRANDPA
Their Jasper's family lawyer.
All Of which may serve to bring us
back to that nightmare effect regis
tered at the start. When the Dudley
will was taken out Of the icebox and
read to the assembled members of the
fHmllE< Ll1Ic Nc1c III 1SASl wv oAAoNn
ing surprises. Jasper hadn't been any
where near as rich as we had all been
thinking he was; that his modest
manner of living had been, perhaps, as
much matter of necessity as OF
choice, Bad investments-of which
the family had never heard so much
as whisper-had cut his fortune
down to something less than half a
million. all told. That was shock
Number One; and shock Number Two
was strictly personal to me: Grand
father Jasper had left me his love and
best wishes, and had willed the money
and property-all of it, mind you-to
Cousin Percy, giving as his reason
that he thought Percy would make
better use of 1t.
Of course, I had everybody's sympa-
thy and condolence-evenP ercy's, for
that matter My mother Wept; and,
as ! recall it, Lisette managed to com.
mass a tear or SO when told her what
had happened; or rather what had SO
ANONYMOUSLY failed to happen.