very sweet and pretty girl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or
other the match had been broken off; the girl died, Goodson remained
a bachelor, and by-and-by became a soured one and a frank despiser
of the human species. Soon after the girl’s death the village found
out, or thought it had found out, that she carried a spoonful of
negro blood in her veins. Richards worked at these details a good
while, and in the end he thought he remembered things concerning
them which must have gotten mislaid in his memory through long
neglect. He seemed to dimly remember that it was HE that found out
about the negro blood; that it was he that told the village; that
the village told Goodson where they got it; that he thus saved
Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had done him this
great service “without knowing the full value of it,” in fact
without knowing that he WAS doing it; but that Goodson knew the
value of it, and what a narrow escape he had had, and so went to his
grave grateful to his benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to
leave him. It was all clear and simple, now, and the more he went
over it the more luminous and certain it grew; and at last, when he
nestled to sleep, satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing
just as if it had been yesterday. In fact, he dimly remembered
Goodson’s TELLING him his gratitude once. Meantime Mary had spent
six thousand dollars on a new house for herself and a pair of
slippers for her pastor, and then had fallen peacefully to rest.
That same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to
each of the other principal citizens–nineteen letters in all. No
two of the envelopes were alike, and no two of the superscriptions
were in the same hand, but the letters inside were just like each
other in every detail but one. They were exact copies of the letter
received by Richards–handwriting and all–and were all signed by
Stephenson, but in place of Richards’s name each receiver’s own name
appeared.
All night long eighteen principal citizens did what their caste-
brother Richards was doing at the same time–they put in their
energies trying to remember what notable service it was that they
had unconsciously done Barclay Goodson. In no case was it a holiday
job; still they succeeded.
And while they were at this work, which was difficult, their wives
put in the night spending the money, which was easy. During that
one night the nineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand
dollars each out of the forty thousand in the sack–a hundred and
thirty-three thousand altogether.
Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. He noticed that
the faces of the nineteen chief citizens and their wives bore that
expression of peaceful and holy happiness again. He could not
understand it, neither was he able to invent any remarks about it
that could damage it or disturb it. And so it was his turn to be
dissatisfied with life. His private guesses at the reasons for the
happiness failed in all instances, upon examination. When he met
Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy in her face, he said to
himself, “Her cat has had kittens”–and went and asked the cook; it
was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but did not know
the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the face of
“Shadbelly” Billson (village nickname), he was sure some neighbour
of Billson’s had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this had
not happened. The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates’s face could
mean but one thing–he was a mother-in-law short; it was another
mistake. “And Pinkerton–Pinkerton–he has collected ten cents that
he thought he was going to lose.” And so on, and so on. In some
cases the guesses had to remain in doubt, in the others they proved
distinct errors. In the end Halliday said to himself, “Anyway it
roots up that there’s nineteen Hadleyburg families temporarily in
heaven: I don’t know how it happened; I only know Providence is off