break of a funeral, or a death-bed visit, was in the nature of a
solemn amusement.

"And there the old man went and made his will years ago,
unbeknownst to anybody, and me bein' his only blood relation, as
you might say, though it was years since I seen him much, but he
remembered my mother with love," and she began to wipe her eyes.

"Poor old man! And me with a white-faced cow that I'm afraid of
my life of, and an old horse that looks like a moth-eaten hide
trunk we to have in our garret at home when I was a little girl,
and belonged to my great-great-grandmother Atterson---

"And there's a mess of chickens that eat all day long and don't
lay an egg as far as I could see, besides a sow and a litter of
six pigs that squeal worse than the the switch-engine down yonder
in the freight yard---

"And they're all to be fed, and how I'm to do it, and feed
the boarders, too, I don't for the life of me see!" finished
Mrs. Atterson, completely out of breath.

"What do you mean?" cried Hiram, suddenly waking to the
significance of the old lady's chatter. "Do you mean he willed
you these things?"

"Of course," she returned, smoothing down her best black skirt.
"They go with the house and outbuildings--`all the chattels and
appurtenances thereto', the will read."