Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/42

 Abner looked at him hard, but he did not answer. He turned, instead, to me.

"Martin," he said, "you must go to sleep, lad." And he wrapped me in his greatcoat and put me to bed on the sofa—behind him in the corner. I was snug and warm there and I could have slept like Saul, but I was curious to know what Abner came for and I peeped out through a buttonhole of the greatcoat.

Abner sat for a long time, his elbows on his knees, his hands together and his eyes looking into the fire. The hunchback watched him, his big, hairy hands moving on the padded arms of his chair and his sharp eyes twinkling like specks of glass. Finally Abner spoke—I judged he believed me now asleep.

"And so, Gaul," he said, "you think God is a scarecrow?"

"I do," said Gaul.

"And you have taken what you liked?"

"I have," said Gaul.

"Well," said Abner, "I have come to ask you to return what you have taken—and something besides, for usury."

He got a folded paper out of his pocket and handed it across the hearth to Gaul.

The hunchback took it, leaned back in his chair, unfolded it at his leisure and at his leisure read it through.

"A deed in fee," he said, "for all these lands to my brother's children. The legal terms are 29