"''Bout time to have a business understanding, ain't it, Josh?' Gid asked.
"'Well then, ye'll answer a fair question. If ye continue to stay here, where's the money for your board comin' from?'
"'Yes, board! You don't reckon to run a visit over three months, do ye?'
"'Why, I didn't think there'd be any question of this sort between us, Gid.'
"'Business is business. If you'd had more business to you, you wouldn't be a pauper now.'
"'That's what I said. You deeded this place to Cynthy Marshall, didn't ye? Well, she has deeded it to me. 'Tain't much of a husband that don't have his property in his own name.'
"'But see here, Gideon, you know why I deeded this property. You know how matters have come out. Between brothers in such a case there should be no such thing as stickin' to the letter of deeds.'
"'Nearer the relatives be to ye, closer you ought to follow the law,' snapped Gid, 'or else ye'll get cheated worse than by a stranger!'
"'He didn't seem to be takin' any of that to himself.'
"'I've been thinkin' I'd give half the place to Cynthy as a weddin' present, and we could--'
"'Why, you've given it all to her, hain't ye?'
"Josh had to say yes, of course. Never was any hand to argue his own rights."
"'Well, she has given it to me and it was hers to give. Now, I say, can ye pay board?'
"'Well, then, ye'll have to get a job somewhere. I don't need a hired man just now. Ye won't starve, Josh. The gov'ment will take care of soldiers,' he sneered. Then he got up and went into the house.
"That's the way it was told to me by Joshua Ward himself, Mr. Parker," concluded the postmaster. "He had to get out. He didn't have any money to fight in law. He didn't want to stir up the thing on poor Cynthy's account. And he was ashamed to have the whole world know how mean a man he had for a brother."
"What has become of this Joshua?" asked the young man, his heart hot with new and fresh bitterness against this unspeakable tyrant of the timber country.
"Josh did what so many other heart-broken men have done. He went into the woods, on an island in Little Moxie, built a cabin, has his pension to live on, and has become one of those queer old chaps such as you will find scattered all the way from Holeb to New Brunswick. There's old Young at Gulf Hagas, and the Mediator at Boarstone, and a lot like them. They call Joshua the 'cat hermit of Moxie.'