HE cadaverous, well-dressed city stranger, huddled in the splint-bottomed rocker on the porch of Dudley's General Store, hoisted one lean leg over the other and cast a look of profound melancholy at Uncle Forexample Meloon. The stranger looked like a sick man. And right here let us explain that Uncle's initials were E. G., which explains why people called him “Forexample,” commonly shortened to “Forry.”
Uncle Forry looked sad, too. Almost as sad as the city stranger. When Uncle looked sad, just that way, the Calais people knew what was coming. So some of them moved away. But others gave ear.
“An' all I done, after all,” Uncle declared, “was a favor for that 'tarnal Cousin Henry o' mine, down to Boston.” He dragged at the ripe cob, and scraped the sandpapery chin with the gnarled paw. His cheeks hollowed and his blue eyes glinted from under the old, white-thatched brows. “That's all, mister, Every nameable thing. An' yet, see how it rimracked me!”
“I am listening, sir,” remarked the stranger, in urbane tones. “Proceed with your narrative.”
“Rimracked me,” repeated Uncle Forexample, “because Aunt Vyeny's lawyer, that didn't know enough to lap salt, lawed me for damages he allowed I owed him on account o' my lawyer fallin' foul o' him an' fistin' him in Ben Billin's's barn. Ain't that enough to make your haslet curl? Jest because your Aunt Vyeny's best trunk, what you borrowed, gits busted hell-bent an' crooked, an' you buy her a new one an' she lets on 'tain't as good's the other, she laws you, fer spite. An' then the lawyers git fightin' an' your lawyer warms it to her'n, an' that buffle-brained idjit sues you an' collects a hundred—ain't that hell an' repeat? One hundred bucks! I ask you!”
The cadaverous stranger gazed on Uncle Forexample with hollow eyes, and commented:
“I am unable to state, sir. Your narrative appears to be a trifle confused, but I gather that there has been a disturbance of the rural in this vicinity. If you will kindly begin at the beginning and relate the incident, I may be able to judge of its modus operandi, so to speak. Precisely what causation contributed to the destruction of your aunt's domestic property?”
“Oh, that? Well, that's jest part an' parcel o' the whole razoo, that brung me troubles thicker'n fiddlers in Tunket. I'll tell ye, clear. I wouldn't of minded that part so much, nor even them ten dollars extry I had to pay Aunt Vy, if it hadn't of been fer her will. Ten dollars ain't no gret kill-or-cure. Chowder, no! Nor a hundred, neither. But changin' that will was enough to strike anybody all of a heap.
“When Vyeny was took—an' some say it was the rookus of havin' her best trunk smashed with them axes, an' gittin' all stewed up over lawin' me, that give her the capuluptic shock—why, both wills was found. Fust an' second. An' Jeems Rice! When they come to be read, I'd lost that fifty-acre mowin' lot, an' both wood lots, an' five hundred cash. So you can see the mess 1 was in. I was at least a thousand an* a half out o' pocket, jest there alone, an' besides that my Cousin Henry got miffed because he allowed as how he never got the trunk, nohow, let alone the contents, an' he wouldn't pay me an all-fired cent.”
“For what?” asked the cadaverous stranger, with increasing interest. “What was the nature of the transaction wherein you became so painfully involved?”
“Painfully is right, mister! On top of all that, that doggone cousin o' mine got a lawyer to write me, threatenin' to law me for damages for loss o' character an' public contumely, on account o' his havin' got mixed up with it an' his name bein' made a p'intin' an' a byword. Can you beat that? I ask you!”
“It would be difficult, indeed,” the stranger admitted. “But now, returning to the point at issue, let me inquire what—?”
“An' that wa'n't all, neither, what my cousin slatted to me. He quit comin' down here, him an' his wife, as my summer comp'ny. Five seasons they ain't come, now. Prob'ly two hundred a season, five seasons, that's another thousand. I cal'late that makes my loss twenty-six hundred an' ten, so fur, not countin' my lawyer's bill about Aunt Vy's trunk. That bill was twenty-five. Twenty-six hundred an' thirty-five. An' by gull, we ain't begtm, yit! You wonder I'm poor as pooduc, this minute? That doggone lawyer never did work for my int'rests, 'specially when he told Ben Billin's I was reely responsible for the barn burnin'.”
“Ah, a barn burned, did it?” the stranger queried, leaning a little forward in his chair. “Now this is something tangible. And you were accused of being criminis particeps, so to speak? Well, kindly elucidate the barn.”