So Jewel grew wrathful and impatient, and decided to resort to the clairvoyant again for assistance in her design of turning Laurie Meredith against her fair sister and winning him herself.
Not wishing to be seen entering the house of the fortune-teller, who bore a very questionable character, she waited until twilight, and slipped out by the back way, plainly dressed, and with her head shrouded in a thick veil.
Her way lay past the cabin of the deceased Maria, the small property having now fallen to the dissipated Sam, who was making "ducks and drakes" of it as fast as possible, having been on a prolonged spree ever since his old wife drew her last breath.
A dozen or more of thick and well-grown oak-trees formed a dense grove about the little place, and Jewel caught her breath with awe as she hurried past, dreading to see the shade of her departed nurse emerge from the gloom.
It issued from among the trees near the front door. It was speaking sharply, impatiently.
"Maria told me, Sam, that there were papers in a box in her chest to which I was entitled, and which referred solely to me and my daughters. You drunken rascal, you have hidden them, and pretended that they were gone in order to extort money from me!"
Sam, who was now almost sober, was heard vehemently protesting his innocence.
He wished he might die if there were any papers or any box in Maria's old chest. The old creature had been in her dotage and imagined it. Mrs. Fielding ought not to pay any attention to what the crazy old woman had said.
"Come, Sam, name your price for the box of papers. I understand your game, and I am ready to pay well for them. Let us close up the bargain and be done with it. This makes three times I have come to you on the same subject, and I am getting tired of your shilly-shallying," Mrs. Fielding cried, sharply and angrily, while Jewel, crouching down close to the fence, listened to every word, hoping to gain a clew to her mother's mysterious secret.
But she was disappointed, for Mrs. Fielding was forced to go away at last unsatisfied.
Neither bribes, persuasions nor threats could get anything out of the stubborn widower.
It was true that Sam had the box of papers, but being exceedingly illiterate and suspicious regarding white folks, he imagined the papers to be deeds or something relating to the property he had inherited from Maria, and feared that if he gave them up he might lose all, for had not Maria become bitterly incensed at him for his trifling ways, and declared that she would not leave him a cent when she died?