his majority, and the only interest that remained to Judge Little in the
matter seemed to be the discovery of the testator's unknown, unseen, and
unbelieved-in son.

If Isom ever had fathered a son, indeed, and the child had died in
infancy, the fact had slipped the recollection of the oldest settler.
Perhaps the proof of that mysterious matter lay in the hands of the two
witnesses to Isom's will. They should know, if anybody knew, people
said.

One of these witnesses, Thomas Cogshawl, had died long since, and there
remained behind neither trace nor remembrance of him save a leaning,
yellowed tombstone carrying the record of his achievements in this
world. They were succinctly recounted in two words: Born and Died. His
descendants were scattered, his family dispersed.

The other witness, John Owens, was in the county poorhouse, deaf, dumb,
and blind, his children dead, his money gone. Communication with him,
except by prods and thumps, had been out of the question for ten years
and more.

On the advice of her neighbors, Ollie had engaged a lawyer to guard her
interests, and make a fight in the courts, if it came to that, in an
effort to retain the property. It was a shame, said the neighbors; Isom
never had a son, or, if he did have one, he had no business to do any
such surreptitious fathering.

While they denounced Isom, Judge Little was advertising in the
metropolitan papers for the mysterious legatee, for there is no man so
faithful to his trust as the administrator of another's estate. Although
the property had not yet succeeded to his hands, the judge was
proceeding in confidence. If the existence of Isom Chase's son could not
be proved, neither could it be disproved.

And there stood the will in Isom's writing as plain as cow tracks,
naming him as administrator. It would all work into his hands at the
end, and there were rewards and emoluments for an administrator who
understood his business, in that estate.

That is true in the case of any executor in the affairs of dead men, or
receiver in the muddled business of the living. That accounts for such
men's inflexibility in carrying out the provisions of unfeeling
testators and the decrees of heartless courts. The law must be applied
to the letter, the wishes of the deceased fulfilled to the last hateful
particular, for the longer the administrator or receiver is in place,
the longer flows the soothing stream of fees.

Ollie had passed out of the brief