got a notion
of how to put it together again; an' in the next place she ain't fit to go
liftin' an' haulin' things about the way she does. She's gettin' to be an
old woman. Ain't she most eighty?"

"She's not far from it," answered Lucy.

"Well, if I was her age an' had her money, you wouldn't see me workin' as
if a slave driver was standin' over me," the Portuguese lad declared.
"What good is it doin' her bein' rich, I'd like to know."

"Oh, I don't think she is rich," said Lucy quickly.

"Folks say she is; that's all I know 'bout it," replied Tony. "Elias
Barnes was calculatin' one day down to the store that she must be worth
thousands. I can believe it, too," added the boy significantly.
"Everything we've got on the farm is tied up with string, or hitched
together with a scrap of wire. Your aunt ain't fur gettin' a thing mended
long's it can be made to hold together. 'Bout everything on the farm wants
overhaulin'. I'd give a fortune to see a smart man come in here an' set
the place to rights. There's a lot of truck in the barn oughter be heaved
out an' burned. 'Tain't fit for nothin'. But Miss Webster would no more
hear to partin' with one stick nor stone she owned than she'd cut off her
head. She'd keep everything that belonged to her if it was dropping to
bits."

The boy paused.

"Well, there's one good thing," he added, smiling, "she can't take the
stuff she's hoarded with her into the next world, an' when it falls to you
you can do as you like with it."

"Falls to me?"

"Why, yes. 'Course all your aunt's property'll be yours some day."

"What makes you think so?" Lucy asked, a suggestion of reserve in her
tone.

"Who else is there to have it?" inquired Tony, opening his eyes very wide.
"Ain't she already left it to you in her will?"

"I don't know."

"You don't!"

Lucy laughed at his incredulousness.

"No."

"Well, they say down to the town that your aunt made her will 'bout three
weeks ago. Even Lawyer Benton himself admitted that much. Folks saw Miss
Webster goin' into his office an' questioned him. He warn't for tellin'
anything 'til they nagged at him; then he did own that the farm an'
everything else was left to _relatives_. Elias Barnes an' some of the
others were mighty quick to hunt up who the Webster relatives were. They
were pretty sure you were the only one, an' it 'pears you are. So it's
you will get the place an' the money, an' goodness knows, Miss Lucy,
you've earnt it. The men