The Brimming Cup

"I've never been able to make anything out of music, myself," confessed

Mr. Welles. "Perhaps you can convert me. I almost believe so."

"'Gene Powers sings!" cried Marise spiritedly. "And if he does . . ."

"Any relation to the lively old lady who brings our milk?"

"Her son. Haven't you seen him yet? A powerfully built granite rock of a

man. Silent as a granite rock too, as far as small talk goes. But he

turns out to have a bass voice that is my joy. It's done something for

him, too, I think, really and truly, without sentimental exaggeration at

all. He suffered a great injustice some six or seven years ago, that

turned him black and bitter, and it's only since he has been singing in

our winter choir that he has been willing to mix again with anyone."

She paused for a moment, and eyed them calculatingly. It occurred to her

that she had been talking about music and herself quite enough. She

would change the subject to something matter-of-fact. "See here, you'll

be sure to have to hear all that story from Mr. Bayweather in relentless

detail. It might be your salvation to be able to say that I had told

you, without mentioning that it was in a severely abridged form. He'd

want to start back in the eighteenth century, and tell you all about

that discreditable and unreconstructed Tory ancestor of mine who, when

he was exiled from Ashley, is said to have carried off part of the town

documents with him to Canada. Whether he did or not (Mr. Bayweather has

a theory, I believe, that he buried them in a copper kettle on Peg-Top

Hill), the fact remains that an important part of the records of Ashley

are missing and that has made a lot of trouble with titles to land

around here. Several times, unscrupulous land-grabbers have taken

advantage of the vagueness of the titles to cheat farmers out of their

inheritance. The Powers case is typical. There always have been Powerses

living right there, where they do now; that big pine that towers up so

over their house was planted by 'Gene's great-grandfather. And they

always owned an immense tract of wild mountain land, up beyond the Eagle

Rock range, along the side of the Red-Brook marsh. But after paying

taxes on it for generations all during the time when it was too far away

to make it profitable to lumber, it was snatched away from them, seven

years ago, just as modern methods and higher prices for spruce would

have made it very valuable. A lawyer from New Hampshire named Lowder

turned the trick. I won't bother you going into the legal details--a

question of a fake warranty deed, against 'Gene's quit-claim deed, which

was all he had in absence of those missing pages from the town records.

As a matter of fact, the lawyer hasn't dared to cut the lumber off it

yet, because his claim is pretty flimsy; but flimsy or not, the law

regards it as slightly better than 'Gene's. The result is that 'Gene

can't sell it and daren't cut it for fear of being involved in a

law-suit that he couldn't possibly pay for. So the Powers are poor

farmers, scratching a difficult living out of sterile soil, instead of

being well-to-do proprietors of a profitable estate of wood-land. And

when we see how very hard they all have to work, and how soured and

gloomy it has made 'Gene, and how many pleasures the Powers' children

are denied, we all join in when Mrs. Powers delivers herself of her

white-hot opinion of New Hampshire lawyers! I remember perfectly that

Mr. Lowder,--one of the smooth-shaven, thin-lipped, fish-mouthed

variety, with a pugnacious jaw and an intimidating habit of talking his

New Hampshire dialect out of the corner of his mouth. The poor Powers

were as helpless as rabbits before him."