Yes, Waitstill, as a product of his
masterly training for the last seven years, had settled down,
not without some trouble and friction, into a tolerably
dependable pack-horse, and he intended in the future to use some
care in making permanent so valuable an aid and ally. She did not
pursue nor attract the opposite sex, as his younger daughter
apparently did; so by continuing his policy of keeping all young
men rigidly at a distance he could count confidently on having',
Waitstill serve his purposes for the next fifteen or twenty
years, or as long as he, himself, should continue to ornament and
enrich the earth. He would go to Saco the very next day, and cut
Patty out of his will, arranging his property so that Waitstill
should be the chief legatee as long as she continued to live
obediently under his roof. He intended to make the last point
clear if he had to consult every lawyer in York County; for he
wouldn't take risks on any woman alive.
If he must leave his money anywhere--and it was with a bitter
pang that he faced the inexorable conviction that he could
neither live forever, nor take his savings with him to the realms
of bliss prepared for members of the Orthodox Church in good and
regular standing--if he must leave his money behind him, he would
dig a hole in the ground and bury it, rather than let it go to
any one who had angered him in his lifetime.
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