Clark's Field Part 34

It was a daring move, and as he spoke the judge looked keenly into the young man's face.

"Did she?" Tom Clark inquired unconcernedly. "I know she's always on the square--there aren't many like her!"

"You may not know that if she should carry out her intention, she would strip herself of almost every dollar she possesses."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Her husband, I understand, conducted her affairs so badly that very nearly if not quite half the great fortune she received five years ago from her guardians has wasted away. I don't know what ultimately may be recovered from these California investments, but judging from what Mrs.

Clark tells me I should say almost nothing. So that there can be left of the original estate only a little over two millions of dollars."

"Well, that's enough for any woman to worry along on," the mason grinned lightly.

"But not enough for her to pay out of it two and a half millions, which would have been the share of your grandfather's heirs."

"h.e.l.l! She ain't thinkin' of doin' that!"

"She certainly was. She would have made the proposal to you already, if I had not asked her to wait until I could advise with her again."

The young man's blue eyes opened wide in astonishment.

"What good would that do her?"

"It would give all of you California Clarks your slice of Clark's Field--how many of you are there?"

"I dunno exactly--maybe twenty or twenty-five--I haven't kep' count."

"Say there are twenty-five heirs of old Edward S. living. Each of them would have a hundred thousand dollars apiece roughly. That sum of money is not to be despised even to-day."

"You bet it ain't," murmured the mason feelingly. His face settled into a scowl; and leaning forward he demanded,--"What are you drivin' at anyway, Judge?"

The judge did not answer.

"You ain't goin' to let that woman hand over all her money to a lot of little no-'count people she's never laid eyes on, just because they are called 'Clark' instead of 'Smith' or some other name?"

"You happen to be one of them," the judge observed with a laugh.

"I know that,--and I guess I'm a pretty fair sample of the whole bunch,--but I ain't takin' charity from any woman!"

The judge settled back into his chair, a satisfied little smile on his lips. The mason's reaction was better than he had dared expect.

"It ought not to be called charity, exactly," he mused.

"What is it, then? It ain't law!"

"No, it wouldn't be legal either," the judge admitted. "But there are things that are neither legal nor charitable. There are," he suggested, "justice and wisdom and mercy!"

The mason could not follow such abstract thought. He looked blankly at the judge. His mind had done its best when it had rejected without hesitation the gift of Adelle's fortune because he happened to be a grandson of Edward S. Clark.

"Tell me," said the judge after a time, as if his mind had wandered to other considerations, "about these California Clarks--what do you know of them?"

The mason related for the judge's edification the sc.r.a.ps of family history and biography that he could recollect. Adelle, who had come into the room, listened to his story. Tom Clark might be limited in knowledge of his family as he was in education, but he was certainly literal and picturesque. He spared neither himself nor his brothers and sisters, nor his remoter cousins. The one whose career seemed to interest him most was that Stan Clark, the politician, who now represented Fresno County in the State Legislature. There was a curious mixture of pride and contempt in his feeling for this cousin, who had risen above the dead level of local obscurity.

"He thinks almighty well of himself," he concluded his portrait; "but there ain't a rottener peanut politician in the State of California, and that's sayin' some. He got into the legislater by stringin' labor, and now, of course, the S. P. owns him hide and clothes and toothpick. I hear he's bought a block of stores in Fresno and is puttin' the dough away thick. He don't need no Clark's Field! He's got the whole people of California for his pickings."

The judge turned to Adelle laughingly.

"Your cousin doesn't seem to see any good reason why the California Clarks should be chosen for Fortune's favor."

"Ain't one of 'em," the young man a.s.serted emphatically, "so far as I know, would know what to do with a hundred dollars, would be any better off after a couple of years if he had it. That's gospel truth--and I ain't exceptin' myself!" he added after a moment of sober reflection.

Adelle made no comment. She did not seem to be thinking along the same line as the judge and the young mason. Since the yesterday her conception of her problem had changed and grown. Adelle was living fast these days, not in the sense in which she and Archie had lived fast according to their kind, but psychologically and spiritually she was living fast. Her state of yesterday had already given place to another broader, loftier one: she was fast escaping from the purely personal out into the freedom of the impersonal.

"Allowing for Mr. Clark's natural vivacity of statement," the judge observed with an appreciative chuckle, "these California relatives of yours, so far as I can see, are pretty much like everybody else in the world, struggling along the best they can with the limitations of environment and character which they have inherited.... And I am rather inclined to agree with Mr. Clark that it might be unwise to give them, most of them, any special privilege which they hadn't earned for themselves over their neighbors."

"What right have they got to it anyway?" the mason demanded.

"Oh, when you go into rights, Mr. Clark," the judge retorted, "the whole thing is a hopeless muddle. None of us in a very real sense has any rights--extremely few rights, at any rate."

"Well, then, they've no good reason for havin' the money."

"I agree with you. There is no good reason why these twenty-five Clarks, more or less, should arbitrarily be selected for the favors of Clark's Field. And yet they might prove to be as good material to work upon as any other twenty-five taken at random."

Adelle looked up expectantly to the judge. She understood that his mind was thinking forward to wider reaches than his words indicated.

"But you would want to know much more about them than you do now, to study each case carefully in all its bearings, and then doubtless you would make your mistakes, with the best of judgment!"

"I don't see what you mean," the mason said.

"Nor I," said Adelle.

"Let us have some lunch first," the judge replied. "We have done a good deal this morning and need food. Perhaps later we shall all arrive at a complete understanding."

At the close of their luncheon the judge remarked to Adelle,--

"Your cousin and I, Mrs. Clark, have talked over your idea of giving to him and his relatives what the law will not compel you to distribute of Clark's Field. He doesn't seem to think well of the idea."

"It's foolish," the mason growled.

Adelle looked at him swiftly, with a little smile that was sad.

"I was afraid he would say that, Judge," she said softly.

"You know any man would!... I ain't never begged from a woman yet."

"The woman, it seems to me, has nothing to do with the question," the judge put in.

"And it isn't begging," Adelle protested. "It's really yours, a part of it, as much as mine,--more, perhaps."