Mary Erskine Part 13

Which will be at least three hundred dollars in twelve years."

"Very well," said Mrs. Bell, "that makes nineteen hundred."

"Then," continued Mary Erskine, "I thought that at the end of the twelve years I should be able to sell this house and the land around it for a hundred dollars, especially if I take good care of the buildings in the mean while."

"And that makes your two thousand dollars," said Mrs. Bell.

"Yes," replied Mary Erskine.

"But suppose you are sick."

"Oh, if I am sick, or if I die," rejoined Mary Erskine, "of course that breaks up all my plans. I know I can't plan against calamities."

"Well," said Mrs. Bell, rising from her seat with a smile of satisfaction upon her countenance, "I can't advise you. But if ever I get into any serious trouble, I shall come to you to advise me."

So bidding Mary Erskine good-bye, Mrs. Bell called her daughter, and they went together toward their home.

CHAPTER IX.

GOOD MANAGEMENT.

Whenever any person dies, leaving property to be divided among his heirs, and not leaving any valid will to determine the mode of division, the property as has already been said, must be divided on certain principles, established by the law of the land, and under the direction of the Judge of Probate, who has jurisdiction over the county in which the property is situated. The Judge of Probate appoints a person to take charge of the property and divide it among the heirs. This person is called the administrator, or, if a woman, the administratrix. The Judge gives the administrator or the administratrix a paper, which authorises him or her to take charge of the property, which paper is called, "Letters of Administration."

The letters of administration are usually granted to the wife of the deceased, or to his oldest son, or, if there is no wife or son, to the nearest heir who is of proper age and discretion to manage the trust.

The person who receives administration is obliged to take a solemn oath before the Judge of Probate, that he will report to the Judge a full account of all the property that belonged to the deceased which shall come to his knowledge. The Judge also appoints three persons to go and examine the property, and make an inventory of it, and appraise every article, so as to know as nearly as possible, how much and what property there is. These persons are called appraisers. The inventory which they make out is lodged in the office of the Judge of Probate, where any person who has an interest in the estate can see it at any time. The administrator usually keeps a copy of the inventory besides.

If among the property left by a person deceased, which is to go in part to children, there are any houses and lands,--a kind of property which is called in law _real estate_, to distinguish it from moveable property, which is called _personal estate_,--such real estate cannot be sold, in ordinary cases, by the administrator, without leave from the Judge of Probate. This leave the Judge of Probate will give in cases where it is clearly best for the children that the property should be so sold and the _avails of it_ kept for them, rather than the property itself. All these things Mrs. Bell explained to Mary Erskine, having learned about them herself some years before when her own husband died.

Accordingly, a few weeks after Albert died, Mary Erskine went one day in a wagon, taking the baby with her, and Thomas to drive, to the county town, where the Probate court was held.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOING TO COURT.]

At the Probate court, Mary Erskine made all the arrangements necessary in respect to the estate. She had to go twice, in fact, before all these arrangements were completed. She expected to have a great deal of trouble and embarra.s.sment in doing this business, but she did not find that there was any trouble at all. The Judge of Probate told her exactly what to do. She was required to sign her name once or twice to papers. This she did with great trepidation, and after writing her name, on the first occasion which occurred requiring her signature, she apologized for not being able to write any better. The Judge of Probate said that very few of the papers that he received were signed so well.

Mary Erskine was appointed administratrix, and the Judge gave her a paper which he said was her "Letters of Administration." What the Judge gave to her seemed to be only one paper, but she thought it probable, as the Judge said "Letters" that there was another inside.

When she got home, however, and opened the paper she found that there was only one. She could not read it herself, her studies having yet extended no farther than to the writing of her name. The first time, however, that Mary Bell came to see her, after she received this doc.u.ment, she asked Mary Bell to read it to her. Mary Bell did so, but after she had got through, Mary Erskine said that she could not understand one word of it from beginning to end. Mary Bell said that that was not strange, for she believed that lawyers' papers were only meant for lawyers to understand.

The appraisers came about this time to make an inventory of the property. They went all over the house and barns, and took a complete account of every thing that they found. They made a list of all the oxen, sheep, cows, horses, and other animals, putting down opposite to each one, their estimate of its value. They did the same with the vehicles, and farming implements, and utensils, and also with all the household furniture, and the provisions and stores. When they had completed the apprais.e.m.e.nt they added up the amount, and found that the total was a little over four hundred dollars, Mary Erskine was very much surprised to find that there was so much.

The appraisers then told Mary Erskine that half of that property was hers, and the other half belonged to the children; and that as much of their half as was necessary for their support could be used for that purpose, and the rest must be paid over to them when they became of age. They said also that she or some one else must be appointed their guardian, to take care of their part of the property; and that the guardian could either keep the property as it was, or sell it and keep the money as she thought would be most for the interest of the children; and that she had the same power in respect to her own share.

Mary Erskine said that she thought it would be best for her to sell the stock and farming tools, because she could not take care of them nor use them, and she might put the money out at interest. The appraisers said they thought so too.

In the end, Mary Erskine was appointed guardian. The idea appeared strange to her at first of being _appointed_ guardian to her own children, as it seemed to her that a mother naturally and necessarily held that relation to her offspring. But the meaning of the law, in making a mother the guardian of her children by appointment in such a case as this, is simply to authorize her to take care of _property_ left to them, or descending to them. It is obvious that cases must frequently occur in which a mother, though the natural guardian of her children so far as the personal care of them is concerned, would not be properly qualified to take charge of any considerable amount of property coming to them. When the mother is qualified to take this charge, she can be duly authorized to do it; and this is the appointment to the guardianship--meaning the guardianship of the property to which the appointment refers.

Mary Erskine was accordingly appointed guardian of the children, and she obtained leave to sell the farm. She decided that it would be best to sell it as she thought, after making diligent enquiry, that she could not depend on receiving any considerable annual rent for it, if she were to attempt to let it. She accordingly sold the farm, with the new house, and all the stock,--excepting that she reserved from the farm ten acres of land around her own house, and one cow, one horse, two pigs, and all the poultry. She also reserved all the household furniture. These things she took as a part of her portion. The purchase money for all the rest amounted to nine hundred and fifty dollars. This sum was considerably more than Mary Erskine had expected to receive.

The question now was what should be done with this money. There are various modes which are adopted for investing such sums so as to get an annual income from them. The money may be lent to some person who will take it and pay interest for it. A house may be bought and let to some one who wishes to hire it; or shares in a rail-road, or a bank, or a bridge, may be taken. Such kinds of property as those are managed by directors, who take care of all the profits that are made, and twice a year divide the money among the persons that own the shares.

Mary Erskine had a great deal of time for enquiry and reflection in respect to the proper mode of investing her money, for the man who purchased the farm and the stock was not to pay the money immediately.

The price agreed upon for the farm, including of course the new house, was five hundred dollars. The stock, farming utensils, &c, which he took with it, came to three hundred and sixty dollars. The purchaser was to pay, of this money, four hundred dollars in three months, and the balance in six months. Mary Erskine, therefore, had to make provision for investing the four hundred dollars first.

She determined, after a great deal of consideration and inquiry, to lay out this money in buying four shares in the Franconia bridge.

These shares were originally one hundred dollars each, but the bridge had become so profitable on account of the number of persons that pa.s.sed it, and the amount of money which was consequently collected for tolls, that the shares would sell for a hundred and ten dollars each. This ten dollars advance over the original price of the shares, is called _premium_. Upon the four shares which Mary Erskine was going to buy, the premium would be of course forty dollars. This money Mary Erskine concluded to borrow. Mr. Keep said that he would very gladly lend it to her. Her plan was to pay the borrowed money back out of the dividends which she would receive from her bridge shares. The dividend was usually five per centum, or, as they commonly called it, _five per cent._, that is, five dollars on every share of a hundred dollars every six months.[A] The dividend on the four shares would, of course, be twenty dollars, so that it would take two dividends to pay off the forty dollar debt to Mr. Keep, besides a little interest. When this was done, Mary Erskine would have property in the bridge worth four hundred and forty dollars, without having used any more than four hundred dollars of her farm money, and she would continue to have forty dollars a year from it, as long as she kept it in her possession.

[Footnote A: _Per_ is a Latin word meaning _for_, and _centum_ another meaning _a hundred_.]

When the rest of the money for the farm was paid, Mary Erskine resolved on purchasing a certain small, but very pleasant house with it. This house was in the village, and she found on inquiry, that it could be let to a family for fifty dollars a year. It is true that a part of this fifty dollars would have to be expended every year in making repairs upon the house, so as to keep it in good order; such as painting it from time to time, and renewing the roof when the shingles began to decay, and other similar things. But, then, Mary Erskine found, on making a careful examination, that after expending as much of the money which she should receive for the rent of her house, as should be necessary for the repairs, she should still have rather more than she would receive from the money to be invested, if it was put out at interest by lending it to some person who wanted to borrow it.

So she decided to buy the house in preference to adopting any other plan.

It happened that the house which Mary Erskine thus determined to buy, was the very one that Mr. Gordon lived in. The owner of the house wished to sell it, and offered it first to Mr. Gordon; but he said that he was not able to buy it. He had been doing very well in his business, but his expenses were so great, he said, that he had not any ready money at command. He was very sorry, he added, that the owner wished to sell the house, for whoever should buy it, would want to come and live in it, he supposed, and he should be obliged to move away. The owner said that he was sorry, but that he could not help it.

A few days after this, Mr. Gordon came home one evening, and told Anne Sophia, with a countenance expressive of great surprise and some little vexation, that her old friend, Mrs. Forester, had bought their house, and was going to move into it. Anne Sophia was amazed at this intelligence, and both she and her husband were thrown into a state of great perplexity and trouble. The next morning Anne Sophia went out to see Mary Erskine about it. Mary Erskine received her in a very kind and cordial manner.

"I am very glad to see you," said Mary Erskine. "I was coming to your house myself in a day or two, about some business, if you had not come here."

"Yes," said Anne Sophia. "I understand that you have been buying our house away from over our heads, and are going to turn us out of house and home."

"Oh, no," said Mary Erskine, smiling, "not at all. In the first place, I have not really bought the house yet, but am only talking about it; and in the second place, if I buy it, I shall not want it myself, but shall wish to have you live in it just as you have done."

"You will not want it yourself!" exclaimed Anne Sophia, astonished.

"No," said Mary Erskine, "I am only going to buy it as an investment."

There were so many things to be astonished at in this statement, that Anne Sophia hardly knew where to begin with her wonder. First, she was surprised to learn that Mary Erskine had so much money. When she heard that she had bought the house, she supposed of course that she had bought it on credit, for the sake of having a house in the village to live in. Then she was amazed at the idea of any person continuing to live in a log house in the woods, when she had a pretty house of her own in the middle of the village. She could not for some time be satisfied that Mary Erskine was in earnest in what she said. But when she found that it was really so, she went away greatly relieved. Mary Erskine told her that she had postponed giving her final answer about buying the house, in order first to see Mr. Gordon, to know whether he had any objection to the change of ownership. She knew, of course, that Mr. Gordon would have no right to object, but she rightly supposed that he would be gratified at having her ask him the question.

Mary Erskine went on after this for two or three years very prosperously in all her affairs. Thomas continued to live with her, in her log-house, and to cultivate the land which she had retained. In the fall and winter, when there was nothing to be done in the fields or garden, he was accustomed to work in the shop, making improvements for the house, such as finishing off the stoop into another room, to be used for a kitchen, making new windows to the house, and a regular front door, and in preparing fences and gates to be put up around the house. He made an aqueduct, too, to conduct the water from a new spring which he discovered at a place higher than the house, and so brought a constant stream of water into the kitchen which he had made in the stoop. The stumps, too, in the fields around the house, gradually decayed, so that Thomas could root them out and smooth over the ground where they had stood. Mary Erskine's ten acres thus became very smooth and beautiful. It was divided by fences into very pleasant fields, with green lanes shaded by trees, leading from one place to another. The brook flowed through this land along a very beautiful valley, and there were groves and thickets here and there, both along the margin of the brook, and in the corners of the fields, which gave to the grounds a very sheltered, as well as a very picturesque expression. Mary Erskine also caused trees and shrubbery to be planted near the house, and trained honey-suckles and wild roses upon a trellis over the front door. All these improvements were made in a very plain and simple manner, and at very little expense, and yet there was so much taste exercised in the arrangement of them all, that the effect was very agreeable in the end. The house and all about it formed, in time, an enchanting picture of rural beauty.[A]

[Footnote A: See Frontispiece.]

It was, however, only a few occasional hours of recreation that Mary Erskine devoted to ornamenting her dwelling. The main portion of her time and attention was devoted to such industrial pursuits as were most available in bringing in the means of support for herself and her children, so as to leave untouched the income from her house and her bridge shares. This income, as fast as it was paid in, she deposited with Mr. Keep, to be lent out on interest, until a sufficient sum was thus acc.u.mulated to make a new investment of a permanent character.

When the sum at length amounted to two hundred and twenty dollars, she bought two more bridge shares with it, and from that time forward she received dividends on six shares instead of four; that is, she received thirty dollars every six months, instead of twenty, as before.

One reason why Mary Erskine invested her money in a house and in a bridge, instead of lending it out at interest, was that by so doing, her property was before her in a visible form, and she could take a constant pleasure in seeing it. Whenever she went to the village she enjoyed seeing her house, which she kept in a complete state of repair, and which she had ornamented with shrubbery and trees, so that it was a very agreeable object to look upon of itself, independently of the pleasure of ownership. In the same manner she liked to see the bridge, and think when teams and people were pa.s.sing over it, that a part of all the toll which they paid, would, in the end, come to her.

She thus took the same kind of pleasure in having purchased a house, and shares in a bridge, that any lady in a city would take in an expensive new carpet, or a rosewood piano, which would cost about the same sum; and then she had all the profit, in the shape of the annual income, besides.

There was one great advantage too which Mary Erskine derived from owning this property, which, though she did not think of it at all when she commenced her prudent and economical course, at the time of her marriage, proved in the end to be of inestimable value to her.

This advantage was the high degree of respectability which it gave her in the public estimation. The people of the village gradually found out how she managed, and how fast her property was increasing, and they entertained for her a great deal of that kind of respect which worldly prosperity always commands. The store-keepers were anxious to have her custom. Those who had money to lend were always very ready to let her have it, if at any time she wished to make up a sum for a new investment: and all the ladies of the village were willing that their daughters should go out to her little farm to visit Bella, and to have Bella visit them in return. Thus Mary Erskine found that she was becoming quite an important personage.

Her plan of teaching herself and her children succeeded perfectly. By the time that she had thoroughly learned to write her own name, she knew half of the letters of the alphabet, for her name contained nearly that number. She next learned to write her children's names, Bella Forester and Albert Forester. After that, she learned to write the names of all the months, and to read them when she had written them. She chose the names of the months, next after the names of her own family, so that she might be able to date her letters if she should ever have occasion to write any.

Mary Bell set copies for her, when she came out to see her, and Mary Erskine went on so much faster than Bella, that she could teach her very well. She required Bella to spend an hour at her studies every day. Thomas made a little desk for her, and her mother bought her a slate and a pencil, and in process of time an arithmetic, and other books. As soon as Mary Erskine could read fluently, Mary Bell used to bring out books to her, containing entertaining stories. At first Mary Bell would read these stories to her once, while she was at her work, and then Mary Erskine, having heard Mary Bell read them, could read them herself in the evening without much difficulty. At length she made such progress that she could read the stories herself alone, the first time, with very little trouble.

Thus things went on in a very pleasant and prosperous manner, and this was the condition of Mary Erskine and of her affairs, at the time when Malleville and Phonny went to pay her their visit, as described in the first chapter of this volume.