[Pg 32] [Pg 32] “It doesn’t matter. Only, if grandaunt—” But I didn’t finish the uncharitable sentence. “And, oh, Dick, if it comes true, you can go on and graduate—you won’t have to go to work.” “But I want to go to work,” said Dick, and his face was quite gloomy, as we turned in at the gate together. [Pg 33] [Pg 33] Chapter III The Problem The Problem It was only an hour’s run to the little station of Fanwood, which is as near as one can get to Plumfield by rail; and there Mr. Chester had a carriage waiting for us, and we drove over to the little village a mile away, where Grandaunt Nelson had lived nearly all her life. The road was a pleasant one, winding between well-kept hedges, and just rolling enough to give one occasional views of the country round about. In the distance, to the west, we could see a range of hills, and Mr. Chester told us that from their summit, on a clear day, one could see the ocean, forty or fifty miles away to the eastward. It Plumfield struck me as a very fragmentary and straggling sort of village—so straggling, in fact, that it was scarcely recognizable as a village at all, and seemed to have no beginning and no end. There were two or three little stores, a church and a few houses— “Though,” Mr. Chester explained, “the village isn’t so small as it looks. It is spread out a good deal, and you can’t see it all at one glance.” We had lunch at the old inn, which had been [Pg 34]built before the Revolution, so they said, and where our arrival created quite a commotion. Mr. Chester had hurried away to make the arrangements for opening the will, and came back in about an hour to tell us that everything was ready. We walked down the street and around the corner to a tiny frame building, with “Notary Public” on a swinging sign over the door, and Mr. Chester ushered us into the stuffy little office. [Pg 34] The notary was already there, a little, wrinkled man, with very white hair and beard which stood out in a halo all around
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