Something has happened here.  The stage driver who silenced the rowdies last night is stricken this morning at the tavern.  He is dead.  By noon he is buried in the village cemetery where the ashes of my father lie.

Mrs. Spurgeon thinks that Reverdy should leave the tavern and come here with the rest of us.  I am to take the word to him when I go to see Mr. Brooks.  She has seen the ravages of cholera before.  There is nothing to do but to be careful about diet, keep cheerful, and surrender to no fears.  I am not in the least alarmed.  But the negroes are panic stricken.  They are calling upon the Lamb to save them.  They are singing and wailing.  They are congregating at the hut of Aunt Leah, an aged negress, who is sanctified and gifted with supernatural power.  Zoe is not in fear, and Sarah goes about the duties of the day with calm unconcern.

I am off to see Mr. Brooks again.  The streets are almost deserted.  The faces of those I meet are white and drawn.  Mr. Brooks acts as if his mind is stretched out of him in apprehension.  Yet he is in his office ready to pick up what business may come his way; and he is waiting to see me.

I tell Mr. Brooks at once that I want to divide the property equally with Zoe.  He thinks, evidently, that I have weakened before the mere prospect of a contest; and he assures me that the estate can be settled as my father intended.  Well, but can this plan of mine be carried out?  As easily as the other, he says, and of course more bindingly if there can be a difference.  For he had intended to have the court decree a sale of the property and divide the money under the sanction of the court.  But according to my plan Zoe could get no more; and therefore no one could object to it.

I am curious about my father.  What is the danger of a contest, even if Zoe could be brought to make one?  Mr. Brooks tells me that my father was drinking heavily toward the last; that he looked aged and worn.  His hair had turned white, though he was only forty.  He acted like a man who had a corroding sorrow in his heart.  When he took the cold it developed rapidly into lung fever.  He was dead in three days.  His will was made just as he took to his bed at the tavern.  There were stray scamps about Jacksonville who would swear to anything.  And though Zoe was a colored girl, and notwithstanding the character of such witnesses in her behalf, a case so composed might be troublesome.  Then there was the treasure at stake; and the hunger of lawyers and maintainers.  Well, I had settled it.  None of these wolves should have a chance.  Mr. Brooks scrutinized my face with large, pensive eyes.  After a silence he said:  “You are the boss; but I want you to know that the will can stand.  I will guarantee to win the case if there is one.”  “Can we see the farm?” I asked.  “And my father’s grave?” Mr. Brooks brought up his buggy and we were off.

But first I wished to find Reverdy and give him Mrs. Spurgeon’s message.  He had gone out to his little farm.  He was raising a crop, having returned from the war just in time to get it planted.  It was only a little out of our way, and we could stop there on our return.